Here’s the best of what I’ve been seeing…THE PEOPLE DEMAND IT. :D
1) You have all the meanings INSIDE YOU. Stay away from those stuffy traditionalists! Why, you probably know a LOT of these cards from your Tarot studies already. If not, just do the same thing you do with your Angel cards!
2) Make a deck!
The less you understand the system, the more “intuitive” it will be! Do it NOW! And get creative with it, the more stuff you add, the better! Innovate!
3) Concentrate entirely on books.
Never mind that it’s an oral tradition and the only known printed materials on Lenormand cards prior to the 1980’s are probably the little instruction books that came with decks. 19th century pulp cartomancy books are your friend here. Use playing card meanings for your houses.
4) Stay away from people who learned from their families.
Oral tradition might make you actually LEARN Lenormand, and we can’t have that, can we? Damn traditionalists. They just want you to work and stuff. 10,000 hours, my ass.
5) If you still happen to find yourself talking to hereditary readers, go out of your way to offend them.
Ask them to teach you and then tell them they CAN’T TELL YOU WHAT TO DO. Have a tantrum if they criticize a deck you like. Tell the guy who uses a lot of facing directions that the other guy said to do it by card order, and vice versa. Imply that their mothers, aunties and grandmothers DID IT WRONG.
6) Spend all your spare time looking for pictures of old stuff that’s kinda-sorta tangentially similar to Lenormand cards, or is similar to another thing that has an image in common with Lenormand.
This is a favorite Tarot pastime, and like all things Tarot, it should be imported to Lenormand. If you find a dish with a pair of birds on it, post it online, and then post endless pictures of dishes. If you find a door knocker with a fox on it, post it, then post lots of door knockers. The possibilities are infinite.
7) Write a book, offer a course, do workshops NOW.
It doesn’t matter if you can’t read the cards – HURRY, before everybody loses interest and moves on to the next big thing!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Knowledgeable people, sooner or later, end up either banned from Aeclectic Tarot forum, or walking away in disgust never to return. Today it happened again. Not surprised.
In light of the recent banning of Andybc from AT and Mary K. Greer leaving the study group at facebook, as well as the constant PM’s I get from people who have perfectly harmless questions but seem loathe to post them publicly, I’ve come to the conclusion that the “intuitive” Lenormand “readers” are simply attempting a troll.
First, lets look at what a troll is, and isn’t:
First off, some will label anyone who disagrees with the majority view of the site as a troll. Others will consider anyone who acts outside of a perceived standard of behavior as a troll. This is incorrect. A troll is someone who deliberately stirs up trouble, for its own sake.
This, in itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Westboro Baptist and Stormfront-type hate sites should be trolled hard and often, and the results are often hilarious. Trolling sites where people are simply trying to learn a skill doesn’t fall in this category, though. It makes you an asshole, IOW, Fail Troll.
Let’s look at a couple of common bush-league trolling techniques commonly deployed by “intuitives”:
The Noob Troll: This is done by pretending to be an innocent slow person, and questioning everything. Of course, it’s perfectly fine and expected for new people to ask questions, that’s one of the functions of a Lenormand group. But if a person has been around for a year or more and they’re still asking noob questions, aren’t aware of traditional card meanings even though it’s all been spelled out repeatedly, and appear otherwise functional and not learning disabled, it’s pretty safe to assume that their intent is to annoy and provoke.
The Landmine Troll/Flame Baiting: Any good-sized group that’s been around for awhile has issues and animosities between some members, and tired old debates that only cause problems whenever they surface. The trick is to play the unaware noob role, then detonate the mine and the arguments. Many of these will be directed at the troll of course, which is exactly what they want. It allows them to play the wounded party, raise an army, cry to mods, and get people banned.
Word to the FAIL trolls: A lot of us are on to you, and as time goes on, there will be more.
This is a deck from 1799 or so. It’s like a mash-up of French Sibyl characters, Grand Jeu myth and Etteilla Tarot, with a good many of the cards double ended like Tarock. In spite of this, it’s a surprisingly easy, eloquent deck to read, and it reads true. I got this combo in a recent spread:
It’s talking about a boring town, being bored and disgusted with a town. I’m living in a little hole in the road in central Texas, and I’ve never seen another deck describe the situation so plainly. :D
Here’s the keywords, translated:
1. Voyage/Earth
2. Clarity/Victory
3. Thoughts*/Water
4. Brilliant Stars/Air
5. Creation of the man and woman/production
6. Heaven on earth/bad man and woman
7. Major Force/business
8. The Force/boredom, disgust
9. Caution/the people
10. Night/The Temperance
11. Divine law (Themis), Justice/the rich bribe
12. The Fortune/Fortune (increase)
13. Mortality/Sorrows, grief
14. Fidelity/the wise
15. Bellona (war goddess)/Discord
16. Man between vice and virtue/betrayal
17. Marriage/union
18. Jupiter/Protector
19. The law and faith/safety and harmony of people
20. Juno/Protectoress
21. The Fool/the street performer
22. Consultant/Consultant
23. Love/the desire
24. Marriage (Hymen)/Departure, disunity, abandonment
25. Unmarried, indecision/childbirth, fertility
26. Hope/Abundance
27. Litigation, squabble/Good faith, friendship, success
28. Fame/obstacle
29. Prison/shipwreck, big misfortune
30. despoilment, thieves/patrol, safety, unexpected pursuit
31. House, table, feasting/jealousy, flatterer (favor seeking)
32. City/Good sea voyage
33. Little Master, embarrassment (awkward position)/Letter, love letter
34. Solitude, rest/economy, money purse
35. Battery, violence, dispute/Hypocrite
36. The old man, father of a family/society, evil chatter (cackle)
37. Traitor woman/the charity and the allowance
38. Brunette man, wholeheartedly/Blond man, beneficient
39. Good brunette woman/Good blonde woman
40. Blonde boy/Brunette boy
41. Blonde girl and chestnut blonde/Brunette girl and chestnut brunette
42, Country man/Stranger, news
*thoughts – offers and decision in emotional things
Additionally, here’s a translation of the LWB from Eric Bowers:
It is with regret I’ve taken the decision to close myfortunae and Cartomantes’ Cabinet, with immediate effect. This was not an easy decision.
This last week has been hellish. The trouble is these are not isolated events. As much as it pains to me to admit it, I’ve reached the point where I now wonder “is it worth it?”
Regrettably, the answer is no. Who’d have thought hosting a blog would cause so much trouble lol.
One cannot emphasise how guilty I feel to let down so many of you: people who have bothered to take my course, are midway through it, or just read my blog, or contact me for help. I’m genuinely sorry.
Lots of people have often asked me, or raised questions, on why I chose to offer the course for free. To date, I’ve not told people the reason. But here we go: the generosity of the people who taught me allowed me to make a living in 2010, when I was subjected to extreme workplace bullying and lost someone very close me too.
Generosity, in my opinion, is something severely lacking in this world. And by that, I mean genuine generosity and volunteerism. It didn’t cost me anything to learn the petit-Lenormand (and it’s not a family secret, unlike palmistry), and, who knows: maybe one of my students might find themselves in a similar situation. Why charge? Teaching hasn’t affected my clientele – it maximised it.
But reading some of the stuff that has been written about me – from the appalling that involves my family, to the ludicrous it is just stupid.
I genuinely never attacked Tarot Lynn, nor Sylvie Steinbach and certainly never Iris Treppner. I recommend Sylvie for a long time (2011/12) – I even gave her the names of Lenormand’s sister and nephew and niece, which didn’t know. And all I said about Tarot Lynn was that her post betrayed ego; her phrase, not mine, and I even messaged her today to try and bury the hatchet..
I sincerely hope you can all forgive me; especially if I have ever offended you. Please continue with your studies. I sincerely believe, with practise, and sticking to incremental path, you can master one of the best cartomantic methods. It doesn’t matter what card you use for work or sex, as long as you learn the method.
I wish you all well in your studies and everything else.
I’d like to direct you to another highly informative post from Andy Boroveshengra, with advice for avoiding obstacles disguised as “information”. For anyone learning to read Tarot, or longtime readers who’ve had their head filled with the goop that’s been published over the years, you can save yourself a lot of confusion by reading this and keeping it in mind.
This is from the Tarotholics group on facebook, but they’re by no means the only ones – Aeclectic Tarot, Lenormand Cards Study Group, and numerous smaller places all follow a predictable pattern. Here is a classic example. (I’ve blacked out all the names for privacy reasons, but I’m the one with the yellow Benny Lava profile pic.) Observe:
First of all, a noob posts a seemingly innocuous question. In this case, it was “What crystals will greatly assist learning the Tarot?”
This is generally answered with common sense – in this case, several of us said that none of them do, you can only learn things through study and practice.
Then the new agers predictably start to roll up and express butthurt that anyone dare suggest that rocks can’t teach people how to read cards. At this point, if you don’t allow them to cow you, banning is probably a matter of minutes, so have fun with it and go down in a blaze of glory:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Here comes the “MEAN” and “RUDE” accusations. PM’s are flying by now. “THEY QUESTIONED MY DELUSIONS!” You can’t see it, but they’re PM’img their friends to come dogpile you, they’re PMimg admin saying how you hurt their widdle fee-fees.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Often, their lingo needs a bit of translating:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
If you haven’t noticed, no one has shown any substantial evidence that Tarot can be learned from rocks. All I’ve seen is insistence that there’s “no right or wrong” and variations on “If you don’t agree, STFU.” :lol:
Oh, wait, here comes the “LALALALALA NOT LISTENING” ploy!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Ah, here comes the censorship board to stifle the voice of reason, lol:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
After that, she attempted to turn it around by saying “DID YOU JUST TELL ME TO STFU?” (This is the person who was just bragging about their reading comprehension). I saw it in my notifications, but when I tried to click back over to the group, I already had my cool ban jacket:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
And that, my friends, is why you can’t learn anything at most of these online forums. They’re OK for sport if you’re bored, but people who are functionally sane and actually know how to read cards are usually long gone from these venues. :lol:
Learning Lenormand requires sifting through a lot of information, and most of it is very flawed, to say the least. So to (hopefully) save a few people from making these common mistakes, I’m going to list a few things people are prone to falling into.
Everything the cat dragged in
In the very early days, I walked right into this one. I collected meanings from various websites and countries. My early readings were mud, and I had to unlearn a lot of stuff. So…don’t.
Start with ONE set of meanings, any set that makes sense to you – French, Dutch, German – and stick with it. Get a SOLID foundation. After a few years when you’re familiar with the symmetry of the system, you can expand it a bit, add more secondary meanings, more nuance.
Borrowing a meaning from a region other than the one you’re using can throw the whole thing off. For instance, I use German, where the Bear tends to be male. Other variants see it as female. But if I go so far as to call the Bear “mom” and I already use the Snake for that, where is mom in the GT? It would be like jamming extra, incompatible parts into a car. The only way to make it work would be to totally switch over to those meanings and scrap mine.
Lenormand is perfectly balanced. It’s genius – don’t screw it up. :D
You have all the meanings inside you
That one makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Images of dogs and houses and fish may evoke ideas, but that’s not the Lenormand method. PAMs (personally assigned meanings) will ruin your accuracy. I see this every day in groups, a lot of people INSIST on PAMs. They get their interpretations from “intuition” or “guides” and they “don’t rely on canned meanings”, but their readings SUCK.
The thing is, Lenormand will work if you stand back and let it, and don’t get in the way. Accuracy comes in inverse proportion to PAMs!
Lenormand “schools”
There are no Lenormand “schools”. There’s a Lenormand METHOD, with regional variations, like dialects. Where I live, a Coke is a “soda water”, but in Massachusetts it’s a “tonic”, and I think it’s “pop” in the midwest, but that’s all considered “english”. Not “schools”. Same with Lenormand. The work cards might vary a bit from place to place, or there might be more or less use of Distance, but there’s not enough difference to say there’s different “schools”. This has been explained 1000 times, at least.
Not learning the Method of Distance
I fell into this one. When I started with Lenormand, I had a Blue Owl with a LWB and those horrible english poems, lol. And I went online and found a yahoo group in english, with a german lady who had taken some courses. So I started asking things like “How far is ‘far’?” and she said “Oh, nobody pays attention to that” and introduced me to combo reading. It made sense at the time – aren’t Tarot LWB’s a joke? Nobody uses LWB’s. And she wasn’t trying to mislead me. Distance reading isn’t that common in Germany. She answered the question to the best of her knowledge.
The years went by and I found more sources, all combo readers. I eventually started doing paid readings. I ‘knew’ Lenormand. And it worked, I predicted stuff, it was right, I got paid.
Then Andy got me interested in Distance, and I’m liking it more and more, it’s decisive. Often, with combo readings, I have to sit and consider various meanings and how best to combine them, and sometimes, even after all these years, there’s a bit of “uhhhhh…”, lol. Distance reading is sharp and precise, like a scalpel. Sometimes it actually makes combo reading feel clunky. I wish I’d learned a long time ago. :D
If you want a solid foundation in Lenormand reading (and not a lot of misinformation that you’ll only have to unlearn later), don’t miss Andy Boroveshengra’s Thirty-Six Cards: An Introduction to the petit-Lenormand. It gives you clear explanations of card meanings, attendance, distance, spreads (up to and including the Grand Tableau) and exercises. It’s geared towards beginners and intermediate students, but there’s so much solid information here that it would be worthwhile for even the most seasoned reader to keep a copy close at hand.
I’m considering a vacation. This looks like a good spot.
Greetings from historic Ratchetville, Texas. Sometimes – nay, often – I need to close the doors on our scenic soiled-panty-and-beer-can lined streets and just lose myself online. When I do this, I find some cool stuff. So I’m here to let you know I’m still among the living – time is at a premium, but I’m doing phone readings occasionally, though email is out of the question. And I’m also here today to tell you about something everybody likes: that cool stuff and where to get it.
Firstly, there’s the Mercury Key from Professor Ames. You can read about it here: http://skullboneemporium.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/the-mercury-key/ and if you contact him, you can arrange for him to make one for you. It gets its name from the dimes – old “Mercury” dimes (actually Liberty in a winged hat, which I take to mean “free thought”, but the folk associations of Mercury with these dimes are ubiquitous.) You can read it according to geomancy, or alternately, a simple “strong yes/probable yes/probable no/strong no”. It reminds me a little bit of those Ifa divining chains – it alludes to several traditions, but it’s a new thing, Ames invented it. So it doesn’t come with a reading tradition like Lenormand, you’re free to experiment some. (And props to Ames and everyone who INVENTS an oracle – I’ve said enough here about the difference between that, and those awful Lenormand retreads. Googling images of a man, woman, tree, etc. and giving them a horrible color scheme is NOT “creativity”.) I suppose in a pinch, you could even disregard one of the four dimes and use it for I Ching, though I haven’t done that. You could take the direction the key points into account, in some contexts. And the bonus is that these are all leap year dimes, and therefore super lucky. Four leap year dimes and an old iron key – the Lenormand Key, the Master Key…so many positive associations. Dab it with a little Van Van and keep it draped on a lucky statue or image when you’re not carrying or using it.
From a 1910 theatrical poster advertising an appearance by C. Alexander
Crystal Balls
In the late 90’s, you could google “scrying” and nothing came up. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. As of tonight, I got 1,310,000 results. But Sturgeon’s Revelation (commonly cited as “90% of everything is crap”) definitely applies here.
Let’s look at the word itself – dictionary definitions are generally along the lines of seeing visions in/telling the future with a crystal ball or other reflective surface. But new age marketing has expanded it to include, well – anything you look at that looks like something else to you. Jesus on a tortilla, clouds that look like kitties, that stain on the bathroom wall at work that looks like Ron Jeremy – all “scrying”, according to the “anyone can do this!” folks. Well, maybe anyone CAN do that, but what’s the point?
Consider the old texts on crystal gazing. It’s said that both those and the new age are influenced by the New Thought movement. The difference is that the old texts say something like “Practice self-discipline, be discriminating in what you eat, take plenty of outdoor exercise and cultivate a positive attitude, and you will greatly improve your chances of success.” The new age stuff says “Just see yourself getting what you want, and you will!”
New age rhetoric is a lot like those “Lose weight without diet or exercise!” ads, isn’t it?
The old texts are not without issues, at least one of them would have you carving your table up with Enochian symbols. And there was plagiarism in those days, too. There’s a good bit of conjecture and pseudoscience presented as absolute fact, as well. But for the most part, for the purpose of learning to actually see crystal visions, they’ll give you good, solid, practical advice. There’s a list of them here, compiled by Cat Yronwode, and several of these are in the public domain and can be downloaded at no cost from sites like Project Gutenberg: http://www.yronwode.org/crystal-gazing-bibliography.html
While we’re on the subject, Miss Cat also sells crystal balls on her site. A three-inch clear glass crystal is perfect (it’s large enough not to strain the eyes, without being so big that it’s hard to block the reflections, or too heavy to hold in your hands, and there’s no inclusions to distract you) and you can get one here for $20 (yes, you read that right!) But they have all kinds, all sizes. http://www.luckymojo.com/mojocatdivination.html#scrying And they come with their own little boxes and stands.
Not only that, but you get a free membership in the Crystal Silence League for the year http://www.crystalsilenceleague.org/
and a copy “Personal Lessons, Codes, and Instructions for Members of The Crystal Silence League” by C. Alexander. The book is published by Missionary Independent Spiritual Church, and Lucky Mojo distributes it free when you buy any crystal ball of any size from them. It’s not a Lucky Mojo publication. Lucky Mojo acts as a distributor, including the book with sales of crystal balls, and underwrites the cost of the book, as a service to the church.
I’ve been considering getting Carrie Paris’s Lenormand Lodestones (actually magnets, not lodestones)- these would be useful as a kind of secret code to put on the refrigerator and other metallic surfaces (ex: “Birds – Woman – Moon: call me this evening”) The possibilities for sneaky hijinx are endless! http://carrieparis.com/shop/lenormand-lodestones/
Karla Souza has a very unique deck called the Esmeralda Lenormand – while I don’t use the chakras and elements, it does have proper hints and memory joggers as to the card meanings down in the bottom corners, so it’s great for beginners. I know Karla, she’s a good reader. At some point, I mean to give this one its own blog post, but in the meantime, you can get it here: http://www.sensoriall.com/#!shop/c1tc8
And of course, Lauren Forestell continues to make quality reproductions, and more great decks are always showing up on her site. Check out the four jokers on the mini Alte Deutsch! And she’s got a Brepols now – it’s like a Carta Mundi, but with restored color, gorgeous backs, better stock and no verses. http://gameofhopelenormand.bigcartel.com/
I often see people using the terms “Lenormand community” or “cartomancy community”, with the implication that we shouldn’t fight, we should be in solidarity, i.e., unity or agreement of feeling or action among individuals with a common interest, and mutual support within a group. Being in a community with someone doesn’t mean you have to do that. If you’ve ever had neighbors from hell, you can understand this.
And let’s look at the word “community” itself, shall we? from Merriam-Webster:
Pretty irrelevant to reading cards, isn’t it? All we have in common is cards. It’s like saying “the soap community” or “the makeup community”. Nobody says “You need to be nicer and more supportive of John Wayne Gacy, he used soap and makeup, too.”
Should we be supportive of Sylvie Steinbach just because the woman has written a crappy Lenormand book? She denies the Holocaust, FFS. Or Donnaleigh de la Rose, who equated being denied access to a facebook group to “perpetuating the Holocaust”, thereby trivializing the pointless suffering and deaths of millions? Or Christiana Gaudet, who writes hate blogs about the Roma? Why lower ourselves and give tacit endorsement to the hate by making nice with people like that?
Fuck antisemites and fuck racists. May they rot in hell.
As for the Rockwell painting at the beginning of this post, it’s a picture of what an actual community might look like. And I hope that soldier killed lots and lots of nazis.
A good Lenormand practice group will limit the decks you can post to things like the Blue Owl, Carta Mundi, Dondorf, Glück, Mertz, Piatnik, and other reproductions of decks first published prior to 1950. To understand why, we need look no further than the very first card: the Rider.
The Rider is a well dressed man on a spirited horse. He looks well-to-do, and he’s hurrying to deliver some news himself, instead of sending a hired man, so it’s fairly important. His period clothing tips you off that the horse is his usual mode of transportation. What better to express the meanings of news, something tangible, a vehicle, speed, an athletic young man, a male lover, feet, knees, and ligaments?
In too many contemporary decks, this gets lost. Any person riding something will do, and you see jockeys, women, cowboys, polo ponies, people on bikes – some of the meanings are always lost, and in some instances the card isn’t even recognizable. I saw a deck recently that used a child on a rocking horse – it looked like a Child card. If you’re asking people to help you with a spread, at least use readable cards. And a kid on a rocking horse isn’t coming down the road to see you. A jockey isn’t going to leave the track on a million dollar racehorse to deliver your package or tell you Auntie Edna’s gall bladder surgery went well.
“But the Rider is fine in such-and-such deck” you say. And maybe it is. But if you go through the whole deck, there’s overwhelming odds that you’ll find some hinky cards. It’s not JUST the Rider! A lot of the new decks are cray-cray all the way through. And even if they get it right (there are a few that do), imagine the fallout when “Marilyn’s Lenormand” is allowed and “Carolyn’s Lenormand” isn’t. So best to keep it to old decks by deceased artists, lol.
Are all these old decks perfect? No, they’re not. I actually have one that shows a tank of goldfish on the Fish card. And that Mice card in the Glück – where are the Mice? But on the whole, old decks are a pretty safe bet for group discussion.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Die Zauberkarten is a deck first published in Vienna in 1855. It’s one of the Sibilla types that overspread the Continent in the 19th century and includes Italian Sibillas, French Sibyl decks (Sibylle des Salons, Petit Cartomancien, Jeu du Destin, Livre du Destin, etc.), Petit Lenormand, Petit Oracle des Dames…all of the old decks with an image and a playing card inset. There are different systems for reading each.
The difference between these cards and the more familiar Sibillas is that the other decks were continuously, or near-continuously, published, but the Zauberkarten seem to have died out, at least as far as I can tell. Caitlin Matthews acquired an antique copy in 2013, complete with the box and book, and sent scans to Lauren Forestell, who offered them for awhile, along with a slim volume by Caitlin, at her Game of Hope site.
It has images in common with Lenormand, like the Coffin, Snake, Ship, etc., but the meanings tend to be variant. There are some images I’ve seen in other decks, like the Merit Cross and Clasped Hands – but don’t relate it to your Whitman and Gypsy Witch decks just yet – the Pig, for instance, is disreputable rather than lucky. And there are other images that I’ve not seen anyplace else, like the Lightning Struck Tree, Overridden Horse, and Man Heaving Rock Uphill.
In other words, it takes some getting used to, and I haven’t had proper time for it. But the solution to “not having time” is to make time, so I did manage a series of dailies, a couple of which I’m posting here. My object was to see how viable the method, which gives different meanings to the cards depending if they’re on the right or left, is. Did the Zauberkarten die out because of the method? Or not – did the publisher simply fold? The cards do look very readable. Let’s test drive them.
For the Man Clenching Fist, the book gives a general meaning of “Apparent reconciliation between enemies accompanied by falsehood. Inconvenience, annoyance.” But on the left, “folly”. Chains in the middle would carry the general meaning of “Loss of freedom. Scheming.” The General meaning of the Sun is “Honor and glory. Gift” and the right-hand meanings are “Gift, winning at games. Lucky in love.”
The synthesis for the left/right meanings, if you didn’t have any context, might be something like a silly attachment to optimism, either material or romantic.
But for general meanings, being unpleasantly bound to people who have an agenda, in hopes of improvement. “Making nice”.
What happened: I’m a day sleeper, but plumbers came to the house at 8 AM. We needed them, but they’re so annoying. Three loud, filthy plumbers. Of course they made a big mess taking everything apart before they figured out that the problem was OUTSIDE – which I could have told them, since it was EVERYTHING that had suddenly clogged.
So I think “folly” applies, but the general meaning is more specific. Plumbers virtually always fib about things in order to make more money, and it WAS inconvenient and annoying. Chains fits – I couldn’t escape, either by leaving or going to sleep. The “gift” of the Sun was me finally being able to sleep after they left and I washed everything down with Clorox. Even though it was only a temporary fix – they left a big trench in the yard with a main pipe draining into it and promised to return the next day.
On this day, the general meanings win hands down. In the case of the Man Clenching Fist, the general meaning overshadowed the left hand meaning (though folly was obviously at play, too.)
Well, ramping down for a daily, but the general meaning for Coffin is “Carelessness, recklessness, insurmountable obstacles, misfortune, death”. And the left hand meaning is “severe illness, danger, death”. Anchor gives “Hope, friendship with a woman” for the general meaning. Beggar is “Bad business, suffering of all kinds. Changes” generally, and “embarrassments” on the right.
What happened: The plumbers came back, right on time. They didn’t have to come inside this time. I was asleep but my daughter was up. While they were working on the pipe, somebody with the city was driving by and stopped and told them the landlord needed to get a permit in order for them to do that. Work stopped.
So: carelessness and recklessness in that they didn’t finish the first day (a Sunday) when the city employees wouldn’t have been out looking for opportunities to run their idiotic $60 extortion racket. As for illness, my daughter had a little stomach bug and I was working too close to the potting (a sealant) station, so my eyes got kind of raw. (With dailies, ramp down, ramp down…) The general meaning seems a lot more relevant for the day.
The Beggar’s “Embarrassments” fits because the trench looks trashy and Third World as hell, but this is small town Texas so it blends right in, and there is probably no one within a fifty mile radius that I care to impress. But we need to stay away from it as much as possible since the cards warned of illness. I have “Hope” it will eventually get fixed and filled in. Probably over the weekend, lol. None of the interactions I had with female friends that day stand out. Again, the general meanings seem more accurate and specific than the left/right meanings, but I can’t totally discount left/right.
Tentative conclusion: Learn all the meanings. Retain left/right, but only as a secondary consideration. It adds nuance, and it’s not totally unique to this deck (you see it with the Ring in Lenormand, and card order can be viewed as essentially the same thing, or at least similar). There is no need for modernization, only perspective.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The expanded edition of Lenormand Thirty Six Cards will be available soon. This one goes a good way beyond the first edition’s comprehensive-yet-basic Lenormand 101, with material that was included in Andy’s last course. I’m hoping for a hardcover copy, after all, it’s a reference work and will get tons of use. My Book.
Comments are welcome, because I’m really, REALLY trying to find the root of this – so I can douse it with gasoline and enjoy the bonfire.
If you’ve followed this blog at all, you’ve seen many, many posts about learning Lenormand rather than pulling meanings out of your ass. And “new thought” vs. “new age” (AKA “sewerage”).
Now I’ve found this old thread http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=98307 (pardon me if I don’t keep up with the purple shithole – also, profound props to you, Scion, whoever you are – eloquent and well put) on AT where some are defending a book by Arrien Angeles that is purportedly an instruction on the Crowley Thoth – with the caveat that she suggests ignoring Crowley (WUT) and goes on to give made-up interpretations of the images on the cards. (Crowley’s pelican, according to this dribble-of-misapprehended-symbols-by-someone-who-couldn’t-be-bothered-to-research, is a “swan” and “the ugly duckling”, the venom is “tears of the spirit”)
Look, if you want to learn the Thoth, read Crowley. The Book of Thoth, 777, and The Book of the Law at the very least. If you still can’t make sense of it, read Duquette. But not this Angeles fuckwittery.
The same goes for anything else. Read the real stuff, not the fake stuff. Jeez.
None of this is news, it’s been all too common since the 80’s. But what broadsided me and led me to mention it here, is that this execrable Angeles book came out in the late 70’s. The shitting down the throat of Lenormand – and all things cartomantic – has a precedent going back further than I previously realized. New age BS predates the 80’s. It snuck in when I was unaware of it, blithely shuffling my battered University Press RWS with Trapeze or BOC playing in the background. A lifetime ago.
Maybe Crowley was right (and not just yanking our chains) and we’re really in for another 500 years of Dark Ages. Say what you will about him, he was still a brilliant SOB.
ETA: Further digging has shown me that apparently, the pulling-meanings-out-of-your-wazoo school of reading goes ALL THE WAY BACK TO 1969 and the publication of “The New Tarot: The Tarot for the Aquarian Age”. The premise of this dribble is that just looking at the magic pasteboard unlocks wisdom in your subconscious, and is probably what set off this whole “learning is bad!” trope. It claims any idiot’s “insights” are just as valid as Waite’s, Crowley’s, Wirth’s, or anyone else who actually learned the cards. It was allegedly channeled with a Ouija board and published along with a hideous deck.
I can only conclude that the new agers and the Pat Robertson type wacky evangelicals are two sides of the same coin and we’ve gotten ourselves back to the Dark Ages.
If you read this blog at all, you’ve probably heard of Lenormand Thirty Six Cards by now. It was intended as an introductory book, though it was quite detailed – I got a lot of benefit from it, and I’d been reading Lenormand for years already. Andy did a great job of filling in the gaps left by Treppner and the handful of others who had published information in english.
Since then, he re-opened his Cabinet course for awhile, including information that wasn’t available in the first edition of the book, and paying careful attention to the areas where people were having problems and how to explain things more clearly. (There is a human tendency to misinterpret certain statements and run with it – this is what he was mainly trying to remedy, I think. The man is infinitely more patient and accommodating than I am.) All of this – the course material and the teaching approach, have been added to the original book. Certain parts have been revised. And what came of all this is a book with roughly twice the word count, yet with the fat trimmed.
This appears, for all intents and purposes, to be the definitive Lenormand book. There’s really not much else you can say about the subject, the answers to virtually all of the questions one commonly sees are answered in this book. (Andy says it’s “intermediate”, I’m curious as to what he considers “advanced” – work through this book and internalize the information, and you’ve got Lenormand nailed.) Card and suit meanings, history, attendance, proximity, exercises, combos and more.
Greetings, and happy whatever-you-may-or-may-not-be-celebrating! LOL. I pulled a few cards for the coming week, and I wanted to share it here, as it looks pretty universal.
I used Giordano Berti’s The Sibyl of the Heart. I mentioned it in my last post – it’s taken from an old Rosicrucian text, and it uses emblems. Emblem books are one of the roots of Lenormand, Sibilla, and “Gypsy” type decks. Many have symbols in common with the Tarot as well. The interpretations vary, but they’re well worth any cartomancer’s perusal since they give you a sense of the old european mindset that these cards came out of.
The first card is No. 8, Balance. The heart is balanced precariously on the point of a pyramid-like structure. There is a rod through it, with a bell on each end. The slightest movement will set those bells to ringing.
The next card is No. 15, Temptation. A winged heart this time, with a demon in hot pursuit. Pretty self-explanatory.
And the last card is No. 1, Preparation. Hands emerge from a cloud and slide the heart into a brick oven.
Now, if Balance wasn’t there, I would say that these cards were a caution to walk a chalk line and be very careful. But with Balance there, I think they are simply saying not to overdo. Spend, but not too much. Eat, drink, but not too much. The Temptation will be there, but I should keep some money and energy in Preparation for the next phase. Something important may be coming up afterwards. Listen for those bells (Balance), don’t ignore them.
This deck is always reads very clearly. It tends to advise rather than just give a straight prediction, but the advice is in the cards, not just imagination telling you what you want to hear. I would like to know more about them (the background images, the buildings and landscapes, all of these surely have a lot of weight as well. I’d like to learn about them in the historical and alchemical context.)
It’s an heirloom quality deck and it comes with a booklet by our own Odete Lopes (Madame Sheyla). The cards come in a sparkly red bag, smelling faintly of aromatic resin incense, and the whole thing is done up in a box made to look like a very old-fashioned book, that ties with a red ribbon. Just superb. You can see a bit more on this video, there is a study group here, and it’s available for purchase here (clicking the “Buy It” button opens a page that gives you the appropriate email contact to use according to the country you live in.)
It has come to my attention that there is some confusion regarding the High Honors card in Ciro Marchetti’s Fin de Siécle. Some people seem to think that it’s a battle scene, and that the meaning is changed from No. 25 Zu hohen Ehren kommen (“Come to high honors”) in the Original Kipperkarten.
It isn’t. It’s exactly the same thing. This is made clear in the companion PDF, but I know that not everyone reads that before doing an unboxing video, and that it’s currently only available in english, which isn’t everyone’s first language. But there are clues on the card itself.
Let’s look a little more closely. The Original shows a humble little house in the foreground, with a castle on a hill in the background, the implication being that someone has risen from humble beginnings and achieved wealth and power. Kind of a Gatsby card, hopefully without the organized crime. Of course it seldom means you’re going to be THAT rich. It’s a card of recognition, promotion, achievement, and career advancement.
The soldiers are in spotless dress uniform.
The cannons are lined up perfectly.
Everything is orderly.
This is ceremonial.
This is a gun salute.
Combat is chaos. Soldiers are generally hunkered down firing, or running. They’re dirty and disheveled. There is a hellish atmosphere that isn’t present on the card.
Here is a wikipedia entry on the 21-gun salute in the UK, the setting for this deck (though the wikipedia entry talks about our own times, not late Victorian/Edwardian, it’s an old tradition). You can see that it’s usually done for Royals. The “people in the castle” shown on No. 25 from the Original Kipperkarten. If you feel like looking over the whole article, you’ll see that it’s done in many parts of the world. In most countries, it’s similar. It’s generally reserved for royals, high officials, and heads of state.
A lot of you may have seen a gun salute firsthand. If you’ve ever gone to a veteran’s funeral, you’ve probably seen rifles fired graveside. In the US, this is a three-volley salute. My dad got that for his service in WWII. It’s not 21 shots with cannons, but it’s still an honor.
So this card is showing cannons fired to honor someone of very high rank. A high honor, and still a card of recognition, promotion, achievement, and career advancement.
A castle on a hill, a 21-gun salute. Two ways of saying the same thing.
Do take time to read the PDF if you can. (And not just because I got to contribute. It’s seriously helpful.) And, because I haven’t ended a blog post with a song in awhile, I leave you this 21-gun salute for the rest of us. :D
This is The Cinderella Deck from Kristen at Over the Moon Oracle Cards. The images are from The Wonderful Story of Cinderella: Rhymed and Retold, published in 1921. It consists of 29 cards printed on sturdy stock, and it’s exactly what it looks like: it follows Cinderella from her spot in the ashes by the fireside to her wedding to the Prince. I’ll let Kristen tell you a little more about it:
Now, the thing is, everybody knows the story of Cinderella well enough to use this deck. Between all the children’s books, movies, and cartoons, you probably had it down pat when you were four or so, at least the popular version that this deck follows. (The original Grimm’s version, Aschenputtel, gets quite a bit stranger – Cinderella does necromancy at her mom’s grave, and the stepsisters get their eyes pecked out. Gotta love the Grimm brothers.)
The beauty of this is that it is ONLY the Cinderella story on cards that you can randomize, it’s not force-fitted to Tarot, Lenormand, or anything else. But I think it would be very beneficial to anyone who is trying to learn ANY system and having trouble putting things in context, the people who say things like “I asked about money and all I got was love cards”, “Sometimes I ask the cards about one thing and they start talking about something totally different”, etc. With the Cinderella deck, the Prince is ANY goal, be it a man, a job, a new pair of shoes, or losing 20 pounds before summer. Since you know the story already, there are really no meanings to learn, (although you can download the LWB from Kristen’s Freebies folder), it just forces you to flex your context muscles. If you are new to reading cards, I’d suggest getting this deck along with whichever deck you intend to learn. If you teach card reading, the Cinderella Deck would make a great course module or presentation. And if you don’t need any of that, it’s still irresistible – who doesn’t love 20’s art?
And yes – it reads true and clearly.
The Cinderella Deck is available here. You can even order a matching pouch.
The photo above is the Oracle Belline, laid out in a spread recommended by Andy Boroveshengra: “Draw one card for yourself, or the client. Then draw two for their personal life (relationships, home life, friendships), two for their projects (work, hobbies, et cetera) and two for their health. Silvestre includes this draw in her book (Le Grand Livre des Jeux de Cartes et de Tarots) but replaces health with finances.”
The following is an experimental reading – I’m not a Belline adept at this point in time, obviously. I haven’t attempted reflection, etc. in this spread as I’m keeping things very simple for now. But it might be fun to come back to this later and see how the interpretations compare to how things played out.
The first thing I noticed is that there are two Saturn cards – ack!
For myself, I got 52, Cloister. Spot on, I haven’t been in the mood to seek out company, preferring to putter around the house. I get enough – too much, really – of people at my job. Give me a closed door, my dog, an internet connection, and an air conditioner, and it’s All Good.
For Personal Life, I got 45, The Seer’s Star/Happiness, and 51, The Wheel in the Rut. Things are jammed, but not necessarily in a bad way. My Taurean self is quite contented with that. I’m in a comfortable rut. Things do change, though, so when the inevitable eventually comes to pass, I need to prepare myself to roll with the punches.
For Projects, I got 5, Success, and 18, Change. My first thought was that success was “changing”, i.e., things will get worse. Both cards, however, are considered positive. There may be a new opportunity around the corner. Or not. I’m noting it here and will wait and see how it plays out.
For Health, I got 30, the Amphora/Table, and 34, Despotism/The Bound One. 34 is about invitations – it looks like a simple warning not to overindulge in food and drink if I do happen to go out. There may also be a caution against overwork here, especially with two Saturn cards showing up. My job is very Saturnine. So: moderation, etc.
Another interpretation is that I might feel like I have to go someplace I don’t want to be. So, again, waiting to see how it all plays out.
http://www.quickmeme.com/Faulty-Fortune-Teller/?upcoming
Image may be NSFW.
