Adam Brand demonstrated the character traits evident in the handwriting of murderers, royalty and other historical figures at our February monthly meeting, writes Phyllis Hughes
Graphologist Adam Brand (photo by Phyllis Hughes)
The hidden secrets of your personality that an expert can detect from your handwriting were revealed by graphologist Adam Brand at our February meeting.
Mr Brand explained that handwriting had fascinated many cultures down the ages from the Romans to the ancient Chinese, who all believed that they could tell more from a written example than just what the words said.
Today graphology is an accepted skill throughout the world, including in China, India, North and South America and Israel. In Britain handwriting experts are often used by the police to see whether something is a forgery, and Mr Brand said that there were many examples of graphology being used to establish personality traits.
“Handwriting is frozen body language,” he said. “Even if you try and disguise your writing certain things will remain, such as the space you leave between words and how close the lines are.
“Even lay people can detect some obvious things. If the writing is leaning to the right people will correctly assume that the person is more go-ahead and positive.”
Mr Brand showed an example of the writing of Dr Harold Shipman, who murdered many of his patients. The words started off slanting to the right and then switched to slanting to the left.
“This shows a graphologist that the person is subject to sudden changes of emotion. It has been seen in the writing of other murderers,” he said.
He explained that graphologists looked at four areas: the speed at which someone wrote, the form of the letters, how the lines were laid out and how the strokes were formed.
It was also important, he said, whether the words sat neatly on the line and how much space there was between words.
Mr Brand has used graphology to help companies with recruitment. He said that writing could also show if someone had a health problem and whether they were compatible with their partner.
Finally he gave examples of how experts had got it wrong in the famous Dreyfus case in France and that of the Lindberg baby kidnapping in the USA.
“My advice is that you should never trust an expert,” he said.