Marcus Katz - Learning Lenormand: Traditional Fortune Telling for Modern Life

Marcus Katz

Marcus Katz is a professional tarot teacher at the Far Away Centre, a contemporary training centre in the Lake District of England. As the Codirector of Tarot Professionals, the worlds largest professional tarot organization, he has studied and taught tarot for thirty years and has delivered more than ten thousand face-to-face readings. His first book, Tarosophy , has been termed a major contribution to tarot by leading teachers. Marcus is also the cocreator of Tarot-Town , the social network for tarot, with more than ten thousand people worldwide sharing innovative tarot development.

Tali Goodwin

Tali Goodwin is the Marketing Director and Cofounder of Tarot Professionals, the largest professional tarot organization in the world. She has coauthored innovative teaching books such as Tarot Flip , which is regularly in the top ten best-selling tarot books on Kindle. Tali is a skilled researcher and is credited with bringing the long-hidden Waite-Trinick Tarot to publication in Abiding in the Sanctuary: The Waite-Trinick Tarot. She also coedited the leading tarot magazine, Tarosophist International, in 20102011.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Learning Lenormand: Traditional Fortune Telling for Modern Life 2013 by Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin.

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First e-book edition 2013

E-book ISBN: 9780738736877

Author photos www.derwentphotography.co.uk
Book design by Bob Gaul
Cover background image iStockphoto.com/benz190
Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

Editing by Laura Graves
Interior card art See art credit list on

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the staff at the British Museums Prints and Drawings department for again kindly extending their time to assist us during the research for this book. The staff at the National Library of Scotland were excellent in taking time to set up microfiche rolls for us. We would like to acknowledge the Wellcome Trust collection and the Royal Society (London) for providing invaluable research material on the development of early game and fortune books, not all of which made it to this final publication but will be made available in our Lenormand courses. We would particularly like to acknowledge the Royal Society, which made such delicate works carefully available for our viewing and study.

We would also like to acknowledge Steph Myriel Es-Tragon for further research and translation work, and Andi Graf for providing another rare deck of early fortune-telling cards. Stella Luna also assisted us in locating versions of Partridge & Flamstead in the Australian National Library. The researchers at trionfi.com assisted in the correspondence of coffee-grounds reading meanings to the interpretations of the Lenormand, which we mention herein and cover more in our online courses.

Ciro Marchetti generously offered his expert design skills in the production of the Original Lenormand, which illustrate the card-by-card descriptions here and are now available as a deck.

We have been delighted to have received contemporary Lenormand images from Ciro Marchetti, Andi (Rootweaver) Graf, Robyn Tisch Hollister, Gidget London, Anna Simonova, and Carrie Paris, which grace this book. The links to their decks in development or for purchase can be located in the resources section of this book.

And to the New Lenormandists and Cartomanciens, we remain your tres obeisant et humble servants.

Tali Goodwin and Marcus Katz

To Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand and Johann Kaspar Hechtel.

Its a bit green.

Notes Before We Begin

A Note for Absolute Beginners

This book was written to introduce you quickly and easily to a wonderful way of reading Lenormand cards for fortune-telling and divination. We have tested the methods in this book with hundreds of students to ensure that you will soon be reading the cards confidently. You do not need to have used tarot cards or any other divination method previously. In fact, if this is your first experience of card reading, you will be starting your journey in one of its most traditional and elegant courtyards.

A Note to Tarot Readers

You will discover that the Lenormand cards are not the same as the tarot in structure nor in their method of reading. In fact, we tend to refer to two different spaces when discussing the two systems: T-space and L-space. They both have different landscapes and require different navigation. The Lenormand cards make excellent companions to tarot readings and are suited to direct readings for practical matters.

If you are a tarot reader already, you may like to consider jumping ahead first to our afterword, which sets out the significant differences in the decks and methods between Lenormand and tarot.

A Note to Lenormand Readers

For those who have been reading Lenormand cards for some time, we have endeavoured to ensure this book introduces newcomers easily to the cards in general and encourages them to discover more about traditional methods beyond this work. We hope it serves as a springboard for students to encounter Lenormand decks, perhaps for the first time, and then jump off into deeper pools or trace original sources. Where possible, we have made clear our own unique tweaks to the methods from our practice, which occur increasingly as the book progresses.

A Note on Lenormand Cards

You will need a Lenormand deck to accompany this book, or alternatively you can create a simple set of thirty-six playing cards numbered 1 through 36, or use collage, magazine clips, photography, or your own artwork to create the cards. We would recommend you purchase the Original Lenormand (Game of Hope) cards, which are a reproduction of the first images that became the Lenormand deck. These are available at www.originallenormand.com. A list of many other decks is given in the resources section of this book.