Rules of Lenormand

andybc said:

There is no such thing as a 'work' or a 'sex' card, as in one card...

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I am new to Lenormand, but what I have learned so far is that assigning meanings to cards such as... as you state... a 'work' or 'sex' or any other designation, works best when creating significator/focus cards when laying a Grand Tableau.

There are times when I read the Fox as pertaining to how one supports their family and the Whip as sex, but only if it fits with the question asked. For example: Someone told me once they were not having sex with a certain someone. I suspected they were and asked the cards. When the Whip popped up and I pointed it out, the person admitted to having sex with the certain someone. :-D

Village Witch said:

I am new to Lenormand, but what I have learned so far is that assigning meanings to cards such as... as you state... a 'work' or 'sex' or any other designation, works best when creating significator/focus cards when laying a Grand Tableau.

There are times when I read the Fox as pertaining to how one supports their family and the Whip as sex, but only if it fits with the question asked. For example: Someone told me once they were not having sex with a certain someone. I suspected they were and asked the cards. When the Whip popped up and I pointed it out, the person admitted to having sex with the certain someone. :-D

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The Petit Lenormand cards can be divided into several themes, which we these days, we refer to as love, work, finances et cetera. Our earliest instructions never mention work or sex, although they are alluded to in various manners. The themes can comprise two to four cards, on average.

If you’re doing a Grand Tableau and you want to look at someone’s love life, you would, at least traditionally, look to the love theme cards. Traditionally these would be the partner-card, Heart, Ring and Anchor and how they have fallen in relation to the significator. That gives them their first testimony.

Then this is elaborated or given greater detail by what they touch. It has only become popular in the last decade or so to just look at one card. As for the Whips, traditionally they have nothing to do with sex. But whatever you use it is never about ONE card. This is a construct system.

Village Witch said:

I am new to Lenormand, but what I have learned so far is that assigning meanings to cards such as... as you state... a 'work' or 'sex' or any other designation, works best when creating significator/focus cards when laying a Grand Tableau.

There are times when I read the Fox as pertaining to how one supports their family and the Whip as sex, but only if it fits with the question asked. For example: Someone told me once they were not having sex with a certain someone. I suspected they were and asked the cards. When the Whip popped up and I pointed it out, the person admitted to having sex with the certain someone. :-D

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I sometimes find it hard to put reliance on the significance of individual cards behind me, too. I've finally learned that it's all about context and patterns. We seem to be in a growing state of flux where the modern perception of "not enough keywords" (or maybe "not precise enough keywords") is evolving into one of "too many keywords," often with fanciful correspondences that try to shoehorn modern psychological themes and/or social mores into the original system to create more of a "pop" oracle. Anyone with a lengthy exposure to modern tarot literature and practice commonly brings that kind of baggage with them, I think. It can be challenging to avoid becoming a "pigeon-holer" with every possible nuance of life (work, home, family, health, love, sex, finances, travel, communication, emotion, creativity, social opportunity, and so on) neatly tagged and filed away with its appropriate card. But I can see where pre-selecting a focus card other than the Man or Woman for a given question could place you in a tough spot without a ready-made point of reference to fall back on.

Barleywine:

Of course individual cards are significant and carry their own meaning, even though context is important. And yes, there are way too many keywords for cards. That is why readers tend to make so many mistakes. They don't know which meaning to apply within the context of the question and spread. I only use about 3 key words for each card.

I've always advocated two or three keywords.

But, before that, they need to also know the themes cards belong to, as well as their core essence. The Fish basic essence symbolises affluence when close and austerity when far. That's all you need to remember most of time, as anybody can make that essence fit and make sense in love, finances, health. The best source for this is the Philippe Lenormand sheet (which I think Izzydunne had a phobia of last time it was mentioned).

Barleywine is right that pattern and formation is overlooked in a system where multiple testimonies matter.

Individual meanings first, then family of cards after that. You need to know an individual's nature before you understand his environment.

And no I am not phobic (afraid) of the Philippe Lenormand sheet, I just don't give it much weight. Here is a rather interesting quote from a respected website:

"You have, no doubt, heard about the original LWB by Philippe Le Normand. Heir to
Mme Le Normand, that was dated c.1848. Actually, she dies heiress and the attribution was no doubt a sales ploy. But the page probably contains the first directions to accompany the cards that bear Mlle Lenormand's name.

Izzydunne said:

Here is a rather interesting quote from a respected website:

"You have, no doubt, heard about the original LWB by Philippe Le Normand. Heir to
Mme Le Normand, that was dated c.1848. Actually, she dies heiress and the attribution was no doubt a sales ploy. But the page probably contains the first directions to accompany the cards that bear Mlle Lenormand's name.

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I assume that was "she died heirless." Regardless of challenges to the ancestral legitimacy of the PL sheet and questions of opportunistic profiteering, it's probably as close as we're ever going to get to crawling inside Mlle. Lenormand's head, or at least inside her immediate legacy. (I understand that her own written works were largely self-promotion and not "teaching" texts.) Personally, I find it an interesting and instructive artifact that laid the blueprint for the traditional methodology that's still in use. I for one have yet to acquire the knack for "standing on thin air," so I appreciate as much of an at least nominally pristine historical foundation as I can get. But I have been wondering . . . couldn't anyone from Normandy properly be called "the Norman?" It seems more like a descriptive title than a true surname. "Phillipe the Norman" could have been anybody.

We're the reader, it's the tool.

I personally follow what I consider fairly traditional meanings and give each card few choices. But the layout, how we decide which card will mean what, and there are differences of opinions there as well, even among traditionalists, there are different schools of thought, literally, well, how we read layout matters obviously.

As far as "rules", even among traditionalists, there are some variations. Although I found the meanings of each individual card, for the most part, fairly similar among different schools, different readers, it was how a reader read the spread, which card stood for what, where the differences showed up more.

I think those who are somewhat traditional readers, even if they may not read EXACTLY the same, can understand how another traditional reader may have arrived at their reading.

If someone is totally an intuitive reader, and I am not saying anything pro or con about that and opening up that can of worms, but is someone totally marches to their drummer, I would think another reader who reads more traditionally, may have a problem seeing how they got to their reading.

As to why some people don't follow "rules", sometimes they may, just not the ones we follow or sometimes because they feel they do better reading intuitively. I really don't know, all readers are different.

To me, Lenormand is more about the deck, than EXACTLY how one may read it because there is more than one set of "rules" or schools. I like having a structure to the cards, I think they read like a book, others may not or follow a different structure.


In the end, I only care how I read and if my sitters feel they get something of value from the reading.

greatdane said:

As far as "rules", even among traditionalists, there are some variations. Although I found the meanings of each individual card, for the most part, fairly similar among different schools, different readers, it was how a reader read the spread, which card stood for what, that made a difference.

I think those who are somewhat traditional readers, even if they may not read EXACTLY the same, can understand how another traditional reader may have arrived at their reading.

If someone is totally an intuitive reader, and I am not saying anything pro or con about that and opening up that can of worms, but is someone totally marches to their drummer, I would think another reader who reads more traditionally, may have a problem seeing how they got to their reading.

In the end, I only care how I read and if my sitters feel they get something of value from the reading.

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Interesting, and I think Andy was talking in much the same vein. But I thought what mattered was reaching the querent with our observations and not an "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" cartomancers'-convention encounter with other readers. In that sense, whether or not you're a purist would seem to be irrelevant as long as you get through effectively. Still, I like the quasi-tradition as it stands and don't embellish it much in practice.

Barleywine

I certainly wasn't suggesting that there is, or should be an....I'll show you mine if you show me yours...scenario. Merely that generally traditional readers, those who follow even a loose structure of one of the schools of thought for Lenormand, likely would get another traditional reader's reading more so than they would someone reading strictly intuitively.

I say this because when I have watched some other readers on youtube, even if I didn't read exactly as they did, I understood at how they arrived at their reading because they followed a pattern, ascribing certain meanings to the cards and reading a spread in a certain way.

Lenormand, to me, seems pretty straightforward once you decide the meanings you will ascribe to each card and how you will read the spread.

And I mentioned in the post I believe it is what the sitter is left with that is important, not really how we arrive at it.

I do love Lenormand, although I don't see it as in competition with tarot, I see them so differently. It is interesting reading these dialogues about it and thanks for starting a great thread.