Reversals - Do you use them? Why or Why not?

NatKat

When I first learned Tarot, I used reversals. I memorized all the classical meanings for both upright and reversed cards of RWS deck. About 10 years down that path I chose to stop using reversals.

First of all, I started using Thoth deck and noticed that BoT and other books on that deck did not give reversal meanings. I became more focused on the RELATIONSHIPS between cards and felt that the surrounding cards modified any given card enough so that I did not feel I needed the further modification of rx vs. upright. Also, the randomness of the classical reversal meanings bothered me!

Recently I have been reading Dusty White book and he is very adamant to use reversals. So I have been considering to start using them again ... but I am now very set in my ways of NOT using reversals for 20 years!

So dear readers ... do YOU use reversals? Why? or why not?
And if you do use reversals ... HOW? Do you memorize the classical meanings? or do you have your own system?
 

Kat Moon

Hi NatKat

Okay here is my take. Personally I do not read reversals with my Tarot cards (I do with my oracles). With 78 cards, they have a pretty good spread of good and bad news; and everything in between. I too focus more on the spot that the card falls on in a spread, how it relates to the other cards around it, and what I am being drawn to in the card.

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.

Now Biddy Tarot also stresses uses reversals. And I can see why, and the benefit that it brings. But for me, it just adds an extra layer of confusion. If you have a "negative" space in a spread (what is hindering you for example), then you have a reversed card. Does it count as a double negative and makes it a positive? In my mind there is just no need for all of that. The cards will tell you what they need to tell you.

Anyway that is just my two cents.
 

Grizabella

Normally I don't read reversals. Sometimes I do more recently. Mostly I just don't like the look of the upside down images. If I do decide to use them, I cut the card into three stacks, then reverse one of the stacks, put the deck back together, shuffle a few times, then deal the cards out into four piles, collect up the piles, shuffle another time or two, and do my spread after all that. It's so that I know all the reversed cards are well-integrated into the deck and not in clumps. And once I've done the spread, I go back through and turn the reversed cards back upright again so there won't be the issue of picking the cards up for another reading and finding I've got 2/3 reversed because I didn't pick the deck up the right way.

Anyway, it just seems that if there's a reading that reversals would be good with, my intuition prompts me to do it that way. Otherwise, I just use no reversals.
 

AntonK1111

I just follow my gut feeling as to whether I will use reversals or not in a particular reading, but generally I don't use them.
 

TheProphet

I have been reading cards for a few years and for the last two months or so I've read with reversals. It never felt "right" to do so before, but I am more comfortable with it now. I shuffle my deck, and randomly (without looking at the images) I'll turn over a stack of cards (between 20-40%) so they are upsidedown and keep shuffling. However, I don't use reverals in every reading. I feel like some readings will give a better picture with reverals, while some readings require the energy "to flow". So it depends on the question and the situation for me. I have not memorized all the reversed meanings, so I often have to check my notes. But oftentimes I do understand the bigger picture of a reversed card, especially with the court cards. What throws me off with reverals is if I do a 5 card reading and 4 of the 5 cards are upright and positive and encouraging, and then there's a fifth reversed card. Sometimes I'll just turn it upsidedown because it doesn't make sense. But at other times it's because I'm still not very skilled in reading combinations or fully understand them at all times. You could try reversals for a while (at least for the readings that you intituitvly feel need reversals) and see how you like it (or not). :thumbsup:
 

Bonny

Hi Nat,

I prefer not to - I confess I get very confused watching when others do. It just all gets s bit too obscure when they're used - I'm not a fan of reversals.

B:)
 

Absynthe

I use them and I use the Thoth deck. But to get a reversal isn't that common for me anyway. I don't have a different meaning for the card Rx versus upright. They mean the same thing but the rx or upright position shows the status of that energy in the querent life. Either stable, or unstable. I don't purposefully cut the deck and reverse some of them though. I only get a Rx card if it occurs through normal shuffling which is why they are rare. But when they are there, they tend to be significant.
 

Ruby Jewel

I have also asked this question on a thread in the past. For awhile I used reversals and was in awe of how accurate they could be. Then I ran across Nancy Shavick who says "if a card comes up reversed, just turn it upright." If you have knowledge of her book "The Tarot", you may realize, like I did, she is quite advanced in the tarot...moreso, in my estimation than even Rachel Pollock whom I considered to be #1 prior to discovering Shavick. I put Shavick up there with Waite....but much more explicit and free with information. Now, when I look at a card in reverse, I do what she says: turn it upright. It is my understanding that reversals are a modern invention and not a part of the original procedure for reading tarot. I admit I am not an historian in this respect....just a cursory understanding I have acquired from miscellaneous readings. In conclusion let me just say that I find reversals somewhat irritating....can't seem to integrate them in my mind. I, like you, am left to ponder the feasibility of using them. I think I am coming to the conclusion to just consider both meanings when I look at the card. For instance, The Devil means obsessions, addictions....but at the same time it means the challenge to differentiate between truth and lies. Upsidedown, the chains drop off....but, up, the chains also come off when you solve the issue of what is a lie and what is the truth...so, it seems to me that if you understand the dichotomy that is inherent in the card as it is in life....such as the relativity of good and evil...there is no longer a need for reversals. Thus, I am inclined to say this: when you learn the true meanings of the card, reversals are irrelevant. Much of what we are given regarding the tarot meanings is just rote information that has been transmitted through books. I believe that the true meanings are not so readily available.
 

think

I go through phases of using them or not using them. Like you, I started with tarot in my teens and memorised every meaning, reversals too. But then I started to put the combinations together myself and realised that sometimes reversals didn't make sense. So I stopped using them. Sometimes I will do a reading and a card(s) will seem to give a clearer picture if it was reversed, so I consider that interpretation.
 

gregory

No, I don't. And I don't allow myself (in the best possible sense, not a deliberately contrarian "shan't just because they say I must" way !) to follow anyone who is "insistent" that I do anything in particular.

I read the way I read - and I trust the cards to produce the correct message for me when they are all the right way up. (And by my lights, that is the RIGHT way up :D)

If I suddenly felt - for myself - the need to use reversals - I would do - but only because that need came from me, not from someone else said I must do.