Confessions of a Freaky Fortune Teller

This spread has been around forever, so I really don’t know who made it up. It’s a square of nine, and can be used when you want a general look at the next month or so but don’t want to throw a full board. There can be definite downsides to not throwing a full board, though, as you’ll see here.

The way it works is to first read the corners - Cards 1, 3, 7, and 9, then to read the inside of the spread - Cards 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8. Card 5 is your focus card (don’t choose it in advance, just let it fall).

After that, you can look at the horizontal and vertical rows, and the diagonal rows.

As ever, I used the Blue Owl Lenormand, and here’s our spread:

For those who can’t see the cards, the horizontal rows run:
Owls, Letter, Fish
Gentleman, Cross, Clouds
Key, Mountain, Coffin

If we give the reading a glance, by the middle card, the Cross, we can see that the theme of the reading is hardship. So many negative cards around it (Clouds, Mountain, Coffin) confirm this.

But let’s take it apart. The Owls + Fish signify much anxiety about money (which could come from two sources since the Owls are involved), while the Key + Coffin tells us these are pretty certain (Key) to lead to a dead-end (Coffin). Key + Coffin is also an indicator of illness, and with the Owls bringing anxiety, we can see that not only is the financial situation looking futile, but it may lead to some fairly serious health problems.

Ick for that. Let’s look at the inside cards to see what else we might find. The Letter + Gentleman brings news from a man, and were the Cross not followed by the Clouds, I’d feel better. Remember, the card before the Cross becomes less important, while the card after the Cross becomes more important, so it looks to me like this Gent is suffering from problems, very likely health related, and that there’s an unclear diagnosis - which could go on for a while. Given it’s Clouds, he could be having respiratory problems of some sort.

Now the next one also looks fairly unpleasant - with the Clouds + Mountain, the problem is likely to go on for a long time. There’s another connotation to Clouds + Mountain, which you’d do well to remember, even though it is a bit depressing - it’s the Murphy’s law combo. In other words, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Ugh.

Can we find anything positive for our querent? Well, that combo that’s been following me around lately has turned up again. There may be money coming in from two sources - Owls + Letter + Fish. The only downside I can see to this one is that the Owls with the Letter can bring unhappy news, and the Letter with the Fish can indicate superficial feelings. In this reading, I’m going to take that as yes, there will be a bit of cash for our querent, but it may not be enough - I’d feel better seing Fish + Letter instead of the other way around in this reading. Still, we’ve hit upon something remotely hopeful. I’d say take the money, but be careful of any emotional entanglements around it - feelings are running high (Owls), so the possibility of hurt is there.

Key + Mountain indicates that there are certainly difficulties, and that somebody does want to hurt our querent (remember that the Mountain can represent an enemy), but also notice the Key is in control. So whilst I’m seeing Key + Mountain + Coffin as stress-induced illness on one level of this reading, on another level, the Key + Mountain + Coffin indicates it will take a lot of work, but other obstacles (probably the financial ones) can be overcome and finally put to rest (Coffin). Some good here, but I reiterate - it won’t be easy, and the querent may well give up from sheer despair.

Looking at the vertical rows, we see Owls + Gentleman + Key. To me it looks like this Gent is pretty burnt out about his own problems (Owls), and as we saw before, he’s also dealing with that Cross + Clouds combination, but he does represent some security for our querent. I’m going to guess he’s a boss or a relative, since I’m not seeing a whole lot of romance in this reading. I’ll further go out on a limb, and say I think that our querent might find some help in helping this man.

To me, the Letter + Cross + Mountain indicates heavy news indeed, but given the nature of the Mountain, important messages may be missed - so make sure to keep the ansaphone on, and
check the spam mail in case something slips through that could be crucial. I’m choosing not to read this as an obituary, though it’s possible (Letter + Cross), especially with the Coffin so close by.

When we go over to our last vertical, the Fish + Clouds (remember, the Fish is in control) indicates that money will come, but slowly, and there will still be a great deal of ambiguity and uncertainty about money matters (Clouds). But the Clouds + Coffin indicate that isn’t going to solve all the problems. This makes sense to me, as a man the querent is close to does seem to be quite ill, and the querent is mired in negative thinking.

Our diagonal of Owls + Cross + Coffin reiterates that an illness could come on, or become worse, and that specialist attention will be required.

And our last diagonal of Fish + Cross + Key shows that there will indeed be financial losses.

Think about this one for a while. I honestly did not rig these cards, and I’m not trying to bring you down, but this is something you’ll have to deal with at some point, so perhaps better first in a random draw that demonstrates it instead of with a real live querent.

There are a whole lot of negatives, and we might even be talking about a death, but I hope not. But if you read professionally, you’re going to see these kinds of things when you lay cards for querents. Happy people do not usually come to fortune tellers. What would you say to this person?

And can you see why a short spread can both give a lot of information on a lot of levels, but still not show us the whole story?

Food for thought.