What is it like to read with Sibilla decks?

Is it very much like reading with a Lenormand deck where each card has a narrow meaning and you combine them into one reading?

I found a thread where a range of meanings are suggested for each card
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=132470&highlight=sibilla
and I wonder if people who use these decks stick with pre-designated meanings or do you sometimes find that they mean things in your readings that are not in the list of meanings? Do you sort of expand on the given meanings? Do you read the pictures?

Do you feel that the readings you get with these decks have depth? Do they just talk about facts and events or also about what the facts and events will mean to the seeker and how he or she will feel about them?

Do people who use these decks take them seriously or it more for entertainment or parties?

Anything else you can tell me about what it is like to read with these decks and what kind of readings you use them for?

I feel very drawn to the old-fashioned looking ones with very little text on the cards but I also have not liked fortune-tellery type oracles in the past.

In theory it should be possible to read them in a similar fashion to lenormand, but for me this never seems to work out.
On the occasions that I do use them I don't always go by the meanings (those in the thread you linked to) but rely mainly on the card title and how that would fit in with the other cards in the spread.
So far I've not been able to gel with these cards though, unlike the Lenormand which I took to straight away.
That said, one of the first reaidngs I did seemed to be way off target and as this persons life infolded pretty much everything I mentioned happened.

In my opinion, there are far better oracles out there to choose from other than these, but maybe that's just me who cannot gel at all with them.

I adore Sibillas, I really do. The only Oracle deck I have a back-up for is the EveryDay Oracle. It is magical at every level and I like to take it out & about with me to draw at any time!

Weirdly - much as I love Lenormands - I find this Sibilla deck more well-rounded. I think the Sibillas only get sidelined because even though there is little in the English-speaking world on Lenormand, there is even less on the Sibillas.

For me, all the basic Lenormand "concepts" are there plus more (this Sibilla has 52 cards). It's like a bumper Lenormand! I read them in that Lenormand way - of stringing cards together like the "grammar" of a sentence, eg, friend + message + surprise, but I also devised a way of reading in which I formulate a question and think of various cards which might refer to a possible answer to that question. I then fan out the cards and have three "chances" to pluck out those cards if the answers/solutions are going to materialise. I like this way if reading and find that it is great for quick answers (for myself & others) without all the elaborate fuss of a reading and interpretation! And I have been amazed at the results sometimes!

I totally invented this way of reading, it has no historical foundations whatsoever!

I just find the Sibillas more liberating, I really do. I don't know why I have taken to this deck so much but I really have.

ETA; I don't use those meanings you linked; it's just so irresistable creating your own!

Thanks for answering SpritoftheDogz and LeFanu

The sibillas just look like they might give deeper readings than the LeNormand decks, but the readings I've seen here on AT have been keyword readings, where the keywords are pretty much read in the different card positions for a reading.

Do you feel like you get deep readings from it Le Fanu? Do your readings with this deck focus on events or on what meaning the events will have for the seeker?

Maybe I should just try it... that is a gorgeous deck Le Fanu.

Sibillas are illustrated playing cards. Some sibillas have ditched the playing cards insert but they're still heavily based on playing cards. There is obviously a world of difference between reading with a deck of playing card and sibillas. With playing cards you really have a definite set of meanings from whichever books you got them from. With sibillas, it's closer to tarot in the sense that there is a meaning but you can get intuitive with them because you can, like with tarot, enter in the image and focus on some elements and come up with a different meaning for it than the set interpretation. It's much easier to read with sibillas as well since you don't have to remember anything by heart.

Petit LeNormand decks use mainly symbols for the meanings and it can be harder to read with them because of that.

P.S. The EveryDay Oracle is also called La Vera Sibilla, it's a reproduction of an old italian sibilla.

Thanks Wolfy. I was really hoping to hear that they work for readings beyond the keywords and it sounds like both you and Le Fanu have found they work like that.

in my local Esoteric shop today I was flicking through their LoS catalogue and they had the Vera Sibilla/Every Day Oracle as a kit version, in a format I had never seen before with accomompanying book (just in case anyone's interested).

I knew that there was a kit version of this LoS Sibilla but not the Every day Oracle Sibilla.

Wonder if it has been released yet?

I've just recently become interested in Sibilla and Lenormand. I like them both, but like Wolfy and Le Fanu, I find the Sibilla cards easier; the readings from them also seem more pratical, down-to-earth. I suppose that's because my brain can skip the step in Lenormand of going from symbol to what the symbol means -- while the Sibilla illustrates the actual meaning without going through the symbolic step. For me, there's less right brain activity with Sibilla than with Lenormand and tarot, so it just gives me a different feeling while I'm doing the reading.

WolfyJames said:

The EveryDay Oracle is also called La Vera Sibilla, it's a reproduction of an old italian sibilla.

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Il Meneghelllo has published a version of this same deck. They call it "Sibilla Originale de 1890". Same illustrations but the lines & colors vary a bit, and the Originale doesn't show the type of printing where color blending is achieved by using tiny dots instead of solid color. I have both decks and it's fun to compare the illustrations of the 2 decks.

Mary V

I've seen this Meneghello edition and often wondered about it. Maybe I'll get one for myself as it really is the non-tarot deck I like the most right now.

I don't quite know why I love the Sibillas (this Sibilla) so much. I don't really use them with all those combo formulas. I look at Lenormands sometimes and think that there is always a combination in a reading which I'll never "get", like a final missing jigsaw puzzle and with the Sibillas I have dispensed with this, though I do read the cards in a line, stringing meanings together. I also do one card draws, something I never do with the Lenormand as it is so ingrained into me that there have to be combinations (which a one card draw won't give).

Plus I feel more comfortable with 52 cards rather than 36. I still use tarot for in depth questions but the Sibilla is great for everyday, quick answers.

Le Fanu said:

I've seen this Meneghello edition and often wondered about it. Maybe I'll get one for myself as it really is the non-tarot deck I like the most right now.

I don't quite know why I love the Sibillas (this Sibilla) so much. I don't really use them with all those combo formulas. I look at Lenormands sometimes and think that there is always a combination in a reading which I'll never "get", like a final missing jigsaw puzzle and with the Sibillas I have dispensed with this, though I do read the cards in a line, stringing meanings together. I also do one card draws, something I never do with the Lenormand as it is so ingrained into me that there have to be combinations (which a one card draw won't give).

Plus I feel more comfortable with 52 cards rather than 36. I still use tarot for in depth questions but the Sibilla is great for everyday, quick answers.

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That's so confusing to me, stringing cards together. How is it so different from reading tarot combinations?