Lenormand Yes/No Reading Technique

[Joan Marie]

I'm just going to put this out there.

There was a workshop at the Northwest Tarot Symposium which I did not attend but later learned about directly from the person, Anne Walner, who led it.

The workshop was designed to teach a system she developed herself specifically for the purpose of answering Yes/No questions using only 3-Cards.

The idea is that points are assigned to cards and how those points add up gives you an answer of Yes, No, or Maybe.

Here is the system:

Positive Cards are worth 4 points each:
Clover, Bouquet, Stars, Dog, heart, Sun Moon , Key, Anchor.

Negative Cards are worth 1 point each:
Clouds, Snake, Coffin, Scythe, Whip, Fox, Mountain, Mice, Cross

Neutral cards are worth 2 points if they lay next to a negative card and 3 points if next to a positive card.
Rider, Ship, House, Tree, Birds, Child, Bear, Stork, Tower, Garden, Crossroads, Ring, Book, letter, man, Woman, Lilies, Fish

So, you add the value of the 3 cards and here is the key to the answer:
Yes = 10, 11, 12
No = 3, 4, 5
Maybe = 6, 7, 8, 9

I know there are some ambiguities here, for example what if the neutral card is between a positive and a negative card. I know she had an answer for that but I don't remember it.

The workshop was called: OMG - I Can Read Lenormand

Anne Walner has designed a special Lenormand Deck that makes it easy to use her system because the values are printed on each card. She also apparently is quite successful at using this 3-card system doing phone readings and has for many years.

I have to say at the event people were talking about it and many seemed to think it was quite clever. Others felt differently.

I really wonder what people here think of this system. Maybe give it a go and report your findings?

[Charlie Brown]

This is very similar to what Andy B and others use: three cards on a pos-neg scale, but is less fussy, with none of these "if such and such is next to such and such then..." cards are pos (+2) neutral-pos (+1) neutral (0), neutral-neg (-1) or Neg (-2) and your final answer is based on the same scale. A + or - 1 would mean probably or probably not respectively. Really, after you've done it a few times, there's no need to add numbers and you can see how emphatically the cards are screaming yes and no.

I like my system better because each card retains its independence of value and because it's ultimately simpler. I wonder if she had to add complications because of copyright. I also dislike her accounting, which holds cards such as the lily or the fish as neutral.

But, yes, 3 card for yes/no is, in my opinion, the only decent way I've seen to do yes/no questions. Lenormand scale values work much better than red/black preponderance based on my own personal experiments, which I kept good track of at the time.

[BlueStar]

I'm not a Lenormand reader but this it's an interesting topic. I would have thought a reader could develop any system they prefered and get results, as long as it was used consistently. It would be interesting to extend this to other cards such as Kipper or Tarot.

[katrinka]

This is very similar to what Andy B and others use: three cards on a pos-neg scale, but is less fussy, with none of these "if such and such is next to such and such then..." cards are pos (+2) neutral-pos (+1) neutral (0), neutral-neg (-1) or Neg (-2) and your final answer is based on the same scale. A + or - 1 would mean probably or probably not respectively. Really, after you've done it a few times, there's no need to add numbers and you can see how emphatically the cards are screaming yes and no.

Yup. Positive/Neutral/Negative is all you need.
In his courses, Andy used to have us classify the cards under these headings - under whichever set of meanings that we followed. My Snake is somewhat neutral (don't step on her, though!) but someone else's Snake might be utter betrayal.

Additionally, I've found that with Lenormand, one bad apple does tend to spoil the whole bunch. So Cross - Sun - Rider isn't what it's cracked up to be. The Cross may back up the success of the Sun, but it makes it difficult success, and the Rider brings that news - as well as reflecting the burdens of the Cross.

I won't give an unqualified "yes" to a Line of 3 unless the line is ALL good. If it starts bad and "improves", it doesn't, really. It's still tainted.

All these numbers impose unnecessary complication. I've been reading Lenormand since 2002 or so and never seen German or French readers do this.

I like my system better because each card retains its independence of value and because it's ultimately simpler. I wonder if she had to add complications because of copyright. I also dislike her accounting, which holds cards such as the lily or the fish as neutral.

Family, harmony, money and abundance are neutral?
I've never seen anyone do that.
When Lenormand was breaking big in the US/UK in 2011-2013 or so, a lot of the authors who had previously specialized exclusively in Tarot felt like they needed to stay relevant and come out with Lenormand stuff. The problem is that Lenormand is a method and you're learning a language, so the 10,000 hour rule applies. So there was a lot of misinformation coming from people who felt pressure to come up with a Lenormand book, course, or webinar without having learned the method. Weird times, and kind of stressful for everyone.
That's the feeling I get with this. Like a flashback.

But, yes, 3 card for yes/no is, in my opinion, the only decent way I've seen to do yes/no questions. Lenormand scale values work much better than red/black preponderance based on my own personal experiments, which I kept good track of at the time.

Agreed.

[Joan Marie]

I think you are both (Charlie Brown and katrinka) on to something.

I left a bit out about the way the Walner system was presented. And my discretion tells me I should leave it out.

Some people really did like it. I found the whole thing a bit sketchy.

[katrinka]

I left a bit out about the way the Walner system was presented. And my discretion tells me I should leave it out.

Thank you, Joan Marie. You probably saved us a lot of outrage and typing.

I'm not saying Lenormand always has to be just a certain way - lord knows there's plenty of leeway. My Bear is high finance (Bears accumulate fat, i.e., "money you don't need, that you can play with"), Andy uses Tower for that. There are different cards for work, etc. Various reading techniques. But when you've been doing this awhile, some things make you go "Uhhhh...NO."

I think that the false equivalence with Tarot is a big part of the problem. There was a big push in the 1980's to make Tarot more accessible, easier...lots of "just look at the cards", "put away the books", "Tarot is anything you want it to be", etc. That's ONE way to read Tarot, not the only way. And it certainly doesn't apply to All Things Pasteboard!

Lenormand was never meant to be read that way. It's not so much a deck type as it is a method, a system.

This guy - he's young, but he knows already. I like Balthazar. He really clarified some things for me, like the necessity of limited meanings. I knew that, but I never articulated it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb5UGiKjqXs&t=807s

Some people really did like it. I found the whole thing a bit sketchy.

See? You have a nose for this stuff already!