LEN: Merrick reads for dodalisque
Posted: 13 Apr 2020, 22:41
Well my friend, you always ask such good questions, I just hope my burgeoning Lenormand skills are up to the task!
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We are both Lenormand newbies. You can say anything and I'll believe it. These Fanciful Readings are usually suicide missions, so start with the assumption that you're not going to get it right. That allows you to take insane risks and make preposterous guesses, which increases the chances of miraculous coincidences. Usually the real work starts after the reading when we both look for things in the cards that might have given a clue to a perfectly clairvoyant reader. Working backwards, from solution to question, we both try to find the actual story in the cards. If you are really new to Lenormand I should say that the appeal of it is that it releases tarot devotees from the need to be subtle and "psychological" and instead allows us to return to old-fashioned material world circus tent predictions. But I'm such a tarot guy that my Len readings always end up having a tarot flavor anyway. So, whatever. Good luck. If someone gave this to me I would unplug my computer and leave town, so if it doesn't appeal to you, for heaven's sake tell me and I'll find a different story ...
This is the best description of this exercise I've ever heard.dodalisque wrote: ↑14 Apr 2020, 23:24 These Fanciful Readings are usually suicide missions, so start with the assumption that you're not going to get it right. That allows you to take insane risks and make preposterous guesses, which increases the chances of miraculous coincidences. Usually the real work starts after the reading when we both look for things in the cards that might have given a clue to a perfectly clairvoyant reader. Working backwards, from solution to question, we both try to find the actual story in the cards. If you are really new to Lenormand I should say that the appeal of it is that it releases tarot devotees from the need to be subtle and "psychological" and instead allows us to return to old-fashioned material world circus tent predictions.
I would be honored.Joan Marie wrote: ↑15 Apr 2020, 11:51 This is the best description of this exercise I've ever heard.
I may steal it.
Thank you for coming to see me! That is quite the dilemma you’ve found yourself in and I will do what I can to help. I will return with a reading for you soon.dodalisque wrote: ↑14 Apr 2020, 23:24We are both Lenormand newbies. You can say anything and I'll believe it. These Fanciful Readings are usually suicide missions, so start with the assumption that you're not going to get it right. That allows you to take insane risks and make preposterous guesses, which increases the chances of miraculous coincidences. Usually the real work starts after the reading when we both look for things in the cards that might have given a clue to a perfectly clairvoyant reader. Working backwards, from solution to question, we both try to find the actual story in the cards. If you are really new to Lenormand I should say that the appeal of it is that it releases tarot devotees from the need to be subtle and "psychological" and instead allows us to return to old-fashioned material world circus tent predictions. But I'm such a tarot guy that my Len readings always end up having a tarot flavor anyway. So, whatever. Good luck. If someone gave this to me I would unplug my computer and leave town, so if it doesn't appeal to you, for heaven's sake tell me and I'll find a different story ...
Thank you for agreeing to do a reading for me at such short notice. I am a 25 year old male Ph.D graduate in Sociology from Princeton. I was incredibly lucky for my first job to get hired at a university in New York State as an assistant to X, a famous professor of sociology - a renowned published author, an ambitious career academic, a TV personality in his spare time, and a bit of a rogue. He has disappeared somewhat from the academic limelight over the last few years because his approach to the subject, based on person to person interaction and practical fieldwork, seems to have been replaced by statisticians and anthropological theorists like Claude Lévy-Strauss. But he has recently become very excited by an opportunity to study the sociology of religious cults, which he thinks might re-establish him as a leading light in his profession.
Together we have infiltrated a local cult conveniently situated about 100 miles from the university campus, in order to surreptitiously collect data and complete an in depth study of social dynamics and behaviour patterns and so on. X feels there may be more than one book that will emerge from this work. The group, a ragtag bunch of painfully sincere but simple-minded hippy-dippy misfits, are followers of a charismatic 19 year old girl named Serena who, while in trance, transmits by means of automatic writing spiritual instruction from an advanced race of disembodied intelligences located in the distant galaxy of Sarnia. The cult members call themselves the Truth Seekers. They seem harmless enough.
The trouble is that I feel I may have fallen in love with Serena, who is very beautiful, and also, in spite of the fact that I have no time for such nonsense, seems to possess genuine clairvoyant abilities and is capable of healing physical ailments by touch. Prof. X is enjoying himself immensely but I feel quite conflicted. Professionally I fear our presence may interfere with the data, and I also don't much like lying to Serena. I am even worried about her because, in order to attain a greater state of spiritual purity so as to be a better instrument for receiving the Sarnians messages, she has transitioned from a celibate vegetarian into a reclusive anorexic, emerging only to lead the group ceremonies.
The point is, last night she received a series of very powerful messages that caused her to faint. When we looked at what she had written, we saw that the Sarnians had announced their imminent arrival in bodily form on Earth. Yes, they plan to appear among us at our group meditation tomorrow evening. I feel silly, as a serious academic, coming to a reader of Lenormand cards for advice, but I wonder if you could tell me what is going to happen tomorrow evening, and how it will all turn out.
First off, thank you for the feedback that I didn’t really detail the events of the night you asked about. That is a good reminder to always answer the querent’s question and not the question I want to answer instead. I could have given this answer in addition but not instead, so my apologies and thankfully this was a reading of a fictional situation.dodalisque wrote: ↑23 Apr 2020, 00:41 Sigh. This is going to be a long email. You might want to go grab a coffee or a salad or something.
I'm afraid I am going to have to dock you marks for "technical difficulty", because no attempt was made to hazard insane guesses at the flesh and blood outcome of this fictional event, though vague outlines emerge. However, apart from that unreasonable quibble, pretty much every word is accurate.
"No hearts" - Bang on. The hero doesn't get the girl, Serena. He's a bit of a pencil-neck geek, and she is a vatic seer and a foxy babe. I like to think Prof. X might be the FOX, because he is the most intellectually intelligent person in the story, but also crafty. We will get back to that possibility later.
How wonderful that the GARDEN, the cult itself, shows up in the centre of the reading. It is the focus simultaneously of a professionally conducted sociological experiment and a visit from aliens from outer space. There's a lot pressing in on that garden: the intellectual and the metaphysical.
The climactic scene in the novel, with the cult members holding hands and meditating while they wait for the Sarnians' spaceship, or whatever it is, to land - this takes place in an actual garden behind the house they use as their meeting place.
It's a freezing night and the tension builds as three times the group troop outside to welcome the Sarnians, only to be driven back inside eventually by the cold.
And then the Sarnians don't come. At 4 am the Truth Seekers gather up their things and go home, so proud of their own devotion that they feel no immediate disappointment.
Those fans you articulate so beautifully are at the fluttering heart of the reading. "Fans" - I've got to adopt that word immediately. So much better than the dry phrase "narrative line" that I have been using. Is that your term or one found in Lenormand literature?
In the top row you correctly read that Serena's messages from Sarnia (LETTER) give the hero the thumbs up he needs to be accepted into the group. At first they are suspicious of this newcomer when he comes to ask to join their number.
As you say in the subsequent fans of rows and columns, the group will suffer a blow to its belief system and cohesion, and Serena's authority as the infallible automatic-writing link between Earth and Sarnia will be weakened. But oddly, the group remain friends and still meet to meditate together and discuss hippy-dippy nonsense.
The strangest outcome of the Sarnian's non-appearance is what happens to Serena. The morning after the experience in the garden, the hero wakes up to find this ethereal willowy vegetarian goddess frying up sausages in the kitchen.
" So have you given up on all that Sarnia stuff," the hero asks.
"No, not at all," replies Serena, stubbing out her cigarette, and lolling back in her chair in woolly slippers and a dirty housecoat, then reaching past him for the ketchup, "The Sarnians did come. They are part of us now. We're free to do what we want."
Prof. X, fearing that his potentially career-boosting study of this group will come to an end, and also to continue the sociological study of a collapsed cult, he establishes himself as the new head of the Order, the living embodiment of Sarnian wisdom. On the other hand, in psychological terms, perhaps she has undergone a cathartic transformation of consciousness. The hero doesn't know what to think. Is Prof X mad or crafty as a fox.
Serena drifts off to university and gets involved in left-wing politics, while Prof X plays the part of a living god before the group.
It's obvious he's become as mad as a hatter. One night there is a dispute and a gun goes off and the police are called. Prof X is hauled off and put in a rubber cell.
The hero goes to visit him one year later. The Prof claims that he only faked madness and continued his Sarnian routine while institutionalised so as to avoid damage to his reputation and a prison sentence for unlawful discharge of a firearm. He boasts to the hero, his former assistant, of the fascinating sociological study he is conducting into the social hierarchies of mental hospitals.
Prof X refuses to leave and go back to the university to resume his academic responsibilities with the hero, who ends the book, like us, unsure as to whether Prof X is mad, or crafty, or the embodiment of Sarnian wisdom. Prof X winks at the hero as he is leaving the compound. But what does that mean?
The story comes from a novel by Alison Lurie called "imaginary Friends". Yet, eerily, a friend of mine was reading at the same time a book by Carl Sagan that talks about the famous incident of the Clarion Cult, whose story is exactly the same as the one in Lurie's book.
Lurie claimed she had never heard of the Clarion Cult, but that she was inspired to write the novel after her experiences, over a period of 20 years or more, involving the writing of a 900 page poem, called "Evening Light at Sandover", by the poet James Merrill and his gay partner, which they "downloaded" using a ouija board.
This gave Lurie, who was highly skeptical of the quality and authority of the "dictated" poems, and sarcastic about the intellectual claims that her friends made for these utterances, not to mention doubts about the objective reality of the dictating spirits, gave her the idea for her book. Science and metaphysics and poetry and psychology meet head on.
Merrill, who was a serious and ambitious poet, was later embarrassed by the notoriety of this huge poetic- metaphysical oddity: "The most that can be said for it is that it actually happened," he said.
So the next task for us both is to go back and find the actual outcome in the cards. The central row fan describes the ceremony in the garden, as repeatedly (WHIP) the group goes out into the freezing GARDEN and their enthusiasm, cohesion, and belief wanes (MICE).
If Prof X is the FOX - and he does seem to loom over the reading up there in the middle of the top row. As divine messenger (LETTER + FOX) he finds a secure role (ANCHOR). It also brings about his end (ANCHOR). But he feels tremendously secure (ANCHOR) locked up safe in the booby-hatch.
MOUNTAIN + SUN + KEY suggests that the best cure (KEY) for depression (MOUNTAIN) is an optimistic attitude (SUN). Hmmn. I wonder if anyone has ever tried that?
Opening up the column fans from left to right: multiple (WHIP) messages from distant sources (LETTER) cause problems (MOUNTAIN). Prof X (FOX) had an enormous revelation (SUN) in the GARDEN among the cult members. The bedrock of his sanity (ANCHOR) has been weakened (MICE) and the door closes (KEY) on his illustrious career.
If Serena is the FOX, that card knights to the MOUNTAIN and KEY, suggesting she was successful in finding a beautiful answer (Fox + KEY) to a difficult problem (FOX + MOUNTAIN).
Of course I know the story really well - Alison Lurie is a favorite of mine - but do you see any other combinations that might echo elements of the actual story of the novel? BTW, what is that nice looking Len deck?
Thank you for the context and the compliment! There are many wonderful readers here, yourself included, and I’m glad to have found such a welcoming community.dodalisque wrote: ↑24 Apr 2020, 05:55 The Alison Lurie novel this reading comes from is called "Invisible Friends". My wife and I are both book people and work in bookshops but somehow I had never come across any Alison Lurie until about 2 weeks ago. She's 93 now so we may have been busy with our young children when she was popular. I get mad passions for authors and obsessively read everything they have done to the exclusion of any other distractions, if I find someone I like. That hasn't happened for a few years, not since I went mental over Penelope Fitzgerald and the English novelist Elizabeth Taylor. So this thing I have for Alison Lurie has taken me over completely.
I got the idea for fanciful readings from a book by James Ricklef called Tarot Tells the Tale, where figures from history or fairy-tales come to a tarot reader at a crucial moment in their lives to ask for a reading. Ricklef uses the cards to get fresh insights into the psychology of well-known figures. Then Joan Marie had the idea of using that as a way for people to do readings for each other. But the whole concept has suffered from teething problems. Regular readings involved thinking up personal questions to ask each other, but after a couple of months I was all out of problems and neuroses to explore. What was lacking were decent questions on which to practise our skills.
Chiscotheque started Plato's Cave, which as you know focuses on individual readers asking the tarot philosophical and moral questions. It might be nice if we could figure out the most effective way to do Fanciful readings. It seems to work best when the person doing the reading does not recognise the book or movie under discussion. The person setting the question - the client - needs only to give the bare outlines of a situation. The fun is, as in the reading you did here, to see what odd collisions appear between the reading and actual story. The "reveal" of the story is like a real client telling you the juicy details of a sitaion from thier lives that you have seen in bare outline with the help of your cards.
But hopefully, unpredictable things can happen. I was amused by JM's reading about Dune for you. That was cute the way she dodged the whole issue. It might have been more effective if your situation was less specific with fewer details. But hark at me! I set a terrible example by giving you a long complex story to figure out. But as I say the Fanciful thing is a work-in-progess. I was just joking of course about docking you points. I admire the way you read cards so much, and I'm no authority on anything. I thought your reading was terrific. We would never expect to predict someone's life in clear detail while doing a tarot reading but Lenormand prides itself on being more concrete than psychological. So blind guesses are allowed; they don't seem to be attempted much anymore in the tarot world. In Len readings I guess we take a holiday and pretend to be old time gypsies in caravans telling the future for someone. Apologies for being so chatty. It won't last.
I am so glad to hear you say that. As much as I adore Enrique Enriquez and the scientific and aesthetic context in which he places tarot, I find the magical aspect of the cards is becoming diluted as I seem to grow in understanding in psychological terms about how the process works. I think I liked it better when I was new to the cards and it all felt like telepathy and magic. If we accept EE's thesis, it seems like we are not allowed to be clairvoyant anymore. I miss it.Merrick wrote: ↑24 Apr 2020, 15:38 The funny thing is I feel more confident doing circus tent predictions with the tarot because the mixture of the question, the cards drawn, the images on the cards, and their placement together has certain things pop out at me that give me a strong feeling that it’s this or that.
I tried to give a clue early on by describing the Prof as "a bit of a rogue", but the whole question was unfair. Charlie Brown's question for me this month is a lot more reasonable. Speaking of which, I still have to do that reading. I'm still struggling with Len. It doesn't carry any of the weight of our beloved TdM, but it does provide a new system for engaging with our unconscious. It's a bit like knowing Greek and then deciding to learn Japanese. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a tarot snob, but some readers are fantastic with Len cards and it does fill me sometimes with a kind of irresponsible delight that I don't get from intensely pondered TdM readings.
Honestly this may be worth its own thread in another area of the forum, but I quite agree. It’s not just Enrique either. Jodorowsky is very firm in saying that the tarot is a tool for psychological exploration only. Camelia allows more magic into her world, thank goodness, but she’s also very into being Zen and as a result cuts out a lot by going that route.dodalisque wrote: ↑25 Apr 2020, 22:15I am so glad to hear you say that. As much as I adore Enrique Enriquez and the scientific and aesthetic context in which he places tarot, I find the magical aspect of the cards is becoming diluted as I seem to grow in understanding in psychological terms about how the process works. I think I liked it better when I was new to the cards and it all felt like telepathy and magic. If we accept EE's thesis, it seems like we are not allowed to be clairvoyant anymore. I miss it.
Fantastic, we're both mystics! Bring back magic! I always think I'm going to love Camelia's books but I can never seem to follow her thought processes during her readings. EE is an artist pure and simple - art is his religion - and his readings are so powerful and convincing. I love how his approach and his astonishing intellect transforms tarot into a serious subject for serious minds, but a lot of what he says is just jargon really.Merrick wrote: ↑26 Apr 2020, 18:23 Honestly this may be worth its own thread in another area of the forum, but I quite agree. It’s not just Enrique either. Jodorowsky is very firm in saying that the tarot is a tool for psychological exploration only. Camelia allows more magic into her world, thank goodness, but she’s also very into being Zen and as a result cuts out a lot by going that route.
Wonderful, that's so refreshing to hear. I go back and forth between the Noblet and Dodal but there's no question that the Noblet is more attractive, and the minors are fantastic. The size of the Noblet cards is perfect too. I love the depressive slovenliness of the Dodal, and how rough and messy it is. Lots of room for ambiguity and improvisation. Like me you seem to prefer Type I decks. Type II is like Bach, a bit straight-laced. I listen mostly to pre-Bach early music, much more cheerful and jolly.