So dear readers ... do YOU use reversals? Why? or why not?
And if you do use reversals ... HOW?
When I began, being completely unfamiliar with the images and wanting not to miss anything, I used no reversals (shuffling in a way that maintained alignment) in the deck and studied both upright and reversed meaning before deciding which "felt right".
Also, I used reading and participating in Your Readings as my classroom, and often those offerings are no-reversal no-positions no-idea-what-went-wrong , so there was good opportunity to figure out how to figure out how to read.
Now that I have some experience and familiarity, I shuffle in a way that reverses constantly and I give preference to the indicated orientation's meaning, although I still consider both.
If a position demands a positive or negative message and the card's orientation conflicts, my first thought is to take the "correct" alignment but regard it as diminished or impeded, as is the simplest "meaning" given to the effect of a card being reversed.
Do you memorize the classical meanings? or do you have your own system?
As a resource, I'm creating my own LWB that summarizes what I've learned from Waite, Huson's Etteilla, some patterns I've noticed on my own, a few online resources, a used book I found locally, and anecdotes about particular cards that I've picked up here and elsewhere into a few succinct sentences that describe the essence of each card.
I can't say it's comprehensive or that my re-interpreting the traditional interpretations is wholly accurate, but I've found that it's much faster than trying to search a half-dozen separate references.
Yes Dusty White is very much to the point of having to read reversals. Personally I don't like his style (or even him really), so I didn't put much stock in what he was saying.
His years of experience in the trade is respectable, but having heard nearly all of his podcasts, I can't say that I've gotten much from them. His application of marketing strategies comes through louder and more clearly than his tarot lessons.
I did consider getting ATS for a moment so his marketing strategy has some strength, but after I read the negative Amazon reviews (and heard him disparage one negative reviewer in his podcast) I drew a spread on buying the book and, the cards largely confirming my expectation, chose not to. For $20, I can get another deck and not paste it on the wall.
I agree with the usefulness of expanding the Tarot vocabulary to 156, because the nuance allows one card to speak for itself what would require a clarification card that, itself, colors the meaning differently.
For example, let's say you draw for a news story about a search for a person gone missing in the woods, and in a moment of blunt honesty your deck gives Death in a position for the missing person's condition. Orientation could suggest that upright, the body will soon be found by the search party, but reversed, that it will be long decayed if ever recovered at all.
Of 77 alternatives, which cards can communicate this? Moon and Ten Swords would bode ill for recovery of the body, but what if it's clarified by Six Coins? Could it mean that somebody will find the lost fellow's shoes and donate them to charity? I'd say it's a quick recovery but that's quite a reduction of the card, and we know how badly Tarot suffers when reduced to a yes-no situation.
Most dramatic, and a particular influence urging me to accept reversals in my study, are cards that are completely upset when destabilized by reversal. Justice is so (for lack of a better expression) finely balanced a concept that being a little off for reversal may have a dramatic consequence, and judging a spread with "this card is either a sign of equity or inequity" is far more difficult than something like, revisiting Death, "this card indicates that the affair is either over right now or will be quite soon."