Lenormand: The Game of Hope

[Joan Marie]

I think it is widely accepted that Lenormand, despite being named after a French fortune-teller, Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand, is a deck of cards with it's origins in a German card game called Das Spiel der Hoffnung (The Game of Hope).

Which is why it isn't hard to see a kind of "German influence" in classic Lenormand reading and how people who adhere to this classic style resent the infiltration of "woo" into the very clear, succinct and unambiguous world of Lenormand.

I just read a post in Parsifal's Wheel Tarot and Astrology blog about this. And speaking of unambiguous, PW doesn't mince too many words as he describes his feeling about those who take Tarotistic liberties with Lenormand.

I think to a lot of people this might come across as curmudgeonly and I can see how it can make Lenormand unappealing to those who find the reading style restrictive.

But I have to say for myself I was surprised at how Lenormand opens up a whole way of thinking that is really very expansive. Somehow the strict parameters trigger different parts of, let's say, one's gift. It's like giving a writer a topic. She may be restricted in the sense she can't write about just anything, but being given boundaries within which to work actually stimulates her mind to think in different ways.

This is how I am beginning to understand Lenormand.

(by the way, sign-ups for a Lenormand reading circle are currently open. All levels welcome)

[HOLMES]

yes, from what I understand the traditional lenormand images come from the primal lenormand.

by now we have schools of lenormand.. the French,, the german,,
some lenormand decks you may of noticed take out the playing cards inserts completely ?!
I realized when looking at the youtube video of the changes to the blue bird lenormand how the playing cards insert describe people (in terms of the courts ).
for me over here, I use reversals with my lenny readings. why ? because it is what I bring to the school,.

in ciro kipper deck they talk about using the cards separately as tarot positions so that influence me to open up more to the kipper and lenormand..
originally I like the kipper more then the lenormand because of the beauty of the kipper cards,, and my lack of lenormand images. (at the time I had only the easy lenormand deck with the condensed version of the marcus katz book)/.

after doing research, upon decks I got more lenormand cards, and books..
I am taking the universal harmonizing approach to the lenormand like I took to learning the tarot..

it wasn't until I looka at this automated lenormand reading site that I understood the gt has houses and it is the order of the lenormand cards..
that totally blew my mind..
it also gave me a big connection for I was instantly "I got you now " for I am a positional reader.

I think how we learn defines our take on the cards. example if I had studied the French tradition of the marsielles for years before seeing the waite deck I would most likely be snobbish to it , (hard to say for I grew up reading comics so I might take to them like duck to water anyways ).