Practice Your Pairs! "Mystic Sevens" Layout
A classic cartomancy layout applied to the Sibylle des Salons
In terms of “official” classic layouts for the Sibylle des Salons, there are few that I have seen (outside of that in the LWB in the Sibilla Indovina version), but a number from various authors that appear to be utilising more classic cartomancy (playing card divination) layouts.
Often, you will find that ‘counting’ methods, as well as looking at the spread of playing card suits and numbers are a feature of these suggested spreads, or certainly in instructions for the older Grimaud versions of the deck, in any case. (The suggested layouts that come with the 2022 version of the deck are very “single cards in positions” like a lot of modern layouts you see; okay but a bit “meh” in my opinion, as they don’t utilise the storytelling aspects which are one of the key benefits of the Sibilla decks).
So here, I’d like to show you a classic spread that I suspect does also originate in playing card cartomancy, but that I actually got from a fabulous book about classic Tarot spreads (Classic Tarot Spreads by Sandor Konraad) and have adapted to the Sibylle des Salons, which it works perfectly with. It’s great fun for practicing reading pairs of cards. It’s called the “Mystic 7s” layout.
As is the case with the “Six Themes Layout” which Grimaud put in its ‘70s editions of the deck, and that we’ll be looking at in a future post, this spread involves a) first putting the cards into a larger layout (the above) for an overview, and then b) reading smaller groups of cards together.
It’s actually WAY less complicated than it sounds, and gives you a great “big picture” reading with some specific details. It would be most suitable as a “What’s coming up for me this month/year?” general influences kind of read.
Instructions on shuffling, laying out and reading are as below: