Reversals

[Barleywine]

I disagree. I've been reading Tarot for 35 years and have never used reversals. In my opinion if you truly understand the Tarot then reversals become just as pointless as the fabled celtic cross spread. IMO reversals are simply a new age thing invented to sell a few books.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot was first published in 1911 and uses reversals. As near as I can tell from my research, the New Age as a "thing" had its beginning at Findhorn in Scotland in the very early 1960s. Waite must have gotten his idea from some even earlier source, unless he actually invented it (although, honestly, I don't find his reversed meanings of much use). I've been reading for 45 years now and have always used reversals, although I read them much less literally now than ever, more as a quick pointer to where I might want to look deeper than as a full-fledged interpretive tool.

 

[Prilica]

I was resistant to reversals for a long time for several of the reasons already mentioned here (not to mention the fact that having to learn what I perceived to be 79 additional meanings for the entire deck felt pretty daunting when I was first starting out.)

But then I came across Joan Bunning's simple but incredibly useful approach to reading reversed cards (on learntarot.com and in the published version of her course) and haven't looked back since:

"A reversed card shows that a card's energy is present, but at a lower level. For some reason, the energy cannot express freely, normally or completely."

(via http://www.learntarot.com/howcard.htm#howreversed)

The beauty of this, I think, is that you don't have to consider reversed meanings as separate from the upright meaning of the card because it's exactly the same - the only difference being is that the meaning or energy is somehow blocked, stunted, or otherwise prevented from manifesting itself fully. It's an approach that works with both "positive" and "negative" cards, and brings an extra level of insight and subtlety to my readings.

That is an interesting book. It also says the cards energy goes in phases... So upright the energy is present. Reversed it's either hidden, about to emerge, low, or it's leaving you. And that was tricky to understand and apply to a daily basis. It can be contradictory also.
It also said that they are lessons you didn't understand it in your life so you will be faced again with them.

In other book by Paul Phentom Smith said that you need to go back to the previous card to understand the reversal. For example in the 2 of swords RX you need to go back to the ace of swords to understand it. I don't agree with that approach. But I like his books, his writing style and learned a lot when I first was interested in tarot...

Mary K Greer gives the reversals meanings that can be useful depending on the case, like standard meanings but for reversals...

When I see a reversal card I nuance its meaning,not quite using the opposite meaning... The surrounding cards are the key to understand them.
They always for me represent a block often minor.. or the same meaning either exaggerated or in a low phase. Again only the others cards can shed more light because a reversal card itself has an not clear message.

 

[Sulis]

I disagree. I've been reading Tarot for 35 years and have never used reversals. In my opinion if you truly understand the Tarot then reversals become just as pointless as the fabled celtic cross spread. IMO reversals are simply a new age thing invented to sell a few books.

I agree with most of this - not the bit about reversals being a new age thing invented to sell books although I get where you're coming from with that .

I really think that if you get that each card has a central energy but it's meaning can be anything along a scale of positive to negative or vice versa, you really don't need reversals.
When I'm reading the context, the question, the other cards in the spread, the positional meanings of the spread (if I'm using a spread like that) and most importantly for me, how the card fits into the story that the other cards in the spread are telling, tell me how to read a card.

Seeing a card upside down just interrupts my thought process so much, I like to look at how the energy flows through the spread, the direction the people are looking in, whether one card seems to be blocking the others, whether a character is pointing at another card etc.. I find upside down cards don't gel with my way of reading..

I can read reversals I just choose not to but just because I don't physically have any upside down cards does not mean that I don't take the whole range of a card's meaning into account.

 

[Barleywine]

That is an interesting book. It also says the cards energy goes in phases... So upright the energy is present. Reversed it's either hidden, about to emerge, low, or it's leaving you. And that was tricky to understand and apply to a daily basis. It can be contradictory also.
It also said that they are lessons you didn't understand it in your life so you will be faced again with them.

In other book by Paul Phentom Smith said that you need to go back to the previous card to understand the reversal. For example in the 2 of swords RX you need to go back to the ace of swords to understand it. I don't agree with that approach. But I like his books, his writing style and learned a lot when I first was interested in tarot...

Mary K Greer gives the reversals meanings that can be useful depending on the case, like standard meanings but for reversals...

When I see a reversal card I nuance its meaning,not quite using the opposite meaning... The surrounding cards are the key to understand them.
They always for me represent a block often minor.. or the same meaning either exaggerated or in a low phase. Again only the others cards can shed more light because a reversal card itself has an not clear message.

The two of Bunning's observations I like best are denial (or avoidance) and "only present in appearance." The second one makes me think "The lights are on but nobody's home." The other meanings are more standard, at least the way I read reversals. I don't use Paul Fenton Smith's approach much either, although it has come in useful once or twice since I read the book.

 

[Krystophe]

... each card has a central energy but it's meaning can be anything along a scale of positive to negative...

When I'm reading the context, the question, the other cards in the spread, the positional meanings of the spread (if I'm using a spread like that) and most importantly for me, how the card fits into the story that the other cards in the spread are telling, tell me how to read a card...

... just because I don't physically have any upside down cards does not mean that I don't take the whole range of a card's meaning into account.

This pretty much sums up my own approach. When I first started Tarot I learned about reversals, and dutifully began shuffling random bunches of inverted cards into my deck. Over the years, I began to question the need for that. I never read a card as fully positive or negative in any case...any given card nearly always suggests to me a mix of both its positive and negative potential, and context determines which is dominant...but both are usually there in some measure.

I find myself revisiting this question with some frequency, and experimenting with inverted cards; but while I realize they seem to speak quite eloquently to some readers, I just never seem to find them helpful.

 

[VGimlet]

I really liked Mary Greer's book on reversals (also good for upright cards IMO) and got a lot out of it.

I rarely read with reversals anymore. Not because I'm lazy, but because I don't feel the need to use them anymore. I did use them for many years - I've been reading cards for, hm, 44 years now. I use the other cards to decide what aspect of the card is in play. There are exceptions, I do have a few decks I'll read with inverted cards, and sometimes I'll be in the mood, but usually not.

However, I think it's important to learn how to use them, so you can if you want to.

 

[Barleywine]

However, I think it's important to learn how to use them, so you can if you want to.

I think this is the main point. Learn to use them effectively just in case they might add a little extra or make something just a little more obvious (or at least easier to see without too much deliberation, especially when you're fumbling to say something your sitter can relate to.) I don't "read them into" the interpretation much any more - a card is what it is regardless of orientation - I treat them as signposts along the road that may point me somewhere interesting. If that is supported by surrounding cards, so much the better. Personally, as a more analytical kind of reader, I like coherent structure and will use almost any tool that adds value by creating a more detailed three-dimensional picture. Of course the cards themselves take you most of the way to the destination, all reversal does is "annotate the map" in a useful way (although I think novices often treat them like an ancient mariner's map of uncharted waters: "Here be dragons"). If I'm going to peel an onion, I want to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible. I'll rip off Mr. Crowley and call it "tarot without tears."

 

[Krystophe]

I don't "read them into" the interpretation much any more - a card is what it is regardless of orientation - I treat them as signposts along the road that may point me somewhere interesting.

I'm not entirely sure if I'm understanding correctly what "read them into the interpretation" means specifically to you...nonetheless, this comment resonates at a deep level for me. You've given me something interesting to chew on as I continue to examine my own thoughts about inverted cards.

 

[Barleywine]

I'm not entirely sure if I'm understanding correctly what "read them into the interpretation" means specifically to you...nonetheless, this comment resonates at a deep level for me. You've given me something interesting to chew on as I continue to examine my own thoughts about inverted cards.

I'll see if I can explain. Since I've been seeing reversals lately more as "pointers" than "content," they become a trigger for redirecting the energy of the card in different ways. So I don't say "this card reversed means-thus-and-so," I say "this card means thus-and-so, and when reversed the energy may be experienced by the querent in such-and-such a way." As I like to say, the meaning of the card doesn't change, just the mode of delivery or the way it's received. Which, of course, can alter how the querent reacts to it.

 

[Krystophe]

I'll see if I can explain. Since I've been seeing reversals lately more as "pointers" than "content," they become a trigger for redirecting the energy of the card in different ways. So I don't say "this card reversed means-thus-and-so," I say "this card means thus-and-so, and when reversed the energy may be experienced by the querent in such-and-such a way." As I like to say, the meaning of the card doesn't change, just the mode of delivery or the way it's received. Which, of course, can alter how the querent reacts to it.

Right, that's the sort of idea I thought you had in mind based on comments you've made previously on the subject...I just wanted to be sure my understanding wasn't missing your intention.

I'm not sure I'll ever arrive at a point where I don't feel conflicted about using inverted cards, but I can almost feel you beginning to talk me into it little by little. At the very least, you've suggested some ways of reading the "reversed" energy of a card that I hadn't really considered before; and even if I never use inverted cards to get there, your ideas about how to read them certainly continue to enhance and deepen my own reading style.