Metaphysics & Mysticism

The mystery of my grandfather

According to the 4th Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

Metaphysics is “1. The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.”

When my grandmother filled out missing person’s paperwork after WWII ended, she listed her husband’s occupation as “research worker in metaphysics.”

My mother and uncle never told me or my cousins about their father’s occupation. We stumbled on a photo when we were adults that showed our grandfather doing mysterious things. The photo was quickly swept away and barely spoken of. That was when we learned that our grandfather had been a palm reader in Vienna in the 1930s. We, his grandchildren, were curious and intrigued by the idea, but our parents were less enthusiastic. Thinking about it over the years, I realized that it was probably far less wonderful for two teenage children to have their father - already seen as a strange foreigner in Vienna - be involved in an odd occupation that was not respected or valued. He (and they) didn’t fit into the Jewish community or anywhere else in a society that loved its rules and didn’t reward free thinking individualists.

Finding a connection - Vitali and me

As I began this project, I realized that I had huge amounts of information about my grandmother, much of it in her own words. However, I had very little about my grandfather. I know very little about his family in Istanbul other than the first names of a few of his siblings and their children.

After sifting through my uncle’s treasure trove, I discovered amazing items related to my grandfather’s occupation in Vienna: photos, business cards, newspaper articles all paint a vivid picture of a charming, unusual man whom people from all walks of life consulted about their problems, health issues, and careers. Apparently he was very good at what he did!

Since I had nothing else to go on, I decided to make a connection to my grandfather the only way I could think of - visit a palm reader so that I could have the experience he had given to others. My biggest roadblock was trying to figure out how to find a “reputable” palm reader. Do I go to Yelp? No one I knew had ever visited a palm reader nearby so I was at a bit of a loss. Then one day I happened to be looking through my grandmother’s papers and came across a newspaper article she had kept from the 1940s. I assume she kept it hoping to show Vitali when he arrived that other people made a living doing what he did. It’s also possible that they knew the man in the picture - as I delve more deeply into the papers, I realize that many of the things I thought my grandmother kept because they were interesting turn out to have a far closer connection to her than I first thought. Perhaps they knew this man when he was in Vienna.

The newspaper headline described the man pictured as a “hand analyst” - a term I’d never heard before. I googled it and the first thing to come up was the International Institute of Hand Analysis, whose founder Richard Unger lives and works in Sausalito, very near where I live. I contacted Richard and arranged for a session. I did this because I was curious to see what my grandfather did. I came away so intrigued by the experience that I have spent the past few years studying with Richard to learn to be a hand analyst and recently completed certification training. All because my grandmother kept a newspaper article. I’m fairly certain that had I found a different palmist/hand analyst, I would have had fun for an hour and felt like I’d done my “homework” to feel a greater connection to my grandfather. Instead, I found a new avocation and as I reread the papers related to my grandfather’s work, I do indeed feel much closer to him than I ever thought could be possible. So in fact I am giving him a voice as well as my grandmother, but in a very different way!

Click on the image below for an interview with Kay Packard, the Director of the American Academy of Hand Analysis (AAHA), where I discuss my journey and the work of my grandfather.