I long ago came to the conclusion that america acts like a big filter that dumbs everything down. Recently, this was reinforced by something totally unrelated to Lenormand: I moved last month, so I’ve been digging into feng shui resources, googling, talking to people, hauling out the books. Although I’m a little skeptical that putting the bed directly under the ceiling fan will result in “cutting energy”, making people fight with their housemates, I arranged the place according to specs anyway and I’m glad I did. What you end up with is an uncluttered, easy-to-clean living space with a relaxing ambience and some interesting little characters here and there:

Now, in feng shui, (unlike Lenormand, in spite of continual yammering online to the contrary) there are pretty clearly defined schools, and different sources will tell you different things, adding subschools and whatnot, but very basically, they are these:

The Form School, which is the oldest. It’s exactly what it sounds like, taking form into account. For instance, if you live on a hillside, you want the higher ground BEHIND the house, for support. If the higher ground is in front, every time you go out the front door, you’re going to see “OBSTACLE”, which can be detrimental on a psychological level, even if you don’t believe in “blocked chi”. So that makes a lot of sense.

Next you have the Compass School, which came later. It utilizes those bagua maps, you divide your living space into sections according to the compass directions and they correspond to career, love, etc. So if your finances aren’t so good, the idea is to look at that part of the house, make sure there’s no dust, clutter, or pointy things, and maybe put a cure there, like a faceted crystal or a nice jade plant. It’s actually more complex than that, but you get the idea.

The third school, which started maybe forty years ago, is called the Black Hat School, or BTB (Black Sect Tantric Buddhist). It was invented by Grandmaster Lin Yun and brought to the US in the 80’s and uses the bagua, but not the compass. The bagua is oriented to the entryway. No matter which direction the main door faces, the BTB bagua will always be placed with the center of the facing wall being considered as the Fame and Reputation area (which is the south area in the Compass School.)

Now, I am not here to diss Tantric Buddhists. AT ALL. I’m sure it was an act of compassion to devise an easier, more “intuitive” feng shui school for people who are confused by the older, more traditional schools. And although I don’t use BTB, I’m guessing it works as well as the others.

The problems come in when you tell blissninny american new agers, many of whom can’t read a compass, but are irresistibly drawn to things like feng shui, that something is “intuitive”. A quick google will turn up a lot of writing where people interpret that as “Do whatever you wanna do!” Once you haul your TV and your office into the bedroom, it’s not feng shui anymore – not even BTB feng shui, which is not devoid of complexity – and putting wind chimes and Pu Tai figurines all over the place doesn’t change that. (I can hear the new agers screeching now: “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH MY HOUSE!!!!!” lol)

Are you seeing the parallels to Lenormand yet?

A tradition from across the ocean – no, wait, scratch that, they do it to Native Americans too:

Remember those Robert Bly “Men’s Weekends”?

…and a few of us trying to study it. In peace.

And always, always, a bunch of new agers try to muscle in so they can SHIT ALL OVER IT.

To borrow a phrase from Doktor Howl, “They are the people of the flattened DNA helix. We must leave them behind, if there is to be any hope at all for our species.”

Christine Daae didn’t get a reading from me on her new man, and look how THAT turned out! Don’t end up like Christine Daae, contact me for a reading! Now! :D

Happy Halloween/Dias de los Muertos/Samhain ~ the veil is said to be thin, might be the perfect time to get a reading! Cost of living dictates that I’ll have to raise prices soon, so now’s the time to grab an email reading from my Etsy shop here https://www.etsy.com/shop/FortuneTellingLady

Or if you don’t want to wait for my typing, you can set up a phone reading from my main page.

http://fennario.wordpress.com

Just use the paypal button, or if you have questions, there’s a contact form there, too. Happy All Hallows!

Le Fanu’s Lilac Dondorf Lenormand by Lauren Forestell

I like decks made by readers.

There’s reasons for this. You’ve probably heard it said many times that beginners should learn Lenormand with a traditional deck. But as the years go by, you’ll find yourself relying on certain conventions. You’ll probably find yourself preferring a deck with workable facing directions, and you’ll certainly find it easier to locate a card in the Grand Tableau if the images are uncluttered. Maybe you’ll want the playing card insets long after you’ve learned which are the people cards, because sometimes you feel like using Etteilla’s multiples. I still prefer traditional decks. I always will.

Most of the people making self-published decks aren’t really readers, and so they can’t produce a deck that functions as a reading tool. It’s all about THEIR “innovation” and “creativity”, i.e., their own little ego time, and this, coupled with the fact that most of them are novices (and will remain novices, due to willful ignorance) makes for some extremely dysfunctional decks. The big publishers aren’t immune to it either. People on amazon are saying that Lo Scarabeo’s latest Dondorf reproduction has roughly the same dimensions as a Tarot deck. I won’t be seating clients on the floor in order to read their Grand Tableaus, and so won’t be purchasing that one. Ever.

The older Lenormands are small and for the most part, very readable. I love reproductions, and I’m starting to see them with those wonderful linen (cambric) finishes that make them handle like my beloved Bulldog Squeezers. The first linen repro I got was the Vintage Altenburger. I like it, but it’s kind of murky, and the whole deck has a nicotine yellow tint like the walls in those downtown saloons where the old farts play dominoes. I much prefer it to the saccharine-twee crap that’s vogue these days, but the images don’t really pop. It’s a lot better than those collage things, but it still takes a couple of extra beats to locate a card in a GT.

I’ve always liked Dondorf. I’ve worn out a couple of copies of “French” Cartomancy and a Königsfurt, and my current purse deck is Lauren Forestell’s Purple Dragon. (For months, I resisted it, until I was sure there were no licensing issues with her Game of Hope Lenormand. And I’d like to publicly redact and apologize for anything I may have written during that time. The rumor started when some clown at the British Museum who was not involved the transaction fueled Katz’s attack on her. I have since been satisfied that she DID purchase the rights. I’ve also been informed that Katz never apologized. He’s apparently content to smear someone’s rep KNOWING that it’s bullshit, and make an ass out of everyone who gives him the benefit of the doubt. Well, I won’t be falling into that one again. Kamp Katz, take note.

I like my Purple Dragon a lot. But I’ve been lusting for after a linen finish Dondorf since 2005 or so – if only somebody would print it!

Le Fanu’s Lilac Dondorf Lenormand by Lauren Forestell delivered the goods and more. It’s standard Lenormand size, and the print quality is so good that you can make out the dark side of the Clouds. Prior to Lauren’s repros, you needed an actual antique Dondorf to see that. Dondorf lithography is the stuff of legend. The Lady has been flipped so that she can face the Man (or not), it’s a copy of the FIRST Dondorf with the old color scheme – Rider on a grey horse, etc., and the backs are just stunning. It even comes in a tin printed with the back design:

The only nod to “new” Lenormand would be the extra Man and Woman cards, which of course can be removed if you use the Rider and Snake as the male and female lover cards, respectively. And it’s a small gesture of support in a backwards era that still denies gay people basic civil rights, so this is the one modernization you’ll never hear me griping about.

There’s a story behind this deck, it all started when Le Fanu (who has some kind of amazing juju, or an eagle eye that brings him the most awesome things from virtual junkyards like ebay and flea markets) acquired a Lilac Dondorf, Variation #1.

Later (probably when the shock wore off, lol) Lauren tweaked the images and printed a small run of decks. She has a great instinct for what needs to be fixed, and what needs to be left as is.
She READS LENORMAND, so she understands that form can be beautiful, but it has to follow function.

The Lilac is a limited edition, and alas and alack, it’s sold out now. But her next one will be the C.L. Wüst, and she’s taking pre-orders. You can also find other great decks, all repros, some in both standard and mini sizes, and some ace tins. Her online store is HERE. And it rocks. :D

This is from the Tarotholics group on facebook, but they’re by no means the only ones – Aeclectic Tarot, Lenormand Cards Study Group, and numerous smaller places all follow a predictable pattern. Here is a classic example. (I’ve blacked out all the names for privacy reasons, but I’m the one with the yellow Benny Lava profile pic.) Observe:

First of all, a noob posts a seemingly innocuous question. In this case, it was “What crystals will greatly assist learning the Tarot?”

This is generally answered with common sense – in this case, several of us said that none of them do, you can only learn things through study and practice.

Then the new agers predictably start to roll up and express butthurt that anyone dare suggest that rocks can’t teach people how to read cards. At this point, if you don’t allow them to cow you, banning is probably a matter of minutes, so have fun with it and go down in a blaze of glory:

Here comes the “MEAN” and “RUDE” accusations. PM’s are flying by now. “THEY QUESTIONED MY DELUSIONS!” You can’t see it, but they’re PM’img their friends to come dogpile you, they’re PMimg admin saying how you hurt their widdle fee-fees.

Often, their lingo needs a bit of translating:

If you haven’t noticed, no one has shown any substantial evidence that Tarot can be learned from rocks. All I’ve seen is insistence that there’s “no right or wrong” and variations on “If you don’t agree, STFU.” :lol:

Oh, wait, here comes the “LALALALALA NOT LISTENING” ploy!

Ah, here comes the censorship board to stifle the voice of reason, lol:

After that, she attempted to turn it around by saying “DID YOU JUST TELL ME TO STFU?” (This is the person who was just bragging about their reading comprehension). I saw it in my notifications, but when I tried to click back over to the group, I already had my cool ban jacket:

And that, my friends, is why you can’t learn anything at most of these online forums. They’re OK for sport if you’re bored, but people who are functionally sane and actually know how to read cards are usually long gone from these venues. :lol:

It’s been awhile since I posted any Grand Jeu, so here’s a short reading I did. Sharing with permission from the friend/client who is also a reader (identifying information removed, of course), so I’ve used some abbreviations: SI is “small illustration”, LI is “large illustration, and of course there are abbreviations for the playing card insets: 10H, 2S and KH.

Grand Jeu readings are available here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/169985182/one-issuequestion-with-details-grand-jeu?

Forecast for January, 10H, 2S and KH. Looks good, Hearts are in the majority and referring to home and emotional matters, but with a rough patch about midmonth from the Spade. It’s a low-ranking Spade, though, and not all that powerful. You have a mix of Marriage, the Trojan War, and the Unexpected cards here, so no overarching theme. Fortuna Minor, however, does appear twice and this is important. Small good fortune, things happen quickly. You’ll have to work hard, but it promises a good outcome. Possible abuse of power, but if you’re queasy about bad luck, don’t be, you’re protected. Help from other people amid all the changes.

Your first card is an alchemy card, talking about relationships, your guy. He’s looking at the retort and seems very satisfied, he’s happy with you. You can see the gold forming in the retort. The SI Right shows a lady embroidering, he admires your industry and your artistry. 10H with the 2S, he respects your wisdom, too, and comes to you with his problems. I don’t like the way the embroidering lady is sitting by the SI Left on the 2S, though. That’s about spite and revenge, the Saturn talisman is no joke. So it could happen that somebody tries to cause problems in the relationship out of malice. With the LI, the Greek princes consulting Calchas, seek advice if this happens. (Calchas was a seer, by the way, so seeking advice from the cards would be appropriate.) This is the spite referred to by Fortuna Minor. You can overcome it, but it will take some effort on your part.

The 2S, again, is central and underlines the importance of sound advice during this period. (It looks like an exceptionally accurate phase for readings, too – don’t hesitate to go with bold predictions.) The shield, swords and spear on the SI Right says again that someone is hostile towards you. With the Laws of Solon on the SI Left of the KH, the situation will be resolved fairly (if you’re not familiar with the Laws of Solon, read up on them here http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1580359/Solons-laws ). With the LI, the old scholar, wisdom and prudence will carry you through in business as well as personal matters. And KH in the results month.

I don’t see anything in this spread relating to children and so don’t foresee any pressing issues with your son, things should be OK there.

Your constellations are La Coupe, Castor, and Le Triangle, respectively. La Coupe is a cup, or crater (some people associate it with the Grail), with a hydra guarding it from a dishonest crow. So it’s a very nice constellation, but with a warning to keep things on the up and up:

Castor and Pollux are Gemini – that might be relevant. Castor is the mortal twin famous for his skill in taming and managing horses. (The immortal Twin is Pollux.) Now if you consider horse training, it’s about getting an animal that weighs a couple of thousand pounds to do your bidding. I think this says that “size” (or power) can be bettered by smarts. Good to keep in mind when dealing with bosses or bureaucracies.

Your last constellation, the Southern Triangle can be interpreted as the Trinity or the Three Patriarchs, with the scholar on the large image and next to Calchas on the neighboring card, it shows you’ve got some intelligent and somewhat powerful men looking on you favorably. Good for dealing with authority. The alpha star of the constellation is called Atria, suggesting an atrium, a hall or entrance, or large open space in a building, usually with a glass roof. This could be referring to a literal atrium, or it may just be suggestive of being able to come and go, and a big place full of sunlight that’s still protected from the elements, in other words, the best of both worlds. I think this spread ends well.

The flowers, according to Didier, are violet, seringat, rose of May, sempervivum, ribes, melostoma, lily of the valley, marshmallow, cherry leaves and fruits. I’ve read that Mlle. Lenormand used to prescribe the flowers in much the way a rootworker prescribes workings with various herbs, as something to rid oneself of bad conditions and draw good ones. So it would be beneficial to keep some of these around, wear them as essential oils, etc. during this period. Of course I don’t know that Didier has identified them all correctly, but some of them do seem to match, particularly the cherries.

Learning Lenormand requires sifting through a lot of information, and most of it is very flawed, to say the least. So to (hopefully) save a few people from making these common mistakes, I’m going to list a few things people are prone to falling into.

Everything the cat dragged in

In the very early days, I walked right into this one. I collected meanings from various websites and countries. My early readings were mud, and I had to unlearn a lot of stuff. So…don’t.

Start with ONE set of meanings, any set that makes sense to you – French, Dutch, German – and stick with it. Get a SOLID foundation. After a few years when you’re familiar with the symmetry of the system, you can expand it a bit, add more secondary meanings, more nuance.

Borrowing a meaning from a region other than the one you’re using can throw the whole thing off. For instance, I use German, where the Bear tends to be male. Other variants see it as female. But if I go so far as to call the Bear “mom” and I already use the Snake for that, where is mom in the GT? It would be like jamming extra, incompatible parts into a car. The only way to make it work would be to totally switch over to those meanings and scrap mine.

Lenormand is perfectly balanced. It’s genius – don’t screw it up. :D

You have all the meanings inside you

That one makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Images of dogs and houses and fish may evoke ideas, but that’s not the Lenormand method. PAMs (personally assigned meanings) will ruin your accuracy. I see this every day in groups, a lot of people INSIST on PAMs. They get their interpretations from “intuition” or “guides” and they “don’t rely on canned meanings”, but their readings SUCK.

The thing is, Lenormand will work if you stand back and let it, and don’t get in the way. Accuracy comes in inverse proportion to PAMs!

Lenormand “schools”

There are no Lenormand “schools”. There’s a Lenormand METHOD, with regional variations, like dialects. Where I live, a Coke is a “soda water”, but in Massachusetts it’s a “tonic”, and I think it’s “pop” in the midwest, but that’s all considered “english”. Not “schools”. Same with Lenormand. The work cards might vary a bit from place to place, or there might be more or less use of Distance, but there’s not enough difference to say there’s different “schools”. This has been explained 1000 times, at least.

Not learning the Method of Distance

I fell into this one. When I started with Lenormand, I had a Blue Owl with a LWB and those horrible english poems, lol. And I went online and found a yahoo group in english, with a german lady who had taken some courses. So I started asking things like “How far is ‘far’?” and she said “Oh, nobody pays attention to that” and introduced me to combo reading. It made sense at the time – aren’t Tarot LWB’s a joke? Nobody uses LWB’s. And she wasn’t trying to mislead me. Distance reading isn’t that common in Germany. She answered the question to the best of her knowledge.

The years went by and I found more sources, all combo readers. I eventually started doing paid readings. I ‘knew’ Lenormand. And it worked, I predicted stuff, it was right, I got paid.

Then Andy got me interested in Distance, and I’m liking it more and more, it’s decisive. Often, with combo readings, I have to sit and consider various meanings and how best to combine them, and sometimes, even after all these years, there’s a bit of “uhhhhh…”, lol. Distance reading is sharp and precise, like a scalpel. Sometimes it actually makes combo reading feel clunky. I wish I’d learned a long time ago. :D

If you want a solid foundation in Lenormand reading (and not a lot of misinformation that you’ll only have to unlearn later), don’t miss Andy Boroveshengra’s Thirty-Six Cards: An Introduction to the petit-Lenormand. It gives you clear explanations of card meanings, attendance, distance, spreads (up to and including the Grand Tableau) and exercises. It’s geared towards beginners and intermediate students, but there’s so much solid information here that it would be worthwhile for even the most seasoned reader to keep a copy close at hand.

You can get the Kindle edition here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JHO7X8M

Or in pdf format directly from Andy here: http://boroveshengra.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/thirty-six-cards-introduction-to-lenormand/

This is an old deck belonging to the Gypsy Witch/Whitman family of almost-Lenormands-with-extra-cards. This version, Malkiel Rouven Dietrich’s Tacheles Cards, has been renumbered to follow Lenormand more closely. There are, however, differences, and I prefer reading this deck as a reduced Gypsy Witch, rather than as an expanded Lenormand. Lenormand really doesn’t need extra cards, and IME they tend to fuzz up the picture. Still, I find the familiar Lenormand numbering helpful for things like house positions.

There is no Bear in this deck. Malkiel has assigned the Rose to #15, titled “Die Heiße Liebe”, “the hot love” – a natural progression of the Gypsy Witch “beauty and rugged health” and logical for red roses, but with no Bear card you’re going to have to look to other cards and combos for the meanings you normally assign to the Bear.

The image for the Cross is actually a medal, almost identical to Gypsy Witch’s Order (“Honor and recognition of labor” – pretty close to the Lenormand Moon, actually.)

The other extra cards are the Train, Lightning, Cats, Pig, Broken Mirror, Amor (Cupid), Crossed Swords, Bride, Clasped Hands, Money Safe, Wine, and Flames. All of these have their counterparts in the Gypsy Witch deck, and, with the exception of Wine, the Whitman.

As for the insets, it’s been suggested that they’re Tironian notes (though none of the people doing the suggesting have offered to translate), and while some of the squiggles may be based on those, there’s a lot more going on there including tree branches, planetary glyphs, a clef note, and a seahorse/dragon. I wouldn’t waste my time trying to decipher them, they were obviously added for looks. I suppose an unscrupulous reader could make things up, but I’d suggest being straight with your clients and telling them it’s for show. It’s a very snazzy-looking deck, obviously old, and brightly colored.

“Tacheles” is a Yiddish word for “straight talking”, I think. And it will do that, whether you read it as a Lenormand or a Gypsy Witch. It’s the PERFECT deck for those of us who love GW, but are put off by those dorky purple witches on the backs, or just don’t like using cards with printed meanings on them for client readings.

It’s available from Lauren Forestell here http://gameofhopelenormand.bigcartel.com/product/woo-woo-lennies-with-mystical-symbols

“The Homecoming”, Norman Rockwell, 1945

I often see people using the terms “Lenormand community” or “cartomancy community”, with the implication that we shouldn’t fight, we should be in solidarity, i.e., unity or agreement of feeling or action among individuals with a common interest, and mutual support within a group. Being in a community with someone doesn’t mean you have to do that. If you’ve ever had neighbors from hell, you can understand this.

And let’s look at the word “community” itself, shall we? from Merriam-Webster:

Pretty irrelevant to reading cards, isn’t it? All we have in common is cards. It’s like saying “the soap community” or “the makeup community”. Nobody says “You need to be nicer and more supportive of John Wayne Gacy, he used soap and makeup, too.”

Should we be supportive of Sylvie Steinbach just because the woman has written a crappy Lenormand book? She denies the Holocaust, FFS. Or Donnaleigh de la Rose, who equated being denied access to a facebook group to “perpetuating the Holocaust”, thereby trivializing the pointless suffering and deaths of millions? Or Christiana Gaudet, who writes hate blogs about the Roma? Why lower ourselves and give tacit endorsement to the hate by making nice with people like that?

Fuck antisemites and fuck racists. May they rot in hell.

As for the Rockwell painting at the beginning of this post, it’s a picture of what an actual community might look like. And I hope that soldier killed lots and lots of nazis.

Lauren Forestell’s Paris Primitive/Didot

Just to let people know what’s been happening – a fortuneteller’s income is fickle. One month you’re buying electronics and jade and real ladies hats from milliners, but the next may find you couch surfing. So when family circumstances dictated that I find a more dependable – if excruciatingly boring – source of income for awhile, I took a job making and testing automotive computer parts, and cut way back on my readings, due to the crazy long hours. (Email readings are especially difficult with all this going on, so I’ve temporarily stopped offering them at Etsy, but not to worry – I don’t intend to do this forever! And phone readings are still available.)

Now I want to tell you about a deck, the only one I’ve purchased in quite some time, and I don’t see anyone talking about it – which is a shame, really! You guys are missing out. It’s the Paris Primitive, aka Didot, available from Lauren Forestell’s Game of Hope site here: http://gameofhopelenormand.bigcartel.com/product/paris-primitive

I needed yet another Lenormand like I needed a hole in the head, but this one sang a siren song with its peachy borders and quirkiness, and I was sucked in. While it was originally produced in France, it seems to be targeting the German market, as the verses are in that old-style German (you know, the kind that google translate can’t *quite* handle. We’ve all been nine rounds with that. :D ) The banners across the top give some old keywords, and the rhymes are on the bottom. No playing card insets, but that shouldn’t present a problem if you know your people cards. This one is very readable, the images pop nicely in a GT.

The following list is for those who like to use visual cues – and remember, there are NO perfect Lenormands, this one is about as good as it gets:

The Rider faces left – perfect, since he can be the same sex lover or the other man. (Ideally, male cards would face right and female left, but the Rider is the logical exception.)
The Ship sails to the right, the future.
The dark side of the Clouds is very plainly on the right.
The Snake faces right, so remember your rules. ;)
The Coffin is drawn from a perspective where the left looks slightly larger, so it’s a hint that it ends what’s to its left.
The Scythe tip faces right. Perfect.
There is only one Birchrod bundle, so remember it can be something happening twice.
There are three Birds instead of two, so remember your “couple” meaning.
The Child faces forward, but she’s obviously female, so no problem.
The Fox faces left, so just keep in mind that they got the Snake the wrong way around.
I love the Bear. It’s standing, facing slightly away, arms crossed. Grrr. :D
The Stork is on a rooftop. Old school!
The Dog faces left, so just keep in mind its a man.
The Crossroads have a very plain wide and narrow way to go.
The Mouse faces left.
There are several Books, but one obviously opens to the right.
Lauren has included, as always, extra Man and Woman cards. I use the right facing Man and the left facing Woman.
The Lilies are blue, but they’re very obviously lilies and distinct from the other botanical cards, so it’s not an issue.
There are trees shown on the Park card, but not the Roads, Sun, or Moon, so again, remember your “many trees” rule.

The cards are plainly numbered. There are astrological and planetary glyphs in the verse area, something I’d suggest ignoring (People have been trying to forcefit astrology to Lenormand forever. It just doesn’t work.) but they add a nice touch visually, a bit like the glyphs surrounding the images on Malkiel’s Lenormand. The backs are curling french vines surrounding an interlock pattern, all in beige and burgundy, very nice. And there’s a cover card with a repro pic of a suitably grotesque and dessicated Mlle. Lenormand, wrapped in a shawl and sitting before a grand tableau. I want it on a t shirt. :D

The deck comes in a plush brown velvet bag, but I ordered the Wahrsagekarten tin. I’m going to use the bag for a change purse, lol, since I sometimes stow money in the bag with my purse deck (also one of Lauren’s – the Purple Dragon).

If you’re looking for a change from your usual reading deck but you want a real Lenormand and not one of those wack contemporary things, I can fully recommend this one. It’s readable, it’s fun to look at, and it’s got that linen finish and Game of Hope quality! :)

I’m considering a vacation. This looks like a good spot.

Greetings from historic Ratchetville, Texas. Sometimes – nay, often – I need to close the doors on our scenic soiled-panty-and-beer-can lined streets and just lose myself online. When I do this, I find some cool stuff. So I’m here to let you know I’m still among the living – time is at a premium, but I’m doing phone readings occasionally, though email is out of the question. And I’m also here today to tell you about something everybody likes: that cool stuff and where to get it.

The Mercury Key

Mercury Key, Professor Ames

Firstly, there’s the Mercury Key from Professor Ames. You can read about it here: http://skullboneemporium.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/the-mercury-key/ and if you contact him, you can arrange for him to make one for you. It gets its name from the dimes – old “Mercury” dimes (actually Liberty in a winged hat, which I take to mean “free thought”, but the folk associations of Mercury with these dimes are ubiquitous.) You can read it according to geomancy, or alternately, a simple “strong yes/probable yes/probable no/strong no”. It reminds me a little bit of those Ifa divining chains – it alludes to several traditions, but it’s a new thing, Ames invented it. So it doesn’t come with a reading tradition like Lenormand, you’re free to experiment some. (And props to Ames and everyone who INVENTS an oracle – I’ve said enough here about the difference between that, and those awful Lenormand retreads. Googling images of a man, woman, tree, etc. and giving them a horrible color scheme is NOT “creativity”.) I suppose in a pinch, you could even disregard one of the four dimes and use it for I Ching, though I haven’t done that. You could take the direction the key points into account, in some contexts. And the bonus is that these are all leap year dimes, and therefore super lucky. Four leap year dimes and an old iron key – the Lenormand Key, the Master Key…so many positive associations. Dab it with a little Van Van and keep it draped on a lucky statue or image when you’re not carrying or using it.

From a 1910 theatrical poster advertising an appearance by C. Alexander

Crystal Balls

In the late 90’s, you could google “scrying” and nothing came up. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. As of tonight, I got 1,310,000 results. But Sturgeon’s Revelation (commonly cited as “90% of everything is crap”) definitely applies here.

Let’s look at the word itself – dictionary definitions are generally along the lines of seeing visions in/telling the future with a crystal ball or other reflective surface. But new age marketing has expanded it to include, well – anything you look at that looks like something else to you. Jesus on a tortilla, clouds that look like kitties, that stain on the bathroom wall at work that looks like Ron Jeremy – all “scrying”, according to the “anyone can do this!” folks. Well, maybe anyone CAN do that, but what’s the point?

Consider the old texts on crystal gazing. It’s said that both those and the new age are influenced by the New Thought movement. The difference is that the old texts say something like “Practice self-discipline, be discriminating in what you eat, take plenty of outdoor exercise and cultivate a positive attitude, and you will greatly improve your chances of success.” The new age stuff says “Just see yourself getting what you want, and you will!”

New age rhetoric is a lot like those “Lose weight without diet or exercise!” ads, isn’t it?

The old texts are not without issues, at least one of them would have you carving your table up with Enochian symbols. And there was plagiarism in those days, too. There’s a good bit of conjecture and pseudoscience presented as absolute fact, as well. But for the most part, for the purpose of learning to actually see crystal visions, they’ll give you good, solid, practical advice. There’s a list of them here, compiled by Cat Yronwode, and several of these are in the public domain and can be downloaded at no cost from sites like Project Gutenberg: http://www.yronwode.org/crystal-gazing-bibliography.html

While we’re on the subject, Miss Cat also sells crystal balls on her site. A three-inch clear glass crystal is perfect (it’s large enough not to strain the eyes, without being so big that it’s hard to block the reflections, or too heavy to hold in your hands, and there’s no inclusions to distract you) and you can get one here for $20 (yes, you read that right!) But they have all kinds, all sizes. http://www.luckymojo.com/mojocatdivination.html#scrying And they come with their own little boxes and stands.

My newest crystal resting in its snazzy red box, on top of two C. Alexander booklets.

Not only that, but you get a free membership in the Crystal Silence League for the year http://www.crystalsilenceleague.org/
and a copy “Personal Lessons, Codes, and Instructions for Members of The Crystal Silence League” by C. Alexander. The book is published by Missionary Independent Spiritual Church, and Lucky Mojo distributes it free when you buy any crystal ball of any size from them. It’s not a Lucky Mojo publication. Lucky Mojo acts as a distributor, including the book with sales of crystal balls, and underwrites the cost of the book, as a service to the church.

Best deal ever, isn’t it?

AND LENORMAND NEWS, OF COURSE

I’ve been considering getting Carrie Paris’s Lenormand Lodestones (actually magnets, not lodestones)- these would be useful as a kind of secret code to put on the refrigerator and other metallic surfaces (ex: “Birds – Woman – Moon: call me this evening”) The possibilities for sneaky hijinx are endless! http://carrieparis.com/shop/lenormand-lodestones/

Karla Souza has a very unique deck called the Esmeralda Lenormand – while I don’t use the chakras and elements, it does have proper hints and memory joggers as to the card meanings down in the bottom corners, so it’s great for beginners. I know Karla, she’s a good reader. At some point, I mean to give this one its own blog post, but in the meantime, you can get it here: http://www.sensoriall.com/#!shop/c1tc8

And of course, Lauren Forestell continues to make quality reproductions, and more great decks are always showing up on her site. Check out the four jokers on the mini Alte Deutsch! And she’s got a Brepols now – it’s like a Carta Mundi, but with restored color, gorgeous backs, better stock and no verses. http://gameofhopelenormand.bigcartel.com/

Everything seems to be infested with misinformation these days, in an effort to make it more “user-friendly” (Read: “easy and dumbed down”). Much like googling “Lenormand”, the search term “scrying” will get you bunk, for the most part. And it’s a shame, really, because this subject is worthy of serious inquiry. It’s just too interesting to be left to the cranks and flakes.

Let’s look at the word “scry”: the Oxford Dictionary defines it as “Foretell the future using a crystal ball or other reflective object or surface.” This isn’t very helpful, since it leaves a lot open to interpretation (additionally, many – maybe most – of the things you see probably won’t “foretell the future”, but that’s another blog post).  It could be referring to a cold reader who uses the crystal as a prop, it could be referring to actual crystal visions, or it could be referring to something called pareidolia, a psychological term for the tendency to perceive a specific image in a random, ambiguous visual pattern. Pareidolia accounts for a lot of the stuff that comes up on google. The human brain is optimized to recognize faces, and we have a faction that views these things as Visits From The Great Beyond. The same line of “reasoning” that leads people to think that Jesus has returned on their grilled cheese sandwich:

(I think it looks more like a Cocker Spaniel with something in his mouth. Or Hulk Hogan. I haven’t quite made up my mind.)

Don’t get me wrong, pareidolia is what’s used for reading wax melts and the like. There’s usually a reason that your brain interprets things a certain way, and seeing a knife in some random thing could be your instincts screaming for your attention. But that’s not what I want to keep running into when I’m looking for information on scrying. I consider it “another ball of wax”, so to speak.

If you would like to experiment with crystal visions, it’s best to go to the old sources, and/or people who are thoroughly familiar with them. While old books aren’t necessarily free of pseudoscience and misapprehended ideas, with a little common sense, you can get a pretty good working idea of what to do, and what to expect. Cat Yronwode has compiled an extremely helpful list of titles here http://www.yronwode.org/crystal-gazing-bibliography.html and it’s full of MUCH more effective search terms than “scrying”.

Many of these titles are now in the public domain, and can be had cheap or free. The authors often used pseudonyms for writing about something as shady as fortunetelling – among them were respected anthropologists, attorneys, folklorists, etc. I’m linking to a few of these books here.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26622/26622-h/26622-h.htm

The Project Gutenberg eBook of How to Read the Crystal, by Sepharial (Dr. Walter Gorn Old). An excellent book of instructions, highly recommended.

https://archive.org/details/clairvoyanceoccu00panciala

Clairvoyance and Occult Powers by Swami Panchadasi (William Walker Atkinson). The crystal gazing chapter starts at page 105.

https://archive.org/details/crystalgazingspi00dela

Crystal-Gazing and Spiritual Clairvoyance by L. W. de Laurence

http://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Gazing-Theodore-Besterman/dp/B000NP170E

Crystal Gazing by Theodore Besterman. “A Study in the History, Distribution, Theory and Practice of Scrying” from the author of Voltaire.

http://www.luckymojo.com/mojocatbooks.html

(NO, I’m not on their payroll. They’re just an excellent resource, something that’s extremely rare these days.) You can find Crystal Gazing: Lessons and Instructions in Silent Influence With The Crystal  and The Crystal Silence League: Personal Lessons, Codes, and Instructions for Members, both by C. Alexander, on this page. Or just order a crystal ball or palm stone here http://www.luckymojo.com/mojocatdivination.html#scrying and they’ll send you the second title free.

https://archive.org/details/cu31924028955875

Crystal gazing : its history and practice, with a discussion of the evidence for telepathic scrying
A wonderful 1905 book by Northcote W. Thomas, M.A., with an introduction by Andrew Lang. I liked this one so much that I purchased a clothbound edition from Nephilim Press https://nephilimpress.com/xstore/product.php?productid=17704&cat=0&featured=Y

A couple of other items of interest:

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs079/1105866064134/archive/1106148339903.html

The Crystal Silence League. This is a wonderful organization that carries on the work of C. Alexander, who used the crystal to send thoughts and prayers as well receive visions. Some archived instructions for various techniques with the crystal ball, including sending and silent influence. Don’t take this wrongly because it’s a prayer group – all religions are welcome, and of course all prayers are free if you request them. Besides, the archived articles are fantastic.

http://www.lmcradionetwork.com/
“Tuesday: The Crystal Silence League Hour with Rev. Jon Saint Germain ​Spiritual guidance on the practical use of crystals and crystal balls in the development of mental concentration and mind power, silent influence over others, divination and scrying of the future, and telepathic contact with people and spirits. 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM Pacific​, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM Eastern”

Additionally, Andy Boroveshengra has mentioned that he might do some blogging on the subject this year. That’s worth watching for, so stay tuned.

Every card in the Tacheles/Adolph Engel deck is duplicated in the Gypsy Witch. In fact, the Gypsy Witch is just a Tacheles deck with the addition of the Shepherd, Bear, Eye and Lion.

Some of the art is so similar that you can see there was some copying going on.

So if you wish you had a book about those crazy sigil decks, you probably already have one – a weird, unbound book first published over 100 years ago, no less! If you’re reading this, you’re almost certain to have a copy someplace – check the sock drawer, lol. If not, it can be purchased for about $7.

As for the sigils themselves, they’re purely for atmosphere. Like this old Myrna Loy flick. :D

ETA: Compare to Whitman meanings at Andy’s blog here: https://andyscards.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/whitman-old-gypsy-fortune-telling-cards-meanings/

A good Lenormand practice group will limit the decks you can post to things like the Blue Owl, Carta Mundi, Dondorf, Glück, Mertz, Piatnik, and other reproductions of decks first published prior to 1950. To understand why, we need look no further than the very first card: the Rider.

The Rider is a well dressed man on a spirited horse. He looks well-to-do, and he’s hurrying to deliver some news himself, instead of sending a hired man, so it’s fairly important. His period clothing tips you off that the horse is his usual mode of transportation. What better to express the meanings of news, something tangible, a vehicle, speed, an athletic young man, a male lover, feet, knees, and ligaments?

In too many contemporary decks, this gets lost. Any person riding something will do, and you see jockeys, women, cowboys, polo ponies, people on bikes – some of the meanings are always lost, and in some instances the card isn’t even recognizable. I saw a deck recently that used a child on a rocking horse – it looked like a Child card. If you’re asking people to help you with a spread, at least use readable cards. And a kid on a rocking horse isn’t coming down the road to see you. A jockey isn’t going to leave the track on a million dollar racehorse to deliver your package or tell you Auntie Edna’s gall bladder surgery went well.

“But the Rider is fine in such-and-such deck” you say. And maybe it is. But if you go through the whole deck, there’s overwhelming odds that you’ll find some hinky cards. It’s not JUST the Rider! A lot of the new decks are cray-cray all the way through. And even if they get it right (there are a few that do), imagine the fallout when “Marilyn’s Lenormand” is allowed and “Carolyn’s Lenormand” isn’t. So best to keep it to old decks by deceased artists, lol.

Are all these old decks perfect? No, they’re not. I actually have one that shows a tank of goldfish on the Fish card. And that Mice card in the Glück – where are the Mice? But on the whole, old decks are a pretty safe bet for group discussion.

Die Zauberkarten is a deck first published in Vienna in 1855. It’s one of the Sibilla types that overspread the Continent in the 19th century and includes Italian Sibillas, French Sibyl decks (Sibylle des Salons, Petit Cartomancien, Jeu du Destin, Livre du Destin, etc.), Petit Lenormand, Petit Oracle des Dames…all of the old decks with an image and a playing card inset. There are different systems for reading each.

The difference between these cards and the more familiar Sibillas is that the other decks were continuously, or near-continuously, published, but the Zauberkarten seem to have died out, at least as far as I can tell. Caitlin Matthews acquired an antique copy in 2013, complete with the box and book, and sent scans to Lauren Forestell, who offered them for awhile, along with a slim volume by Caitlin, at her Game of Hope site.

It has images in common with Lenormand, like the Coffin, Snake, Ship, etc., but the meanings tend to be variant. There are some images I’ve seen in other decks, like the Merit Cross and Clasped Hands – but don’t relate it to your Whitman and Gypsy Witch decks just yet – the Pig, for instance, is disreputable rather than lucky. And there are other images that I’ve not seen anyplace else, like the Lightning Struck Tree, Overridden Horse, and Man Heaving Rock Uphill.

In other words, it takes some getting used to, and I haven’t had proper time for it. But the solution to “not having time” is to make time, so I did manage a series of dailies, a couple of which I’m posting here. My object was to see how viable the method, which gives different meanings to the cards depending if they’re on the right or left, is. Did the Zauberkarten die out because of the method? Or not – did the publisher simply fold? The cards do look very readable. Let’s test drive them.

DAY 1:
Man Clenching Fist, Chains, Sun

For the Man Clenching Fist, the book gives a general meaning of “Apparent reconciliation between enemies accompanied by falsehood. Inconvenience, annoyance.” But on the left, “folly”. Chains in the middle would carry the general meaning of “Loss of freedom. Scheming.” The General meaning of the Sun is “Honor and glory. Gift” and the right-hand meanings are “Gift, winning at games. Lucky in love.”

The synthesis for the left/right meanings, if you didn’t have any context, might be something like a silly attachment to optimism, either material or romantic.
But for general meanings, being unpleasantly bound to people who have an agenda, in hopes of improvement. “Making nice”.

What happened: I’m a day sleeper, but plumbers came to the house at 8 AM. We needed them, but they’re so annoying. Three loud, filthy plumbers. Of course they made a big mess taking everything apart before they figured out that the problem was OUTSIDE – which I could have told them, since it was EVERYTHING that had suddenly clogged.

So I think “folly” applies, but the general meaning is more specific. Plumbers virtually always fib about things in order to make more money, and it WAS inconvenient and annoying. Chains fits – I couldn’t escape, either by leaving or going to sleep. The “gift” of the Sun was me finally being able to sleep after they left and I washed everything down with Clorox. Even though it was only a temporary fix – they left a big trench in the yard with a main pipe draining into it and promised to return the next day.

On this day, the general meanings win hands down. In the case of the Man Clenching Fist, the general meaning overshadowed the left hand meaning (though folly was obviously at play, too.)

DAY 2:
Coffin, Anchor, Beggar

Well, ramping down for a daily, but the general meaning for Coffin is “Carelessness, recklessness, insurmountable obstacles, misfortune, death”. And the left hand meaning is “severe illness, danger, death”. Anchor gives “Hope, friendship with a woman” for the general meaning. Beggar is “Bad business, suffering of all kinds. Changes” generally, and “embarrassments” on the right.

What happened: The plumbers came back, right on time. They didn’t have to come inside this time. I was asleep but my daughter was up. While they were working on the pipe, somebody with the city was driving by and stopped and told them the landlord needed to get a permit in order for them to do that. Work stopped.

So: carelessness and recklessness in that they didn’t finish the first day (a Sunday) when the city employees wouldn’t have been out looking for opportunities to run their idiotic $60 extortion racket. As for illness, my daughter had a little stomach bug and I was working too close to the potting (a sealant) station, so my eyes got kind of raw. (With dailies, ramp down, ramp down…) The general meaning seems a lot more relevant for the day.

The Beggar’s “Embarrassments” fits because the trench looks trashy and Third World as hell, but this is small town Texas so it blends right in, and there is probably no one within a fifty mile radius that I care to impress. But we need to stay away from it as much as possible since the cards warned of illness. I have “Hope” it will eventually get fixed and filled in. Probably over the weekend, lol. None of the interactions I had with female friends that day stand out. Again, the general meanings seem more accurate and specific than the left/right meanings, but I can’t totally discount left/right.

Tentative conclusion: Learn all the meanings. Retain left/right, but only as a secondary consideration. It adds nuance, and it’s not totally unique to this deck (you see it with the Ring in Lenormand, and card order can be viewed as essentially the same thing, or at least similar). There is no need for modernization, only perspective.

The expanded edition of Lenormand Thirty Six Cards will be available soon. This one goes a good way beyond the first edition’s comprehensive-yet-basic Lenormand 101, with material that was included in Andy’s last course. I’m hoping for a hardcover copy, after all, it’s a reference work and will get tons of use. My Book.

(No, not the things in the photo…read on!)

Comments are welcome, because I’m really, REALLY trying to find the root of this – so I can douse it with gasoline and enjoy the bonfire.

If you’ve followed this blog at all, you’ve seen many, many posts about learning Lenormand rather than pulling meanings out of your ass. And “new thought” vs. “new age” (AKA “sewerage”).

Now I’ve found this old thread http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=98307 (pardon me if I don’t keep up with the purple shithole – also, profound props to you, Scion, whoever you are – eloquent and well put) on AT where some are defending a book by Arrien Angeles that is purportedly an instruction on the Crowley Thoth – with the caveat that she suggests ignoring Crowley (WUT) and goes on to give made-up interpretations of the images on the cards. (Crowley’s pelican, according to this dribble-of-misapprehended-symbols-by-someone-who-couldn’t-be-bothered-to-research, is a “swan” and “the ugly duckling”, the venom is “tears of the spirit”)

Look, if you want to learn the Thoth, read Crowley. The Book of Thoth, 777, and The Book of the Law at the very least. If you still can’t make sense of it, read Duquette. But not this Angeles fuckwittery.

The same goes for anything else. Read the real stuff, not the fake stuff. Jeez.

None of this is news, it’s been all too common since the 80’s. But what broadsided me and led me to mention it here, is that this execrable Angeles book came out in the late 70’s. The shitting down the throat of Lenormand – and all things cartomantic – has a precedent going back further than I previously realized. New age BS predates the 80’s. It snuck in when I was unaware of it, blithely shuffling my battered University Press RWS with Trapeze or BOC playing in the background. A lifetime ago.

Maybe Crowley was right (and not just yanking our chains) and we’re really in for another 500 years of Dark Ages. Say what you will about him, he was still a brilliant SOB.

ETA: Further digging has shown me that apparently, the pulling-meanings-out-of-your-wazoo school of reading goes ALL THE WAY BACK TO 1969 and the publication of “The New Tarot: The Tarot for the Aquarian Age”. The premise of this dribble is that just looking at the magic pasteboard unlocks wisdom in your subconscious, and is probably what set off this whole “learning is bad!” trope. It claims any idiot’s “insights” are just as valid as Waite’s, Crowley’s, Wirth’s, or anyone else who actually learned the cards. It was allegedly channeled with a Ouija board and published along with a hideous deck.

I can only conclude that the new agers and the Pat Robertson type wacky evangelicals are two sides of the same coin and we’ve gotten ourselves back to the Dark Ages.