Richard
I have not touched Lenormand since locking horns with Lenormand traditionalists, who do not even agree among themselves about what constitutes THE 'tradition' but insist that the differences among them are so slight as to be negligible. However, I'm sure they would all agree that I was reading a watered-down oracle deck, not the 'real' Lenormand. I was informed that the strict rule is that you 'read' neither the images nor the card titles, but use only a memorized set of keywords. Intuition is admissible only insofar as it is based on the keywords, not the images or titles. Yet, they themselves mostly use the pretty picture cards with titles instead of the truncated playing card deck presumably used by Marie Lenormand herself.
For myself, I found the Lenormand card images to be profoundly evocative and conducive to intuitive reading, but after being sternly informed that this is the wrong way to go about it (more than one expert even implying that such a reading method is, in effect, undermining the integrity of the Lenormand tradition), I put the cards away with such profound disgust that I have not touched them since.
Such a strict traditionalist attitude reminds me of the 'born again' religious extremists, who (apparently with love and concern) insist that there is only one correct belief that will save one from the fires of hell. Thank god that my god is not such a stickler for details.
I intend no disrespect to the traditionalists, of course, just bewilderment. Now I automatically associate the cards with a rigid orthodoxy (to which I am allergic on principle).
For myself, I found the Lenormand card images to be profoundly evocative and conducive to intuitive reading, but after being sternly informed that this is the wrong way to go about it (more than one expert even implying that such a reading method is, in effect, undermining the integrity of the Lenormand tradition), I put the cards away with such profound disgust that I have not touched them since.
Such a strict traditionalist attitude reminds me of the 'born again' religious extremists, who (apparently with love and concern) insist that there is only one correct belief that will save one from the fires of hell. Thank god that my god is not such a stickler for details.
I intend no disrespect to the traditionalists, of course, just bewilderment. Now I automatically associate the cards with a rigid orthodoxy (to which I am allergic on principle).