Amsonia
I don't use reversals, mainly because I don't like to look at upside down cards, it makes it harder to get an intuitive interpretation for me when the art and people and images are upside down.
I don't use reversals, mainly because I don't like to look at upside down cards, it makes it harder to get an intuitive interpretation for me when the art and people and images are upside down.
I've been using reversals since I began learning the Tarot. The book I had at the time (Eden Gray's) had reversed meanings, so I started learning them as I went along. However, I will say that I feel that learning the reversals from the start probably slowed down the learning process for me ... it felt like there was more to learn. I now realize that the reversed meanings are inherent in the cards anyway. I still use reversals as they help me to see how to interpret the card. Reversals are just part of how I do readings.
As far as introducing reversed cards, I do it while shuffling. I kind of use my intuition while shuffling; sometimes I'll grab a few cards from the middle of the deck and rotate them then put them on the top or the bottom, depending on what seems right. Sometimes it's a group out of the upper third or lower third of the deck. And I usually end up doing this at least a couple of times while shuffling.
Before I learnt how to read reversals, I had this insane dislike for them. I think it stemmed mostly from people portraying them as the "Devil's own device". But ever since I learnt how to read them (my Tarot deck was very insistent) I seem to find them giving me better answers than the uprights.
Have you felt something similar?
If you don't use reversals, why did you decide not to go there?
hi,
i don't use reversals. i do read reversals(because i need to teach)
the first official deck that i stick with many years was gilded tarot without reversal.
some people would say it won't give you the layer if you don't use. it just a personal choice. i stick with the reader who came with the book, deck. she doesn't t use reversal..
I also started with Eden Gray's The Tarot Revealed (1960), and worked slowly through the whole experience of seeing reversals first as the direct opposite of the upright meaning and eventually arriving at a much more flexible approach that treats them as an opportunity to "think outside the box." I sometimes think of them as “turning over rocks to see what crawls out from underneath.” I posted an overview of the significance of reversals a while back that was just published in the ATA monthly newsletter. This is the gist of my understanding of them:
"Reversal can highlight a sensitive or vulnerable period for the querent, perhaps a “tipping point” where the situation can go either way. There are countless variations on this theme but, in general, reversal changes the angle or mode of delivery for a card's influence rather than significantly altering its meaning. Reversed cards are more cautionary or advisory than prescriptive, and often serve as signposts pointing down less visible byways in a reading that may otherwise remain unexplored. Numerous reversals in a spread may show an undercurrent working at cross-purposes to the main thrust of the reading, “for good or ill.” This can also reflect a very complicated or difficult situation."