Lenormand cards

Lenormand is a system of 36 cards with clear, everyday images: Rider, Clover, Ship, House, Tree, Clouds, Snake, Coffin and so on. It differs from tarot more sharply than the category they share suggests.

Origins

The name points to Marie Anne Lenormand (1772–1843), a well-known Paris cartomancer. She never used the deck that carries her name, however: it appeared after her death, in the German-speaking world, and goes back to a parlour game of 1799 — the “Spiel der Hoffnung”, a board game played with a die, whose squares were later reinterpreted as fortune-telling cards.

The name, then, was a marketing decision. That does not diminish the system, but it is part of the matter.

The difference from tarot

The most important difference is combination. A single Lenormand card says almost nothing; the meaning comes out of the pair. Ship and House give something other than House and Ship — the order counts, as it does with noun and adjective.

The spreads

• Two- and three-card draws — the basic form, on which the logic of combination is learned.
• The Grand Tableau — all 36 cards in a grid of nine by four. The position relative to the significator decides the interpretation; there are several schools on what right, left, above and below mean.
• House system — each of the 36 positions in the tableau carries a fixed meaning of its own, independent of the card that lies there.

What this has to do with astrology

Structurally, little, and saying so is more honest than the usual conflation.

A chart is calculated: two astrologers with the same birth data arrive at the same figure. A card spread is drawn, and it comes out different at every shuffle. The two procedures have no basis in common.

The two are often offered together, and anyone who uses both should at least know that they are doing two different things.

See also: occultism — the term and its limits.