You may or may not use Lenormand for events prediction (old-fashioned fortune telling, in other words), but for any budding Nostrodamuses among you, you may find this post helpful
Last year, I did a bit of an experiment, to see how well the cards and my predictive skills could predict news events. After all, I reasoned, wasn’t Madame Lenormand herself a famed fortune-teller, advisor to Napoleon, his Josephine, and other high profile political figures & celebrities themselves? Having mostly used the cards for personal reasons, I was curious to see how both I and Lenormand would fare when up against actual world events, events completely outside myself and my own life, and things where I could be objective about where the interpretations did and didn’t succeed.
Why Experiment With Fortune-Telling?
I know many of my readers prefer NOT to do this; after all, successful fortune-telling & prediction is more of a party-trick than an esoteric or personal spiritual pursuit and not everyone will be into it. So if this side of cartomancy is something you’d really prefer to avoid, I’d look away now.
From my own perspective, I found that as an experimenter by nature, it yielded some highly useful information & insights, both about the cards themselves and my own practice, which is a good tool for the future. In the main, I was interested in answering a number of questions. Were the cards completely random? Was I over-imposing my own interpretations on things? Did the events the cards seemed to be predicting eventually come to pass? Or were they too vague to be useful?
Things I Learned
Some Layouts Proved More Useful Than Others
As you may know if you’ve been visiting the blog for a while, last year, I did a series of weekly news predictions using 5-card spreads, a couple of 9-carders for people (& PS, apologies to all my overseas readers, I have been focusing on the UK with regard to politics), as well as , of course, the mighty Grand Tableau at New Year.
To be honest, although the 5-Card spread is usually my favourite spread of all for personal readings, I didn’t find it quite precise enough for fortune-telling news events, especially when there are so many news stories likely to be happening at any given time. It casts the net almost too wide, and because the questions I asked were no more precise than “What Are The Main News Stories Coming Up This Week?” I tended to have far too many to choose from. This meant I tended to be trying to fit my readings into events, rather than the readings themselves providing anything useful.
The single most useful layout for the purpose of prediction has so far proved to be the Grand Tableau. Although it is a large and sometimes overwhelming layout that seems “general”, the fact that it delves into so many different areas and gives so much information has proved extremely helpful
Obviously, we are still only halfway through the year, but so far I would say that my 2019 UK Grand Tableau has been pretty on the mark with regard to a number of its key predictions. You can check out my update so far here:
UK 2019 Grand Tableau: An Update
The thing to note about these also is that this basis of this is the information the cards clearly gave, not just me putting an interpretation of them. You can check that for yourself. Plenty, however, has not seemed to pass – or not yet anyway. I will of course be revisiting this reading again at the end of the year to see what else has emerged and to assess it further.
Anything That Gives You Extra & Precise Snippets of Information is Best…
There’s nothing like the shiver of recognition when some seemingly random and very exact bit of information in a reading eventually comes to pass. Quite often, it’s that exact bit that had you going, “Huh? Yeah, no idea what that’s about. That’s probably one of those embarrassing ones for the bin.”
I’ve had this quite a few times in my Lenormand readings in general’; the official investigation into a man I knew, for example, or my normally positive, confident friend’s sudden & unexpected descent into depression, things that seemed so precise as to be ridiculous at the time of reading, but that then did indeed come to pass.
Again, if you have the time and really want to get into the nitty-gritty like this, you’ll find either the 9-Card Spread or the additional information given by both the Lenormand Houses and Knighting, Reflection & Mirroring Techniques will yield the best results. For a reminder of these techniques please check out the following posts:
Lenormand Card Houses & How To Read Them
Knighting, Mirroring & Reflection Techniques in the Grand Tableau
Just to note also, I have now added detailed interpretations to every one of the cards in my predictive UK Grand Tableau (you’ll see them at the bottom of the reading.) Some of them are fairly loose and could be relevant at any time, any place, some have not yet have come to pass but many do in fact seem strangely prescient and precise.
Obviously That Means Your Accuracy Is Really Tested
I won’t know until the end of the year, of course, how much of my UK Grand Tableau Lenormand predictive reading really was correct. Bear in mind that the more precise your interpretations are, the more it’s going to be a case of “You were right” or “You were wrong.” And that can be pretty stark! it’s not so much of a problem if you’re just reading for yourself – after all, if you get it wrong you can just shrug your shoulders and walk away – but if you’re reading for others you do need to be careful. You have a responsibility.
It’s one of the reasons why I chose to do this experiment with something as neutral as the news. It was more about a test of my own and the cards accuracy. As such, it’s a great experiment to try yourself, if you are so inclined, as you can learn a lot from it.
Where you turn out to be wrong (it happens) it’s worth looking carefully at how and why, so you can learn from it. Have you overstepped the mark in terms of forcing a preferred interpretation or letting your own hopes, prejudices and wishes get in the way? Were the fundamental meanings of the cards basically correct, or are the cards themselves actually showing nonsense? If so, what was your frame of mind when you did the reading? What did your cards get right and wrong, and what does that tell you about your relationship with them?
Charging Cards Wasn’t All That Helpful
“Charging” cards is where you assign particular meanings to a card before you start reading. So, for example, in my 5-card readings News experiment, I always used both the Rider and Letter to represent “News” and “News Stories” but then did a “blind” reading as well. More often than not, the blind readings did better at actual prediction (although in a random sea of stories, it could be hard to work out exactly which they were referring to.). Precise questions also would have been better
To be honest, I often felt those charged cards just got in the way of the reading and, ironically, took away precision. With so few cards to play with, you don’t want one effectively being a) A dead card or b) Forcing the meanings around it to be interpreted from just that angle. I found it annoying. This, I think, was one case where forcing the cards into too much of a framework didn’t prove all that helpful. That said, in terms of not leaving it too loose to be useful, I’d think carefully about what context you’re choosing to read things in, especially if it’s events. I would focus on specifics you want to know about, really.
Sticking To Basic Underlying Meanings Is Best
Prediction is one area where the multiple possible meanings of a card can prove problematic. If you overimpose a meaning or make it too rigid, you might either make it restrictive, or find yourself lost in possibilities.
I found it more helpful to stick with the most basic meanings and combination interpretations if the context of the rest of the reading didn’t make things clear for you. Try, more than anything, just to read what the cards tell you. If a given combination could mean one thing or another, just give the possibility of both, but remember to think most carefully about the underlying meanings. Simple almost always proves to be best.
For a reminder about this, check out my post How Do I Know Which Lenormand Meaning Is Right?
Remember That Your Own Views & Interests At The Time Might Colour the Interpretation
One of the great benefits of doing news predictions is that they are fairly neutral; you don’t really have to worry about upsetting someone with something they don’t want to hear, for example. That said, your own interests and even views may well colour both what the cards show you and your interpretation. I have certain particular interests and views, for instance, and surprise, surprise, they have tended to come up in predictive readings. The situation with this is, as has previously been mentioned, is to try and focus on what the cards are actually saying, and to keep emotion out of it.
So, in summary, then, when doing predictions or old-school fortune-telling:
- Grand Tableaus & 9-Card spreads do best
- You want readings that give precise & detailed snippets of information
- Check your accuracy afterwards & learn from it
- Blind readings often give better or more startling results than those with ‘charged’ cards
- Watch out for your own views, interests and emotions colouring the interpretation.
Want more info and guidance on Lenormand in general? Check out my Lenormand Tips page for answers to some common questions and issues, or why not sign up to my mailing list for a FREE downloadable Card Combinations e-book, my regular newsletter, tips and exclusive subscriber-only freebies!