The Real You Dept.: My ongoing file cabinet cleaning yielded another surprise today: the results of a handwriting analysis my wife ordered years ago for the pair of us. This was in response to an ad that ran in a 1986 issue of Parade magazine, that Sunday-newspaper staple (it’s in more than 700 of them) that keeps us in touch with the pop-culture issues that the AARP magazine won’t touch. Eager to discover what’s become of graphologist Carlos Pedregal, I did an internet search that yielded ... nothing! I found the ad in newspaper archives ranging from 1983 to a decade later, in such papers as the Rome (Georgia) News-Tribune and the Salina (Kansas) Journal, with the sole 1993 entry an ad in the Stony Brook, NY, Statesman, a college newspaper. And I noted that our expert went from being Dr. Pedregal to Mr. Pedregal over time. In any event, here’s the result for my scrawl (I’m too discreet to post Susan’s), and the only change I made was to convert it from all-caps and correct a couple of typos. What do you think? Did he nail me?
2023 Update: Since I wrote the above in 2015, a Pedregal Institute has appeared online, offering, as one of the comments notes below, handwriting analysis for $28. I'm going to guess that the popularity of my blog post inspired someone to cash in on what is, after all, nothing more than county fair-style fortune telling.
HERE IS THE RESULT of your analysis, which is confidential, of course. The following paragraphs describe the dominant characteristics of your personality as reflected by your handwriting.Wish to surpass
Your handwriting clearly indicates that you are a person who has something to say, a person who needs to make a mark on life. This anxiety, this need to manifest your ideas, feelings and personal philosophy, will certainly not help you to be peacefully happy, but it will at least give you the inner satisfaction of being true to yourself.
More important than overcoming difficulties is the struggle and the need to surpass oneself, never giving up when one defends an idea or a firm belief.
Sensitive
Your handwriting shows that you are very impressionable. Your sensitivity leads you to attach greater importance to certain situations than they actually deserve.
Try to maintain a sense of perspective in order to have a more balanced response to the events in your life.
Cultured
You are a cultured person. Your company is appreciated because your words, ideas and points of view, uncommon but often correct, bring something to those with whom you converse.
In fact, if you have time, you should devote yourself to an intellectual field that has been little studied.
Do not ignore this important feature of your personality.
Intuitive-rational intelligence
Your intelligence is intuitive-rational. You reason out things, problems and situations, but your decisions are not purely cerebral.
Intuition plays an important role in your analyses and reasonings and often this is what determines your decision in the end.
Family conditioning
Your handwriting shows signs of “family conditioning.” It is not easy to get to the bottom of your problem in a graphological study, but quite evidently the problem exists and springs from important childhood events.
The concept of family appears quite clearly in your handwriting, but it can stand for pride, overinvolvement or deprivation. We do not know for sure what this sign really means, but let it put you on your guard.
Analyze this feature for yourself and try to overcome it. Do not confuse love for the family with emotional dependence.
Abstract love
The mind plays a major role in your understanding of love. You keep other aspects of love very much in the background.
You create the impression that you are still maturing emotionally.
The process of change you are undergoing can be very interesting for you. It will help you to be more realistic about people and to develop a more well-rounded concept of love.
While your spiritual values are not to be abandoned, you should complement them with other values so you can become a more complete person.
Altruism
Your complete regard and consideration of others before yourself can involve you in difficult situations. You realize it, but still continue to display your generosity. Your persevering unselfishness is admirable in our egoistic times.
We cannot advise you to change your ways, even though many of your actions will not bring you the gratitude you deserve, so continue to act according to your convictions.
Family or social oppression
You are a potential rebel. This attitude goes back to your childhood, when a series of incidents left an indelible mark on your personality. An excessive family or social tyranny throughout your upbringing is the cause of your current behavior. You are still the victim of a certain family emotional dependence.
Try to analyze yourself in depth and to understand your own personality. It is essential that you make every possible effort to free yourself form the psychological attitudes that condition you.
Latent aggressiveness
Intense people like you are usually determined. When you come to act, you do so with enthusiasm, and you are often successful.
In addition to your intensity, you also show aggressiveness. This can be either a positive or a negative characteristic. You need to keep in mind that there is a difference between a spirit of discrimination and constant criticism.
While a sense of discrimination is an excellent complement to enthusiastic pursuit of your goals, take care not to engage in criticism for its own sake.
Timid
Your handwriting shows signs of insecurity this may lead you to react with either excessive aggressiveness or, on the contrary, lack of vitality.
This manifestation of timidity in your behavior can handicap you in life. Try to overcome this negative trait.
Work capacity
Decision, energy and a capacity for work are unmistakable characteristics of your personality.
You are an active and efficient person, capable of attaining the goals you set for yourself.
The above are the fundamental characteristics of your personality according to your handwriting. An analysis of the combination of these characteristics was carried out in order to determine the presence of specific tendencies of behavior. In your case, it revealed two particular tendencies above average in comparison to the general population:
Rebelliousness (20 percent)
Latent defensive aggressiveness (20 percent)
This means that you have more
Rebelliousness
Latent defensive aggressiveness
than the average person. The percentage between parentheses is the measure of the strength above the norm of these tendencies.
I hope you have found this analysis interesting and that it will be profitable to you.
We are all aware of how difficult it is to get to know ourselves. Before you make a definitive judgment on the results of this analysis, let your family or close friends read it. The opinion we have of ourselves frequently does not correspond to the reality. We are generally either too self-indulgent or too critical of ourselves, and very often, even clear contradictions are inherent in us.
Thanking you for your confidence, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Carlos Pedregal
If you have a friend or relative interested in having an analysis done, an extra order form is enclosed for your convenience.
You have saved me a lot of time trying to find "Dr." Pedregal online, so thank you for that. I have the 2 handwriting analyses my husband and I got from him in 1987, and I wondered if he was still around. More interesting, however, is that your analysis has many of the same paragraphs that ours have, while your handwriting sample does not look in the least like ours. Perhaps, and probably, let's face it, this was a hoax and we enjoyed falling for it.
ReplyDeleteKaren Klare
Atlanta, GA
Sir, I am writing from Rome, Italy. I have just re-read an old analysis I found among some old papers, dating back to the seventies. I was in my twenties then, and requested the analysis through a local magazine. It was signed by Carlos Pedregal, and it was extraordinarily accurate, corresponding to my personality and my inner self.... Now, curious to find out more about this Carlos Pedregal, and whether he still was around, this is all I found.... Thought I'd let you know....
ReplyDeleteBest wishes
Ah ha! I am an enthusiastic, timid, romantic, latent aggressive...among other characteristics! I recently found my analysis from Dr.Pedregal dated 1986 in my old papers. Also curious about his whereabouts, I found your blog. Thank you for the info and a good laugh! The doctor knew how to make a buck. It was fun! -
ReplyDeleteI also stumbled across my handwriting analysis report by Carlos Pedregal recently and decided to do, as others, an internet search. I was disappointed to find virtually nothing, aside from your blog post. Disappointing. I think the report was accurate then (1986) but my handwriting has changed and so have I. Would be interesting to get another analysis done now, but alas.....
ReplyDeleteRan upon my handwriting analysis done by Mr. Pedregal in 1988 so I jumped online to look him up and found your post. Reflecting back over the years, mine was fairly accurate but not at all similar to the one you posted, except for "Family Conditioning."
ReplyDeleteI too came across an analysis from 1987. I was 25 at the time and responded to an ad in Parade. I had the same paragraph as you on Family Conditioning, but he said I was a non-conformist (I love that! LOL) and had a higher than average capacity for work. Re-reading it after all these years was interesting because much of it is still as true today as it was then, but I guess it's like a horoscope--just vague enough to apply to most anyone--but fun anyway.
ReplyDeleteCarlos Pedregal analyzed my handwriting on July 8, 1983. I'd like to have it done again. Any idea if he is still around and doing this? If not, can you suggest another graphologist?
ReplyDeleteOur estimable analyst seems to have vanished, which means there's a career-in-waiting (outside of politics) for someone wishing to hoodwink the credulous.
ReplyDeleteLike the rest of you, I came across my 1989analysis today and thought of doing another. Many similar paragraphs in my report as well, though it seems to reflect a lot of my characteristics. It was fun to do.
ReplyDeleteSame story as the others............came across old papers in my desk, read the analysis from 1991, and was amazed how accurate (even more so) it is today ! I guess we all have that burning desire to have someone know us as intimately as we know ourselves (at least the good parts ). We will all, ultimately meet our Creator who knows everything about us, and are we ready to be seen in that light ??
ReplyDeleteSame for me, I did find his analysis very accurate at the time, now I'm curious 30 years later. There is a Pedegral Institute. --. Hmmmm..
ReplyDeleteMe too. Amazing.
DeletePedegral Institute was founded by Carlos Pedegral, in theory, and it now costs $28 to get an analysis done, rather than the $12 of yester year. Check it out!
ReplyDeleteI found my analysis done by Carlos Pedregal in 1988. I found it to be quite accurate actually. I'd love to send in another sample to see what life has done to me in 33 years haha!
ReplyDeletecleaning up, came across his letter dd 1993.
ReplyDeleteapparently we're all suffereing from the same famliy conditioning.
if only i remembered what sample isent him...
Me too! I decided to clear out my filing cabinet and came across graphology analyses of me, my brother, and my mother, they all seemed accurate, esp mine and my mother's.
ReplyDeleteAnd me! From 1985 - incredibly accurate, yet completely different from any of the previous folks who have already left comments...
ReplyDeleteI actually found a link to the "Pedregal Institute" today offering handwriting analysis for $28...here's the link: https://pedregal-institute-analysis.paperform.co/
ReplyDeleteSame here. My analysis is from 1993. I was going through many saved greeting cards from friends and family and came across. I also did a search to see if Mr. Carlos Pedregal was still alive.
ReplyDeleteReading back through, I would have to admit that much of it is spot on. As others have mentioned, a couple of sections read almost the same, yet I have others that are quite different. So interesting to read again after 30 years.
That site looks a bit sketchy. No home page, no contact info, and the platform is a forms-hosting site called Paperform. Not an entity to which I would confidently send my credit-card info.
ReplyDeleteI should also note, although it may distress those enamored of the Pedregal analysis results, that this is not very different from a fortune-teller's racket, which counts on a subject's eagerness to believe opinionated observations, especially when most of them are flattering. That'll be ten dollars, please.
ReplyDelete