The Enchanted Lenormand Oracle - Caitlin Matthews, Art by Virginia Lee

Lotus Padma said:

And now, I must absolutely rethink getting the set, even though I hate the bubble on the cards, just so I can get the book! And this after I had finally decided it was not for me! lol!

Click to expand...

I don't like the crystal ball effect either, but I will be getting the set for the book. There are so few books about Lenormand in English, that I think this deck/set is worth getting for the book alone.

ithilgil said:

Lenormand is kind of like Futhark runes in that aspect -- lots of memorization needed.

Click to expand...

There are 'only' 36 cards you need to learn, so that's less than tarot (78 cards). Once you learn the basic meanings of the cards - which I don't think is all that difficult - then reading combinations should/will come more easily with time (without the need to refer to books).

Speaking generally, so therefore not directly aimed at you, there are many, very nice people who have offered their expertise on Lenormand for free, and esp. those who have uploaded youtube videos on the subject. Apart from actually doing a reading yourself, learning can be made a lot quicker/easier - I think - actually watching/seeing someone else do a reading. I also think that Tierney Sadler's decks - 'The Keywordy Lenormand' and 'The Deck of Lenormand Houses' are fantastic decks for anyone who is a real Lenormand beginner << I wish these decks were available when I was learning. If there was a spread cloth with the 'Deck of Lenormand Houses' layout, I would buy one.

Love the cards themselves & in some ways this book is good if you want to give spreads a go and to have an idea of key meanings as well as what she has selected as pair meanings and how she says the second card describes the first.

And even the good old GT if you want to go in depth with it only I didn't see anything about "distancing" when it comes to significant queries like "relationships". Not even as a mention. Let alone the importance of the "woman" and "man" card facing one another or not in that spread. Few other things too. However, today I could only skim over it, so will try to find the time to look at it more when I can as I may have missed it or not come across it yet.

Benefit of the doubt.

Having said that, how she connects certain things together makes no sense with the examples she gives, and I am about to find one.

PAGES 28 & 29:

1) What kind of person am I dealing with?
2) Who do I become...?
3) Who is witnessing, supporting....?
4) What kind of persona do I need to adopt...?

20 Garden 28 Man 6 Clouds 14 Fox

1) Not sure how she derives at Public Benefactor. Public YES, but not benefactor.
2) I am his YES MAN? And where does "wrong foot me" come from?
3) I don't see CLOUDS as a who, person and/or people.
4) FOX is not always cunning. Can be clever, innovative, quick witted and hard working.

So, for me, I have a bit of difficulty seeing how she strings certain examples together, and for someone not so practised I am sure it would be very confusing and a huge question mark to say the least.

DownUnderNZer said:

Having said that, how she connects certain things together makes no sense with the examples she gives, and I am about to find one.

Click to expand...

Hi DownUnder,

I agree that some of her interpretation reasoning is hard to follow. In the specific example you cite, though, this is how I see it:

Public benefactor - the "benefactor" part comes I think not from the card but from the context of the questioner's situation, where she says that her boss "exudes graciousness and likes to be seen as a benign force." So Matthews is combining that with the card's traditional meaning to come up with "public benefactor."

"Yes man" - not sure if it's the interpretation or the idiom which is puzzling you. "Yes man" is perhaps a US idiom for someone who always agrees with people who have power over them. So Matthews is essentially basing her interpretation on a verbal turn of phrase.

Clouds as people - the spread position calls for "who," so there's really no choice but to interpret it in this example as people. Here she interprets it as people who are being negative, which makes sense to me as valid given traditional meanings.

Fox as cunning - yes, she interprets Fox as cunning, but she's not saying that's the only meaning, merely how she interpreted it for this specific example reading.

That's how I see it, anyway. I have spotted places where I can't follow the reasoning, and sometimes she uses what I assume to be idiom local to her (like "wrong-foot me") which is unfamiliar to me. Also there are a few places where it seems to me she's mixed up the order of right-modifies-left examples.

I'm still greatly enjoying it and finding it to be a great catalyst for thinking about how the images relate to traditional meanings.

I really do like how you have broken that down, but still some things do not quite mesh for me.

Public benefactor I can kind of get with what you point out. And as it is about a person, her boss, fair enough.

You are right about what you say for YES MAN.

1) Didn't know it was a US idiom. 2) I do not see how it comes out as a YES MAN.


I can see what you are saying with the 3d question being a WHO and therefore the CLOUDS have to be put in that light ONLY there is nothing really there to support it being "friends", "family", "co workers"...or anyone else for that matter.

Maybe I find it a little more hard to swallow seeing the cards used in a single sense for each question yet there is more she puts into the meanings with her interpretations than there really is or are...like "wrong footed". Nothing in that card to even indicate something like that.

So, that still does not sit right with me.

And I do see how she would interpret the FOX from her own point of view in light of all the cards perhaps. I do get that.

Another example I did see and will look for later was WAY OUT there. I had to read it twice to make sure I had read it right!

But I do like how she has set it out and given spread ideas....great in that respect.

And the cards are cool.....

Lee said:

Hi DownUnder,

I agree that some of her interpretation reasoning is hard to follow. In the specific example you cite, though, this is how I see it:

Public benefactor - the "benefactor" part comes I think not from the card but from the context of the questioner's situation, where she says that her boss "exudes graciousness and likes to be seen as a benign force." So Matthews is combining that with the card's traditional meaning to come up with "public benefactor."

"Yes man" - not sure if it's the interpretation or the idiom which is puzzling you. "Yes man" is perhaps a US idiom for someone who always agrees with people who have power over them. So Matthews is essentially basing her interpretation on a verbal turn of phrase.

Clouds as people - the spread position calls for "who," so there's really no choice but to interpret it in this example as people. Here she interprets it as people who are being negative, which makes sense to me as valid given traditional meanings.

Fox as cunning - yes, she interprets Fox as cunning, but she's not saying that's the only meaning, merely how she interpreted it for this specific example reading.

That's how I see it, anyway. I have spotted places where I can't follow the reasoning, and sometimes she uses what I assume to be idiom local to her (like "wrong-foot me") which is unfamiliar to me. Also there are a few places where it seems to me she's mixed up the order of right-modifies-left examples.

I'm still greatly enjoying it and finding it to be a great catalyst for thinking about how the images relate to traditional meanings.

Click to expand...

Well, she does say that Lenormand is not usually read in a card-in-position manner, and that she's proposing this spread more as a means for helping learn the cards than a spread you would actually use to read for someone.

When you say she's putting more into the cards than are actually in them, what I'm seeing is that those elements that aren't in the cards, she's getting them from the querent. So she's combining factors from the traditional card interpretations with factors from the querent's feedback to arrive at a meaning.

For example, for "yes man," the spread position was "who do I become," and the Man appeared. Since the querent is female, she interpreted the card in a more unusual way by bringing in the "yes man" concept. It's a bit of a stretch, I think, but it does make sense in the context (He makes me behave like a man, I become a "yes man," etc.) In any case, since it's merely an exercise in getting to know the cards, I'm not sure it's worthwhile analyzing it too closely, since in a "real" reading we wouldn't have card positions like that which would force us to apply the opposite-gendered cards to ourselves.

As far as bringing in factors from the querent's situation, perhaps traditional Lenormand methods don't work this way, I don't know. Perhaps most traditional readers simply lay out the cards and read from them with no input from the querent. I'd be interested to hear others' input on this question.

Will have another flick through it later today to see if more unravels ...

Lee said:

Well, she does say that Lenormand is not usually read in a card-in-position manner, and that she's proposing this spread more as a means for helping learn the cards than a spread you would actually use to read for someone.

When you say she's putting more into the cards than are actually in them, what I'm seeing is that those elements that aren't in the cards, she's getting them from the querent. So she's combining factors from the traditional card interpretations with factors from the querent's feedback to arrive at a meaning.

For example, for "yes man," the spread position was "who do I become," and the Man appeared. Since the querent is female, she interpreted the card in a more unusual way by bringing in the "yes man" concept. It's a bit of a stretch, I think, but it does make sense in the context (He makes me behave like a man, I become a "yes man," etc.) In any case, since it's merely an exercise in getting to know the cards, I'm not sure it's worthwhile analyzing it too closely, since in a "real" reading we wouldn't have card positions like that which would force us to apply the opposite-gendered cards to ourselves.

As far as bringing in factors from the querent's situation, perhaps traditional Lenormand methods don't work this way, I don't know. Perhaps most traditional readers simply lay out the cards and read from them with no input from the querent. I'd be interested to hear others' input on this question.

Click to expand...

Back to this.....looked at it a wee bit more.

DownUnderNZer said:

Love the cards themselves & in some ways this book is good if you want to give spreads a go and to have an idea of key meanings as well as what she has selected as pair meanings and how she says the second card describes the first.

And even the good old GT if you want to go in depth with it only I didn't see anything about "distancing" when it comes to significant queries like "relationships". Not even as a mention. Let alone the importance of the "woman" and "man" card facing one another or not in that spread. Few other things too. However, today I could only skim over it, so will try to find the time to look at it more when I can as I may have missed it or not come across it yet.

Benefit of the doubt.

Having said that, how she connects certain things together makes no sense with the examples she gives, and I am about to find one.

PAGES 28 & 29:

1) What kind of person am I dealing with?
2) Who do I become...?
3) Who is witnessing, supporting....?
4) What kind of persona do I need to adopt...?

20 Garden 28 Man 6 Clouds 14 Fox

1) Not sure how she derives at Public Benefactor. Public YES, but not benefactor.
2) I am his YES MAN? And where does "wrong foot me" come from?
3) I don't see CLOUDS as a who, person and/or people.
4) FOX is not always cunning. Can be clever, innovative, quick witted and hard working.

So, for me, I have a bit of difficulty seeing how she strings certain examples together, and for someone not so practised I am sure it would be very confusing and a huge question mark to say the least.

Click to expand...

Reading it more she does acknowledge Lenormand are not usually considered individually, but does go on to say it is good to practise to learn the characteristics of individual cards. Fair enough and I feel it is good to know the basics of each card. It is essential. And although she suggests using ones own current situation on Page 28 she uses an example of someone else, and as I see it, a person about to be contracted to a "new firm" so really this person has no idea about her up and coming boss. A complete new situation. My understanding of the scenario.


28 MAN card -

On reading her page on "MAN - 28" there is nothing in the description to show me how she would get YES MAN, so that is her own twist on it for sure, and nothing about "wrong footing" or "making a person feel compromised because of taking on the characteristics of the MAN" even with her SELECTED PAIRS.

And as she is doing "individual cards" for each question I will stay with that, but will just say on the side that not even the cards read in pairs or a square would come up with what she has interpreted.

Don't see the basics or connection to what she is putting across.

Plus the question says: 2) Who do I become in this situation?

To me that is more along the lines of "advise".

And yet she stipulates that Kate is feeling less than because she is made to behave like a man and that her boss is wrong footing her etc.

It doesn't address the question properly and is not about the individual card really at all.

I would think it would be advising Kate to take on the characteristics of a MAN and because it is about WORK....a "business man".

I would think:

To be methodical, to use logic, be organised, to take on leadership skills when it comes to her position, to have more of hard shell if too soft etc, etc, etc.

That does keep to the basics, does not side step too much, and it keeps to the question.

I am wondering if learners would get it more with how I have just answered it than how she has gone about and done it.

If I don't get how she threads cards together - how would learners get it. And I am not an absolute beginner of the Lenormand.

DownUnderNZer said:

And although she suggests using ones own current situation on Page 28 she uses an example of someone else, and as I see it, a person about to be contracted to a "new firm" so really this person has no idea about her up and coming boss. A complete new situation. My understanding of the scenario.

Click to expand...

I guess I was assuming that she wasn't coming to the new firm as a complete stranger -- I assumed she would have met and interviewed with the boss, and they would have discussed his expectations of her and her own goals. It doesn't say that though, so I could be wrong, although it's hard to imagine going to work for a company when one hasn't met with the person who would be one's superior.

Plus the question says: 2) Who do I become in this situation?

To me that is more along the lines of "advise".

Click to expand...

I read the position as meaning "Who do I in fact become," in other words describing what's happening, while your reading is more like "Who should I become." You could be right, I guess it depends on how you read it.

Regarding the Man card, frankly, I see the Man and Woman cards as simply placeholders indicating a man or a woman, with no other intrinsic interpretive value, so it's hard for me to even consider them in an interpretive light. In this case, if I were going to do this exercise, I would have removed the Man and Woman cards before starting, just to avoid this sort of tangle.

You know, it feels like a Tarot feel with these spreads in how they are structured and how she interprets.

What you have touched on about the MAN & WOMAN is kind of interesting as they are key cards or significators, so really would it have been better to take them out or had one of them on the wings as the person in question.

And if you read Q2 in the way you did and me in another way....then obviously it is not clear.

Lee said:

I guess I was assuming that she wasn't coming to the new firm as a complete stranger -- I assumed she would have met and interviewed with the boss, and they would have discussed his expectations of her and her own goals. It doesn't say that though, so I could be wrong, although it's hard to imagine going to work for a company when one hasn't met with the person who would be one's superior.

I read the position as meaning "Who do I in fact become," in other words describing what's happening, while your reading is more like "Who should I become." You could be right, I guess it depends on how you read it.

Regarding the Man card, frankly, I see the Man and Woman cards as simply placeholders indicating a man or a woman, with no other intrinsic interpretive value, so it's hard for me to even consider them in an interpretive light. In this case, if I were going to do this exercise, I would have removed the Man and Woman cards before starting, just to avoid this sort of tangle.

Click to expand...

Here's a nice video review of the deck AND BOOK by Donnaleigh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhsMkQHlPwo