There was an anchor, an hourglass surmounted by a skull, a bull, a beehive …
Thirty-six altogether, and she couldn’t even guess what they meant.1
—Philip Pullman, Northern Lights
In the His Dark Materials trilogy, a device is used called the Alethiometer, a “golden compass.” This device has upon its surface thirty-six mysterious symbols, which Lyra, the heroine of the books, uses to divine truth throughout her adventures.2 As Pullman says in the books, the device originates from the seventeenth century, when “buildings and pictures were designed to be read like books. Everything stood for something else; if you had the right dictionary you could read Nature itself.”3
In this book, you are going to encounter thirty-six similar symbols on cards arising from the same tradition from which the Golden Compass was designed, and learn to read their simple and literal images as a dictionary of life—your life, and the lives of those around you. You will quickly learn a new way of looking at cards and your circumstances as you get a grip on this new language.
Unlike tarot or other systems, in the Lenormand cards you will not be overcome with symbolitis, having to learn complex correspondences of arcane lore. You do not need to understand Kabbalah, astrology, or complex numerology. You will see instead simple domestic objects such as a dog, a house, a child … it is like a children’s book, because in fact it was designed as a simple parlour game for the whole family. It really is child’s play.
We will take you through a series of simple exercises to learn the literal language of the Lenormand cards. Again, unlike tarot, here we require more cards to build up our reading, and it gets easier the more cards you use, whether for fortunetelling or self-discovery. In fact, we will quickly progress to learn the Grand Tableau method of reading all thirty-six cards. This will give you one simple layout of all the cards from which you can read for any aspect of life, be it romance, career, money, travel, education, or spiritual matters—all from one spread.
The Lenormand method is very straightforward and domestic. As Lenormand reader Stella Waldvogel remarked, “The tarot will tell you that he has projected his anxiety about his mother onto you and that is why he has walked off; the Lenormand will tell you that he is down at the bar with his beer buddies, and it’s your money he’s spending.” One can make a decision from either perspective.
We will take simple steps, and you may notice a gentle reprogramming of your brain; imagine being an explorer, standing in front of a door carved with two hieroglyphs, a yellow honeybee and an oak leaf. You are trying to work out what is behind the door before you venture within. You suspect perhaps a storage vault of honey, or maybe even an orchard. You may even think that behind the door is a treasure that will give you “sweet strength” because the honeybee symbolises sweetness and the oak is a symbol of strength.
However, the answer is staring you more literally in your face—you just need to stand back and read the images literally, out loud: “bee leaf”—“belief.” The door leads to a church or temple … and has nothing to do with bees or leaves. This is the sort of reprogramming you are about to experience with the Lenormand cards, and we trust it will open many new doors for you in your life.
We’ll begin at the beginning and discover that the Lenormand cards had very little to do with Mlle. Lenormand herself (correcting a thousand websites in the process) and discover what we owe a brass factory family from Nuremberg, and in particular, one man who died at the same time his little deck of cards was published.