Now, regular readers will have noticed that I’ve been spending quite a bit of time exploring other Oracle decks in addition to Lenormand, mostly over on my Daily Oracle substack newsletter, (and generally, to keep that separate from what I’m doing here which is, of course primarily focused on going in depth and learning the Petit Lenormand specifically.)
Pretty much all of the other oracle decks I’ve been looking at and using over there came into production around the same time that the Lenormand cards did—in other words, in the 19th Century, when there was a great flurry of interest in divination and fortune telling parlour games across Europe, and lots of variations being produced. So most of the oracle decks that were produced at the time are kind of coming from a similar sort of place of interest and purpose, although there are some quite significant differences between them.
As I know a great many of my readers are interested in all and every kind of oracle card and methods of fortune-telling, and as many of these old decks are experiencing a resurgence today, I wanted to give you a brief rundown of the main features and comparisons between them. What ARE their features? Where are they similar and different from Lenormand? And most importantly, what kinds of readings and questions are they good for? Are they better than Lenormand for some things but not others?
Let’s take a look at Lenormand compared with the most common other “classic” decks or systems you may have heard of are you’re likely to be coming across at the current time. The “Grand Jeu de Mlle Lenormand”, the Tarot, Sibilla decks and Kipper.
Le Petit Jeu de Lenormand Vs. Le Grand Jeu de Mlle Lenormand
Although this deck shares a name with the Le Petit Jeu de Mlle Lenormand, it is not just a bigger version of the same deck—it is a COMPLETELY different deck, and there are pretty much no similarities at all! Like the Petit Lenormand, it was produced after the death of the celebrated fortune teller, again using her name, but it does contain a number of the elements said to have been used by the great lady herself. Greek mythology, astrology, geomancy, playing card cartomancy, even floral symbolism. I discussed this deck in detail previously in the post below.
Grand Jeu de Mlle Lenormand vs the Petit Jeu: What’s the Difference?
Number of Cards in Grand Jeu de Mlle Lenormand
54
Deck Features
As you can see, each card in the deck includes numerous features; not just one but THREE scenes derived from Greek mythology, a playing card reference, a flower reference, star constellations, a letter, and a geomancy sign
Divinatory Features
The deck is really complex to read, involving complicated combinations of the images involved depending on their positions, and as the central images are derived from Greek mythology, you need to have a good working knowledge of that to be clear on the meanings. So it’s more of an intellectual or scholarly pursuit, this one, than an intuitive or everyday card system. Added to that, interpretations of each card can also involve all the other elements depicted on the card, so it’s not a quick or easy way to read.
Comparison & Uses With Le Petit Lenormand?
No comparison. Although this deck also deals with personal and everyday situations, there are obvious reasons why it’s the Petit Jeu that has become wildly popular and this deck the more obscure. The Petit Jeu is easy and intuitive to use and apply once you know the basic meanings; the Grand Jeu is overcomplicated, intellectual and the exact opposite of intuitive, although it is of course interesting in itself. It does kind of have everything bar the kitchen sink thrown at it as you can see, Definitely not one for a “quick read” and I have to be honest and say, I barely ever use the deck for readings personally, and highly doubt that I ever will.
Lenormand Vs. Tarot
Now, to an old favourite. Tarot isn’t a 19th century oracle exactly, its origins are much older than that, it wasn’t originally used for divination at all, but when it is, it is kind of deeper than ‘just’ an oracle deck. That said, the current and most familiar versions of it for divinatory purposes are indeed from the late 19th century and given it is the deck that MOST people start with in terms of card reading, it’s worth us mentioning it just to remind ourselves of its features and uses compared with our little Le Petit Lenormand.
Number of Cards in the Tarot Deck
78
Deck Features
Divided into 22 “Major Arcana” cards for big life themes, plus 56 “Minor Arcana”, each with 14 cards, and which are essentially divided into similar suits as Italian playing cards: Coins or Pentacles (Diamonds), Wands or Batons (Clubs), Cups (Hearts) and Swords (Spades). Pentacles for the material, money and possessions; Wands for creativity and will; Cups for emotions and Swords for reason. The Minor Arcana represent more day-to-day concerns, and the Major Arcana, ‘higher’ or more esoteric or universal ones.
Divinatory Features
Because of the symbolism used in Tarot, all of which is viewed to have deeper meaning it tends to be a very exploratory, psychological deck with multiple uses, and huge numbers of possible layouts to use with it. The minor arcana tends more towards events and people, the major to universal concerns, but you can do ‘readings’ involving a single card (for more meditative purposes) to the whole 78!
Comparison & Uses With Lenormand?
Although the Lenormand deck is also symbolic, the beauty of it is the simplicity of that symbolism which represents a very simple concept in each card, which is then combined with other cards and other concepts to make new meanings and stories. The design itself is much less important and mostly not of great relevance in its use. In Tarot, however, each image is laden with symbolism and meaning and adds extra depth to the reading. You can combine cards, but they often work just as well singly, and many classic Tarot layouts (such as the Celtic Cross, where you have one card per position) will utilise this.
It’s often said that Tarot is deep and spiritual where Lenormand just speaks to the mundane and everyday. I do think the Tarot has far more applications and is more obviously psychological and “life journey” ish in terms of the sheer depth and possibility of it, but I think the Lenormand also speaks very much to universal human concerns and concepts, just in a more grounded, down to earth and much less esoteric way.
Lenormand Vs. Sibilla decks
The first and most important thing to point out is that “Sibilla” isn’t just one deck; it refers to the decks that were commonly in use in ladies parlour games throughout this era, particularly in Austria, Italy and France. They are named after the “Sibyls”, the female oracles, the prophetesses of Ancient Greece.
Although there are several decks that could be termed “Sibillas”, there are two main entirely separate versions of Sibilla cards in circulation and common use currently, one from Italy (and derived from an earlier Austrian “Gypsy Fortune Telling deck”), and one from France.
The Italian? La Vera Sibilla (“The true Sibyl”) which is a more complex version of a deck with exactly the same meanings called the Gypsy Oracle Cards or La Sibilla della Zingara, which is also very popular. La Vera Sibilla has playing card references and lottery numbers printed on it, the later Gypsy Oracle Cards just have different versions of the same cards and images, but the two do otherwise correspond in meaning.
The card above, for instance is “Frivolity”. On the left, is the Gypsy Oracle Cards (La Sibilla della Zingara) version, with just the image and title, and on the right, La Vera Sibilla’s version of the same card, with the playing card reference (F, Fiori, aka Clubs and 10, so it’s the 10 of Clubs), and the lottery numbers at the bottom of the card.
The French? Meanwhile, in France comes the deck known as La Sibylle des Salons (aka The Parlour Sibyl),first produced around 1840, has highly distinctive illustrations by French artist Jean-Jacques Granville. His illustrations are also used in an Italian reproduction of it called the Sibilla Indovina (above). The cards in this Sibilla deck, although similar in the sorts of things and people they depict, do NOT tally in any way with La Vera Sibilla: they are two completely different decks and systems, although they work in a very similar way.
And who was the Sibyl, the prophetess of the parlours, said to be being depicted therein (see the illustration above)? Why, none other than our very favourite French fortune teller to the stars, Mlle LeNormand, of course!
Number of Cards in Sibilla decks
52
Deck Features
Both La Vera Sibilla and the Sibylle des Salons have playing card references, although it should be pointed out that these do NOT tally with each other at all in terms of meaning, and are from very different playing card systems. These can be used in both cases to deepen the meanings of the cards.
The images used tend to be very evocative, and depict everyday, situations, people and concepts. People cards include friends, helpers and enemies, junior and senior individuals, lovers, wives, the widowed and so on. Familiar places and situations include home and private life, death, surprises, rewards, love, messages, celebrations, journeys for instance. And concepts like frivolity, constancy or inconstancy, faithfulness and falseness are also included, which makes for great storytelling.
Divinatory Features
A big feature of the Sibilla decks is that they tend to represent both everyday events AND universal human experiences or conditions, and have lots of different people cards. As such, they are great for where, who, how, what types of readings. Cards also have reversed meanings, like the Tarot. There are specific classic layouts you can use for these decks, but they also work well in Lenormand-type layouts such as three card, five card and nine cards.
Comparison & Uses With Le Petit Lenormand?
Although you’ll always find a few cards with similar meanings across these decks, Sibillas are WAY more precise than Lenormand in terms of detail and directness. Not only do they have many more cards, they also give you in particular many more options in terms of people, even though these are obviously different across the decks. Crucially, they also have many more meanings. Not only are there nearly double the amount of cards, each of those cards can also be read in reverse, giving each deck around 104 possible meanings! Where Lenormand is conceptual, so can be a little vague at times, Sibillas are situational, so tend to be quite direct. “This is happening, with this person, and then this.” As such, they are even more ‘everyday’ than Lenormand, and obviously far less esoteric than Tarot.
Lenormand Vs. Kipper decks
Number of Cards in Kipper
36
Deck Features
For anyone used to reading with either the Italian Sibillas (La Vera Sibilla/Gypsy Oracle Cards) or the 32 or 36 card Austrian Traditional Gypsy Fortune Cards, then you’d find the Kipper cards very familiar indeed, as they are in fact closely linked and derived from these decks. Susanne Kipper was, like Mlle Lenormand, a well known fortune teller and user of the Gypsy Sibilla cards and Lenormand in her native Germany. Alas, when, in the late 19th century, she moved to conservative Bavaria, a country not a fan of anything with “gypsy” connotations, she created her own deck to get away from that, but entirely based on the cards she’d previously been using. Hence, the Kipper cards were born. Notably, they only have 36 cards, like Lenormand, and although they are numbered, they do not have playing card references, only images. There are several Kipper decks in existence with very different designs, but all have the same cards and order. These include the original Wahrsage Kipperkarten, the Salish, and more modern versions such as the Fin de Siecle and Mystical Kipper decks.
Divinatory Features
As a direct derivative, Kipper cards have much the same “feel” and often similar meanings as the Austro-Italian Sibillas and Gypsy Fortune Telling Cards; they’re all in the same family. They’re direct, they involve people and situations. What Kipper cards don’t have is reversed meanings, so they’re more like the Lenormand in that sense, as is their having the 36 cards rather than 52. Some readers insist that Kipper cards have to be read in “special” ways, and like most decks they have had particular layouts, methods of reading and features associated with them historically, but generally speaking they have so many similarities with those other decks, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t read them in similar ways, although things like direction characters and illustrations are facing adds to the experience of the reading.
Comparison & Uses With Le Petit Lenormand?
Although they are similar in the sense they have the same number of cards, the ‘feel’ is very different in terms of meanings and what you get out of a reading. Like the Sibillas, these are direct and to the point and are really for everyday “What, where, who, why, how” details and predictions rather than the more conceptual nature of the Lenormands. You can see my previous post comparing the two decks here:
Lenormand & Kipper Cards: What’s The Difference?
When Should You Use Each Type Of Deck And What For?
Use Le Petit Lenormand (36 cards) For: Grounded universal human concerns, events and people. Storytelling. Apply the universal concepts and combinations to situations and questions at various levels, but expect simple answers. There are “rules” in particular layouts, but the cards are still fairly instinctive and quick to use once you’re clear on meanings.
Use Le Grand Jeu de Mlle Lenormand (54 cards): Only if you’ve got many hours to spend and you’re super familiar with your Greek mythology! Again, this is about everyday situations in depth with lots of information from different sources and ‘types’ of prediction, but is highly complex, scholarly and not at ALL intuitive. (As you can tell, I’m not a fan)
Use Tarot (78 cards) for: In depth psychological or life journey analyses, meditation, human condition type stuff, the esoteric. Once you’re familiar with card meanings and representations, they are pretty instinctive and meaningful to use
Use Sibillas (52 Cards) For: Everyday events and people; direct and specific predictions and explorations: the lowdown on the what, where, who.
Use Kipper (36 Cards) For: Similarly, everyday events and people; direct and specific predictions and explorations: the lowdown on the what, where, who.
Want To Start Learning More About These Decks?
Over at my Daily Oracle newsletter and substack, I use Sibilla, Lenormand and Kipper decks EVERY DAY in my daily news readings!
So if you want to see them ALL in action, check out my readings, or if you’d like a daily oracle news prediction straight into your inbox, do sign up as a free subscriber.
For paid subscribers, I’ve also been building detailed reference sections for these decks, which are accessible at any time for the duration of your subscription. New learning resources are being added for different decks all the time!
- Want to know the detailed meanings of every one of the Vera Sibilla or Sibylle des Salons cards including reversals?
- Want step by step instructions on how to read the cards, or for bigger and more complex layouts that you WON’T see in my Daily Readings or find elsewhere?
- Want practice in reading card pairs and telling stories with more than two cards?
- Want to start exploring the key features of these decks and how to use them, so you can try them out for yourself?
If so, check out the following over at the Daily Oracle for a taste of what information’s been uploaded already (you can see previews) and remember, there’s even more to come!
Learn The Vera Sibilla/Gypsy Oracle
Learn the Sibylle des Salons/Parlour Sibyl/Sibilla Indovina