Into the Mystic: The Triangular Grand Tableau
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Very little about the Lenormand system of divination can be called metaphysical or psychological, and as a nominal traditionalist I believe this is appropriate despite efforts by tarot transplants to hijack it with their intuitive and psychic sensibilities. But I’ve been re-reading the Lenormand Symbols e-book by Anthony Louis and decided to take up his implied challenge of creating a “triangular” 36-card layout that draws on the tetractys of Pythagoras as its inspiration while adopting many of the interpretive methods of the Grand Tableau. The result is far more fluid than a standard GT, uniting more of the cards in ways that I can only describe as “mystical” rather than “literal.” (I would be surprised if I’m the first to attempt this at the urging of Louis, but I have not seen it fully explored elsewhere in my Lenormand studies although Lisa Young-Sutton comes closest.)
The spread includes three “points” moving clockwise from the top that serve the same purpose as the “four corners” of the GT, but from there it rapidly expands into seven horizontal rows (plus the uppermost point), six vertical columns terminating in the bottom row (plus the two lateral points), and fourteen diagonals (seven running upward and seven running downward from the left). There are also 28 point-up triplets and 21 point-down triplets that might be examined for further “localized” information about any life-area topic cards that occupy them.
The three cards at the top can still be considered the “message for the querent” as proposed by Andy Boroveshengra, but they are now arranged in a revolving trinity instead of a linear sequence, and the three cards that follow them are more directly linked to the opening set in two additional triads. As such, the segue into their interpretation should be fully organic and less incidental than it can occasionally be with the GT design.
Although there is no vertically-aligned central card as there is in a 9×4 tableau, the 13th card forms the apex of a second internal, 10-card triangle that can serve as an identical high-focus indicator. (Interestingly, in a reformulated “house” system this would be the Child, perhaps showing a “second chance to get it right.”) There is also an inverted internal triangle of ten cards headed by the 25th card that suggests a concentrating “funnel of influence” (see the link below for my post on the subject of “GT funnels”), and two diagonal, 10-card triangles issuing from the other two vertices that might be read from left-to-right as expanding and contracting developments. (It would definitely be overkill unless the primary significator is present, but there are numerous other cards — 28 more in all — that form the apex of a discrete, upright or inverted 10-card triangle. Counting the total number of diagonal 10-card triangles would take more diligence than I can muster.)
In setting this up I had to allow for a “card’s width” of horizontal space between each card so the vertical flow would proceed cleanly. This means that any knighting will have to occur in a slightly skewed manner “on the diagonal” rather than horizontally and vertically, and different cards will “knight” to one another than they would in a GT. (I posted previously on this concept; see the link below). All other supplemental techniques (pairing, intersection, mirroring, transposition, etc.) will also occur along the diagonal runs.
“Very near” proximity to topic cards will only happen at the corners where they touch the adjacent cards, while “near” proximity will be a mixed bag of linked and detached cards in the next tier out. Depending on the placement of the significator card, the “far” classification is likely to be limited and the “very far” category almost non-existent. I don’t see any particular hardship in this since I mainly focus on “very near” and “near” connections anyway and let the rest go unless something special is afoot involving the other topic “hubs.”
This will take some experimentation to decipher, but most of the usual methods of reading a standard GT (top-to-bottom and left-to-right progression; above-and-below levels of control; arriving and departing influences; even “counting round”) will remain intact. Although I prefer conterminous over unconnected proximity and here the rows and columns are interspersed with spaces, for the most part the cards can be interpreted as a seamless continuum similar to the conjoined cards of the diagonals. However, a new system of “houses” would have to be developed by those who use them.
The cards in the above example are the same ones I pulled for the 2025 annual Grand Tableau that I posted previously, so you can see how their interrelationship changes with the new format. This is especially apparent when the sequence moves down from one row to the next such that new contiguous combinations are formed. Notably, the Gentleman retains most of his favorable retinue (although his knighting is drastically reduced to the Book and the Garden, the second of which heads a “10-card triangle” that establishes a mini-reading on the “end of the matter” similar to the summary row of the 8x4+4 GT) but he comes into more intimate contact with the Lilies, while the Fox holds sway over him more directly than before. However, the bottom row could hardly be bettered as an auspicious harbinger of the Gentleman’s fortunes.
https://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com/2018/02/14/knighting-on-the-diagonal/
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on January 3, 2025.
