Lenormand schools and other misconceptions debunked

[gregory]

I was never part of the "books are bad" brigade - just (with tarot) I find they limit me (me, YMMV, others totally disagree and tell me to read with magazine pics or oracles - well, that didn't work for me; I DID try, when challenged !)  to the extent that I can't read the cards. I know I can't take that approach with Lenormand. That's a part of why I still struggle.

[Guest]

On 6/10/2021 at 1:16 AM, katrinka said:

A hardcore Jackson Pollock fan might be thrilled with a Pollock Lenormand and say it "resonated." But it would be a terrible reading deck. 😉

 

This made my day.

 

Going on,

On 6/10/2021 at 1:16 AM, katrinka said:

Intuition, in the true sense, is part of reading Lenormand, along with card essence and context.

 

I take it that the definition of "intuition is accumulated experience working on the subconscious level" applies here / going with that definition is strongly recommended.

[Guest]

On 6/9/2021 at 6:53 PM, treppatey said:

When looking for what makes a good deck for a reader, one often came across the phrase "A good deck is one which resonates with you".

Does the clarity mentioned in the quote above relay to the same sentiment?

Like @katrinka I do find the phrase what resonates has become redundant as so little consideration is given to the nature of the resonance.  So it is not a phrase I tend to use.

 

In contrast, clarity is more objective.  So I would say, choose a deck that is clear but also attractive to you.

Your study deck will cast a long shadow.     
 

Like most earlier students I learned with the Dondorf. It is not my primary deck. But it is the style of my primary deck: traditional emblems, landscape backgrounds, playing cards.

On 6/9/2021 at 6:53 PM, treppatey said:

To further the topic of this thread: Most of the "bunkers" seem to be explored by now, but one is still lingering. It might actually not so much be a misconception but more of a clash of opinion, yet something seemed to be off, I can not quiet put my finger on it but will expose the issue nonetheless:

It is the "intuition-thingy".

The clash is obvious: All intuition, or none at all.

Something seems to be missing in between.

If a debunk could go there, it would be much appreciated.

 

Intuition, in its highest form, is intellection. It is knowing

or understanding but without conscious reasoning.

 

That is why you don’t need signs to know your intuition is on. You know.

The card reader uses their intuition to know what those cards mean then and their for that Querent. Everything comes together. It fits. 
 

However that relies on an essential understanding of the cards, the deck and the system. Without that there is no intuition just supposition.

 

It is no different to doctors and mechanics. 

[Guest]

First things first: Thank you all for your kindness in sharing your thoughts/experiences on the matter.

 

I must admit, I thought "Now, it is complete". Not so.

Upon prowling through the "TdM-Beginners Thread", I stumbled upon something which piqued my curiosity:

On 11/24/2019 at 6:47 PM, Guest said:

We had it when the Anglos became interested in the Lenormand Oracle, too.  There was a big debate on how you do not read Lenormand like you read tarot.However, this is only true of how they read tarot.  

I believe this quote to be your writing, @timtoldrum, the curiosity-inflicting part is underlined.

So, there we have more bunking stuff, considering that Lenormand and Tarot are said to be oh so many miles apart.

Apparently, there seem to be existing bridges uniting the two, despite distinct differences.

 

Here is the question: What exactly are those bridges and where can they be found?

Knowing that might possibly make it a tad bit easier for people to incorporate both systems into their practice.

[HOLMES]

Basically  

Death is rebirth "though it doesn't mean death"  something must end for it to be so. 

 

Coffin, grave, 

Here there is no rebirth just the end. 

Though surprised with money aspect of the diamonds. Course nowdays funerals are an arm and leg. 

Looked up 9 of diamonds, one website says it spoils everything. But classic american cartomancy says gain in business.

https://cardarium.com/9-of-diamonds-meaning-in-cartomancy-and-tarot/

Course that doesn't matter if you don't pay attention to or use the playing card.

 

So the bridge is on emphasis,  do we make death into a great experience, or shall we prepare for ending of our job, money.

I tended to see the sun of tarot like the sun in lenormand anyways but the big difference between tower and falling tower,  and moon and stars 

 

Course they say you cant use reversals in lenormand but you can..just makes it harder. 

 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, treppatey said:

I believe this quote to be your writing, @timtoldrum, the curiosity-inflicting part is underlined.

So, there we have more bunking stuff, considering that Lenormand and Tarot are said to be oh so many miles apart.

Apparently, there seem to be existing bridges uniting the two, despite distinct differences.

 

Here is the question: What exactly are those bridges and where can they be found?

Knowing that might possibly make it a tad bit easier for people to incorporate both systems into their practice.

Yes; t’was me. Generally speaking, the debate concerned the dominant intellectual tradition that characterises the Anglo-American tarot practices. That is deconstruction (emphasising individual symbol rather than the image), reading cards in isolation, positional spreads, so-called intuition, belief in so-called traditional meanings (e.g. which often originate in 1960/70s) and so on.  Several well-known Tarot readers and authors were writing about the difficulties of transitioning from “Tarot to Lenormand” mindset. 

 

The Tarot is a set of playing, to which a set of trumps and excuse was added. The Petit Lenormand is a stripped deck of playing cards.  If you consider older texts on Cartomancy and the Tarot, you’ll find the techniques used in the PL: tableaus, cards in combinations (or associations), suits, multiples, counting, pairing, and so on.  

How I read the Tarot is no different to how I read the Petit Lenormand.  Like Caitlín Matthews I have been accused of turning the Tarot into the Lenormand. But the truth is that I have never divorced the Tarot from Cartomancy.  

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, HOLMES said:

Though surprised with money aspect of the diamonds. Course nowdays funerals are an arm and leg. 

Looked up 9 of diamonds, one website says it spoils everything. But classic american cartomancy says gain in business.

https://cardarium.com/9-of-diamonds-meaning-in-cartomancy-and-tarot/

Course that doesn't matter if you don't pay attention to or use the playing card.

The Coffin card’s traditional meanings included financial losses.  That was also a meaning given to death/l’arcane sans nom. Minetta read the Nine of Diamonds as below

[HOLMES]

That is revealing to me, despite my reversals, i been striving to divorce any togetherness between tarot and lenormand.

So i made the assumption it was the way to go. 

I am curious for i never directly asked you, 

How do you read the tarot tim? 

Like if you used the good old celtic cross do you put down 2 to 3 cards for a combo at every position. 

Or do you go for like a 3x3 box just easy to use the tarot that way?

I guess i am asking do you do more positional based spreads due to lenormand background can lay them out. 

Myself i found when i did a tarot reading it was easier to see them as combos flowing in a recent past life spread. 

Early in, on differnt forum i did a reading using the lenormand like tarot positions. Inspired by kipper positional spread in ciro book. 

Perhaps it isn't so much a struggle as i thought it could be once a happy bridge between the 2 is found.

 

 

[Guest]

 

1 hour ago, HOLMES said:

Perhaps it isn't so much a struggle as i thought it could be once a happy bridge between the 2 is found.

1 hour ago, timtoldrum said:

If you consider older texts on Cartomancy and the Tarot, you’ll find the techniques used in the PL: tableaus, cards in combinations (or associations), suits, multiples, counting, pairing, and so on. 
How I read the Tarot is no different to how I read the Petit Lenormand.  Like Caitlín Matthews I have been accused of turning the Tarot into the Lenormand.

But the truth is that I have never divorced the Tarot from Cartomancy.

 

If reason serves me right, then I consider it safe to assume that said bridge is to be found in the methods of classic Cartomancy ("divination by use of cards*"), beeing the root of it all.

 

*beeing brazen, I assume that if you got "the method (your personal blend of time-honoured aspects which work for you + your own insights)" down, you may well be able to read with any cards available to you, provided you have some time to familiarize yourself with them.

 

[katrinka]

2 hours ago, timtoldrum said:

Generally speaking, the debate concerned the dominant intellectual tradition that characterises the Anglo-American tarot practices. That is deconstruction (emphasising individual symbol rather than the image), reading cards in isolation, positional spreads, so-called intuition, belief in so-called traditional meanings (e.g. which often originate in 1960/70s) and so on.

 

Yes, so much this. I see so many people saying Tarot is psychological, nonpredictive, etc. And the way it's commonly used these days, that's true.
But it wasn't always like that. It can be decluttered and restored to its former glory. 🙂

The Tarot Fortune Cards (Thomson Leng) are a good example of the older style of Tarot reading. No Jung, no navel gazing, none of that. Just fortune or misfortune, people, events...I think these are much more pressing concerns than a ten minute spiel on the animus or what-have-you. It's very "Lenormand-like" because both are cartomancy.

People even say that combining cards is "reading it like Lenormand" but combinations are mentioned in a lot of older Tarot literature.

"Lenormand vs. Tarot" should be amended to "Lenormand vs. modern Tarot."

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, treppatey said:

If reason serves me right, then I consider it safe to assume that said bridge is to be found in the methods of classic Cartomancy ("divination by use of cards*"), beeing the root of it all.

That is how I see it, yes. 
 

1 hour ago, treppatey said:

*beeing brazen, I assume that if you got "the method (your personal blend of time-honoured aspects which work for you + your own insights)" down, you may well be able to read with any cards available to you, provided you have some time to familiarize yourself with them.

To a point — personally, I do believe that we cannot read every deck. There has to be some rapport between reader and deck. A meeting of temperaments. 

[Guest]

A nugget!

1 hour ago, timtoldrum said:

There has to be some rapport between reader and deck. A meeting of temperaments.

 

This clarifies the choice of deck aspect; going with what was said previously: Start out with a deck having clear images, which most of the 'Classics' do (Dondorf, Wuest, Blue Owl, Brepols - the latter two having the advantage to be well affordable), preferably with the playing card inserts.

Once familiar with the method, go for the 'click' one fulfilling the requirements quoted above.

There, we have a workable replacement for the 'resonance'-issue.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, katrinka said:

 

Yes, so much this. I see so many people saying Tarot is psychological, nonpredictive, etc. And the way it's commonly used these days, that's true.
But it wasn't always like that. It can be decluttered and restored to its former glory. 🙂

The Tarot Fortune Cards (Thomson Leng) are a good example of the older style of Tarot reading. No Jung, no navel gazing, none of that. Just fortune or misfortune, people, events...I think these are much more pressing concerns than a ten minute spiel on the animus or what-have-you. It's very "Lenormand-like" because both are cartomancy.

People even say that combining cards is "reading it like Lenormand" but combinations are mentioned in a lot of older Tarot literature.

"Lenormand vs. Tarot" should be amended to "Lenormand vs. modern Tarot."

 

Yes. If someone can accept that Tarot does not have to be à la the “New Age” one should find “transition” to PL fairly easy.
 

The difficulty in adaption was and is because of a narrow and limited understanding of cartomancy and Tarot. That’s why people say the suits are “contradictory,” why people cling to houses (it’s like a Celtic Cross), and so on. It is measured against Grey, Fenton, Dean and Pollack, &c. 

[Guest]

12 hours ago, treppatey said:

A nugget!

 

This clarifies the choice of deck aspect; going with what was said previously: Start out with a deck having clear images, which most of the 'Classics' do (Dondorf, Wuest, Blue Owl, Brepols - the latter two having the advantage to be well affordable), preferably with the playing card inserts.

Once familiar with the method, go for the 'click' one fulfilling the requirements quoted above.

There, we have a workable replacement for the 'resonance'-issue.

Yes. I started with the Dondorf pattern, which I realised as time went on created a preference for “scenic” style — trees on the House and the Paths, and so on. 
 

When I got the Carta Mundi I found I admired the Belle Époque artwork and cleaner line work. Over time, it became my primary deck — which, for me, is the deck you know best having made a direct connection. That is not an overnight achievement.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, timtoldrum said:

...the deck you know best having made a direct connection. That is not an overnight achievement.

Hmm. This "direct connection" feels like a cluster of components.

A guess would be that a part consists of "direct real life experiences", linked to the cards 'tounge', or tone in the pictorial languages,

accompagnied by  - this may sound strange, ye be warned! - some feeling of intimacy with that specific deck.

To quote Tchalaï Unger: "Knowing begins when complicity arises".

If that fits the bill, what makes up the rest of the cluster?

[Guest]

17 hours ago, HOLMES said:

How do you read the tarot tim? 

Like if you used the good old celtic cross do you put down 2 to 3 cards for a combo at every position. 

Or do you go for like a 3x3 box just easy to use the tarot that way?

I guess i am asking do you do more positional based spreads due to lenormand background can lay them out. 

When using the Celtic Cross I utilise the version in the Key to the Tarot. But I do not read it in the sequential order. I start with cards 1&2 (the heart of the matter), then 4&5 (beneath and behind - past), then I read cards 7, 8 and 9 (you, your house and hopes and fears - present) and end with 3, 6 and 10 (future).  
 

Generally, if reading the tarot, I start with the astrological wheel. I use only the trumps and Fool cards. I start with first and sixth house (health), then relationships (1st, 4th, 7th and 10th), career (1st and 10th, then 11th and 8th), finances (2nd and 8th then 12th and 6th), and so on.

 

After that, the client usually wants more information on one or two areas. For topics, I use either the Dame’s Nowl (Minetta’s star) or the Covent (Basil Ivan Rakoczi’s Coven of Thirteen, which Dawn Jackson popularised in her Hedgwytchery).
 

I use the full deck for these. 
 

For quick questions I prefer the French Cross/tirage en croix or the line of three or five. These are done with just the trumps. 

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, treppatey said:

Hmm. This "direct connection" feels like a cluster of components.

A guess would be that a part consists of "direct real life experiences", linked to the cards 'tounge', or tone in the pictorial languages,

accompagnied by  - this may sound strange, ye be warned! - some feeling of intimacy with that specific deck.

To quote Tchalaï Unger: "Knowing begins when complicity arises".

If that fits the bill, what makes up the rest of the cluster?

That is it. It is a meeting of the temperament and essence of the deck and that of the cartomante.
 

Very often it is a compliment — like traditional synastry (see John Frawley). 

Edited June 18, 2021 by Guest