andybc
She's not a trustworthy source in my honest opinion... she definitely embellished a great deal. I think she was overcompensating for her small village upbringing by writing and writing and writing... anytime someone would opine anything against her, we'd have a book published... she's rather tiresome when it comes to it, honestly. However, I do believe she was one of the best and absolutely had some talent.
You do get the impression of someone who is compensating a little too much. However, like you say, she was definitely one of the best: I don’t think propaganda would keep her in people’s mind after such time.
I agree with this! There are several reasons that lead me to believe so too. For one, all the greek mythology in the Grand Lenormand. She was apparently an avid fan of Greek Mythology, and she had at one point retired to get into art. What this art was, we never found out, but I do think it's possible that she was trying to create her own cards to eventually publish. The fact that the cards contain geomancy, astrology, herbology, etc, etc leads me to believe that she wanted something that would outdo everyone else's system.
Her problem was that she always saw thing very grandly, but they were always too complicated. She might have tried to have someone paint the pictures only to find out she didn't have the money... or might have tried to paint them herself, only to be turned down with the printers...
No matter the reasons, the Grand Lenormand resounds true to me... but there is nothing to support that theory yet. And the petit Lenormand wasn't all dressed up as we know it... but..! I do think someone has been paying attention to something when they decided to come out and publish them.
I agree with you. I do remember reading somewhere – I think it was on a French site for the Grand Jeu – that Mlle. Lenormand turned her hand to art. It’s a shame we don’t know what that was, it might be a step on the way.
The Grand Jeu is very authentic to the 18th and 19th century French occult, especially in the fascination with Greek Mythology. In addition there is something very ‘her’ in those cards. Like you say, if you consult her writings it’s all there.
It’s like all those cards on her table put into one big deck. It’s loud. It’s a challenge and she was both of those things.
Mention is also made (regarding the 33 sticks) that Etteilla believes that, before cards, a Greek soothsayer who fled to Spain read The 33 batons of Alpha (whatever that was, see Decker &c p.146). That may be similar to the "33 Greek sticks" from her inventory.
For someone who knew about astrology, and Mme Lenormand did, 36 seems a rather solid astrological number to work with but I had never read that the Piquet pack (and everyone automatically writes "she used the Piquet pack of 32 cards") had 36 cards in the 17th Century. That's interesting.
It is interesting too to note how she is the most famous cartomant of them all and yet she did not - let's be honest - introduce a new cartomantic system in the way that Waite or Crowley or Etteilla did. Everything about the Lenormand way of reading is fabricated after her death. There really is no system laid out, no matter what people might speculate. It's all hypothetical, pieced together from accounts (most of them after her death and rather dubious.)
Why did she write so much and never refer to the techniques of her card reading?
It’s very sad that Lenormand didn’t really leave any instructions. She seemed very adamant that she would never: she didn’t take any pupils, and took out adverts saying so when people claimed to be her student. I think on some level she was worried about be out done by any pupil. Also, she enjoyed the acclaim. It was largely down to the mysterious quality.
She took pains to 'shine', right down to the bats and skeletons lol. People would also go in and out a different door. It was a show.
Regarding her cards we only have the eye witness accounts in memoirs. Most of those can, I think, be trusted. Malchus etc. didn’t need to impress or refute anything.
She did leave one to two descriptions in her writings. This is the clearest:
‘the King of Spades, together with the Eight of Diamonds, means that a skilled man has made trials to stop, if it is possible, the progression of an illness… Fortunately, the Nine of Hearts, which is coming out on top, announces to me that you will quickly see the end of your cruel anxieties…’ Les oracles sibyllins by Mlle. Lenormand, 1817.
She does appear to be using a very simple method, quite different from Etteilla. In fact they have more sembalance to the Salons cards. She also used Clubs for the more negative meanings. I’ve personally always thought that she used German playing cards, similar to what we see in Skat. There were however lots of cards available: Josephine and Tsar Alexander I (who both consulted Mlle. Lenormand) had their own fortune telling cards.
Re astrology, I have always understood that she wasn’t an astrologer in the sense of Lily etc? I don’t think many of her writings indicate she was a serious student. That she knew something of the stars and constellations is certain: she was student of mythology. If you look at the Grand Jeu the constellations are read mostly in relation to the mythology behind them.