Working Magick with Lenormand

[WizardintheWoods]

Hello All,

 

So working with Tarot and Magick or the Arte is well known to most of us. I am now wondering how Lenormand could also be used in working?  Have you done this and if so do you have a method you would suggest?  
 

My go to would be with the correct candle, herbs and stone but ??? As I have not tried this but I am pondering it, I would love your input. 

 

Moderators please feel free to move this if I am posting to the incorrect forum. 

Edited November 22, 2021 by WizardintheWoods

[DanielJUK]

You posted in exactly the correct place about it @WizardintheWoods 🙂

[katrinka]

I wouldn't suggest going all Crowley "Magick and the Arte" with it, but it can be incorporated in hoodoo/folk magic. It can be as simple as incorporating the cards for what you want to happen into the working. You could even print card images on paper so your nice decks don't get candle wax, condition oils, etc. on them. The paper cards can be rolled up and added to mojo bags, burned, put in your shoe, buried...anything appropriate to the working, really. 

 

 

[Sadewa]

Personally I have never used the cards in active workings.

However, I did read in Hedgewytch's blog that she uses playing cards in active workings. She would take out the trio that represents her goal and chant something like "By the power of wytchery" over it. But, then again, the Hedgewytch method is unlike lenormand, for it has spiritual associations and magickal inclinations integrated into it from the very beginning, while Lenormand started out as a creation purely for sale. So there are tricky nuances that may need taking into consideration if you wish for appropriation.

 

[selena]

I use the Lenormand Oracle cards for magic. 
 

To some extent the how will be informed or determined by approach. As an astrologer I will sometimes use the planets’ days and hours. But it can be as simple as putting down three cards to signify an opportunity to increase my salary (clover, bear, fish), and burning an appropriate candle and incense for Jupiter, on Thursday. 
 

I keep a deck just for magic. But I have also scanned the cards and printed them to use for a talisman or to use as a sigil much like @katrinka.

 

You can also ask the cards for help - throw a GT, look around the card that best signifies your goal and see what is there. 
 

 

 

Edited November 23, 2021 by selena
Typo

[katrinka]

1 hour ago, selena said:

You can also ask the cards for help - throw a GT, look around the card that best signifies your goal and see what is there. 

Yes, exactly!
The cards can help you decide on what kind of working to do, what to use. You have cards that signify herbs, stones, containers, various locations, etc.

[selena]

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

Yes, exactly!
The cards can help you decide on what kind of working to do, what to use. You have cards that signify herbs, stones, containers, various locations, etc.

 

Yes. I find the Lenormand Oracle works quite well at this level. The Lenormand Oracle cards easily crystallise concepts which can be read on several levels. In use for sympathetic magic, you are often just looking for something tangible that shares the appropriate “essence” or core required. So the Clover card is herbs or even soil. 

[WizardintheWoods]

Thank you @selenaand @katrinka  I already have a deck out aside just for this type of use and I will start to make images form it to work Gris grid bags and such with. Candle colors and incense I am very familiar with so that is easy, since I have always run in the opposite direction of astrology, that not so much 🤣. 

[selena]

4 hours ago, WizardintheWoods said:

Thank you @selenaand @katrinka  I already have a deck out aside just for this type of use and I will start to make images form it to work Gris grid bags and such with. Candle colors and incense I am very familiar with so that is easy, since I have always run in the opposite direction of astrology, that not so much 🤣. 

Believe it or not, I tried to run, but Mercury is faster. I stood no chance.
 

Technically, you don’t need to know much about astrology to use planetary days or hours. Just the basics significations. Plus, as John Frawley says, if you give your lover roses and chocolates (Venus) you’re hoping to raise their “Venus-levels.”

 

But use what you know. Your intent and clarity is more important than school of thought. 

[katrinka]

Yes. Don't try to overthink these things. Things like planetary days and hours are good. But trying to get every little aspect just right can mean never getting around to doing anything. It can get contradictory quickly, especially for a non-astrologer. (Mercury quite possibly passed me by in his pursuit of Selena, lol.) I might look up the proper day and hour, only to find that the moon is waning. I'm not looking for advice here. In such cases I just do the working anyway. If it's meant to work, it will.

There's a LOT of methods people use, and many don't even rely on astrology. One very simple old convention is to start when the clock is going up, e.g, 12:31 to 12:59, for increase and drawing things. For getting rid of something, start when the clock is going down, like from 1:00 to 1:30. That's a good one to know when you need to do something ASAP. 😉

 

Folk magic is very different from "Magick & the Arte", lol. I found this wonderful quote from Cat Yronwode saved in my notes:

"Sun rise and Sun set, and Moon cycles too, are astrological in the broadest sense, but their role in hoodoo does not derive from what we normally call "astrology," that is, the symbolism of the movements of the stars or planets, ala Babylonian, Renaissance, Vedic, or Modern astrology.
The strong emphasis on times like Sun rise and Sun set in hoodoo has ancient African antecendents and world-wide distribution. It is probably the most important form of timing found in hoodoo.
The use of the New Moon ("Change of the Moon") for spell casting is found world-wide as well, but is particularly emphasized in Cherokee calendar-making and ritual work. Since Cherokee folk magic contributed strongly to the development of conjure, we find many of the best workers in our tradition, both historical and modern, speaking of "working by the Moon."
In the oldest times "working by the Moon," meant only working by the Moon's cycles. Since the 19th century, with the popularity of farmer's and druggist's almanacs, the term can also include working by the Moon's sign, which is truly an "astrological" working -- but not everyone uses those words to mean that, and most people still referring to only the earlier definition when they say that they are "working by the Moon."

 

If you look at the underpinnings of all that, it's a kind of simple, sympathetic magic: things go up or down, they appear bigger or smaller, so it makes sense to work according to that.

Edited November 24, 2021 by katrinka

[selena]

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

But trying to get every little aspect just right can mean never getting around to doing anything.

This. 100%. When I say I (sometimes) use the planetary days and hours I am not doing elections. Although I studied them, I’m not convinced of their efficacy. I will literarily just consider the day and hour, 99% of the time. It is purely folk magic.

 

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

I might look up the proper day and hour, only to find that the moon is waning. I'm not looking for advice here. In such cases I just do the working anyway. If it's meant to work, it will.

Lol. On an astrology board, you’d have got about 20 contradictory answers. 

 

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

There's a LOT of methods people use, and many don't even rely on astrology. One very simple old convention is to start when the clock is going up, e.g, 12:31 to 12:59, for increase and drawing things. For getting rid of something, start when the clock is going down, like from 1:00 to 1:30. That's a good one to know when you need to do something ASAP. 😉

I’ve used both clock times and daylight savings times. 
 

cat yarnwode raises some interesting points but it is worth remembering sect (rise and set) is part of the core of horoscopic astrology.

 

 

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

If you look at the underpinnings of all that, it's a kind of simple, sympathetic magic: things go up or down, they appear bigger or smaller, so it makes sense to work according to that.

100%. 
 

 

[katrinka]

11 minutes ago, selena said:

Lol. On an astrology board, you’d have got about 20 contradictory answers. 

 

I'm sure that's true. I've had a look at a few of those boards.  🤣


 

11 minutes ago, selena said:

cat yarnwode raises some interesting points but it is worth remembering sect (rise and set) is part of the core of horoscopic astrology.

 

True.
She probably meant "things you can see in the sky rather than looking them up" or something along those lines. It's still astrology, but you don't need an ephemeris.

 

[selena]

20 minutes ago, katrinka said:

True.
She probably meant "things you can see in the sky rather than looking them up" or something along those lines. It's still astrology, but you don't need an ephemeris.

Yes; that makes sense.
 

28 minutes ago, katrinka said:

I'm sure that's true. I've had a look at a few of those boards.  🤣

Yes. It’s can be a journey down a rabbit hole …

[WizardintheWoods]

Thank you both again. I have always practiced a more basic form of the Craft which bases mostly around moon phases for timing and the planetary days of the week which I do know a bit about. That along with the herbs, candle type/shape/color and incense has always worked well for me. I am looking forward to, after my surgery my first working with these and a Lenormand focus. Again thank you I do appreciate all of this input !