Do you reverse cards?

[fire cat pickles]

Hi All,

 

I've read that if you do not read tarot (specifically the RWS) with reversals, that you are missing out on a true reading and other levels. However I have a question about how this works. Let's say a card accidentally gets reversed. At what point does it get back up? Or do you just forever keep it reversed? Or do you put it back upright once you've pulled it? And also, it is absolutely necessary to read with reversals?

 

Much of the same as others who don't read reversals, particularly with Marseilles style decks and other earlier, historical decks. (I believe the first use of reversals is found with Etteilla aka Jean-Baptiste Alliette.)

 

I don't read reversals, either. I did at one point when I first started, but that was a long time ago, and I learned with Majors only. Now, with all 78 cards, it feels overwhelming, and the spread seems really messy with upside-down cards. The look of it sort of drives me crazy.

 

If a card turns up in a reading reversed, I look at it like it's an area that needs attention, not that the meaning of the card has changed.

 

I also use elemental dignities, which leaves the use of reversals obsolete.

[Guest D76]

Im using a Marseille deck so I dont do reversals since it is my understanding that wasnt a common practice for that time period. It also seems to confuse my intuition when the cards look unnatural upside down. The Marseille pip cards also don't really have an up or down.

 

:thumbsup:

[Shade]

As I use different positions as "problem" position and some as "solution" I never needed turned cards.

If one appears like that I take a closer look at the card and the position.

[DoNotDelete]

I got this idea tonight that I should try to use reversals only for swords and coins, and not for wands and cups.

 

The reason for that is that swords and coins both have two sides - while wands and cups are both round.

 

I haven't tried it yet though. I will give this new technique a try later.

[AnomalyTempest]

I don't do anything to make the cards reversed but if they show up I usually just assume it means I need to pay a little extra attention to it. It's more of a warning to make sure I really see it, I guess. Not exactly extra weight, but just a heads up where that card/position is concerned.

[boydiviner]

I'm still a reversals guy; so I riffle shuffle my cards with the intention to make quite a few reversals in the deck. I think maybe it's how I read the card -- a reversal doesn't always mean negative things, but more of a blockage, or the "you're almost there" kind of feeling. It is interesting to see many people not using reversals and I totally respect that!

[TeaDotOz]

Lots of great opinions here. I've been reading for around 30 years and have never used reverse cards. Lately I've been wondering if I should give them a try. If I do I would only read them as a blockage of the upright meaning. 

[Barleywine]

24 minutes ago, TeaDotOz said:

Lots of great opinions here. I've been reading for around 30 years and have never used reverse cards. Lately I've been wondering if I should give them a try. If I do I would only read them as a blockage of the upright meaning. 

I've been reading the cards for 47 years now, and I've almost always used reversals (unless I'm using a deck that doesn't work well with them, like the Tarot de Marseille or the Voyager, or I've created a spread that specifically excludes them). I think of reversals as changing the mode of delivery or angle of attack for the energy implied by a card, but not its core meaning. As I use them, they go beyond simple "blockage" of that energy and into more subtle nuances. Here is an old post of mine where I tossed out a lot of different possibilities. It was published in the ATA newsletter Reflections back in 2017.

 

https://parsifalswheeldivination.com/2017/08/06/the-significance-of-reversed-cards/

[TeaDotOz]

Interesting article. I'm going to print it out to absorb later if you don't mind my printing it.  I haven't read much lately for anyone and several friends will be wanting a little reading each next weekend. I'll be using the first draft of my own deck and I'll play it by ear about the reversals. Still on the fence about it, although I can see the benefits.

Thanks 🙂

[Venus Rising]

that was helpful, @Barleywine thank you for sharing that article.  
I generally don't like to read with reversals, but lately, I've been thinking about making it a more regular part of my readings.  I was actually feeling badly about not reading reversals;  I didn't realise so many folks here don't read them.  It's quite reassuring 🙂 

[Barleywine]

20 minutes ago, Venus Rising said:

that was helpful, @Barleywine thank you for sharing that article.  
I generally don't like to read with reversals, but lately, I've been thinking about making it a more regular part of my readings.  I was actually feeling badly about not reading reversals;  I didn't realise so many folks here don't read them.  It's quite reassuring 🙂 

Technically they aren't essential if all you want is to grasp the core meaning of the cards. I like them because they can add subtle shading to the reading. Plus, they give me a leg up on problematic angles on the situation that I would otherwise have to spend time extrapolating from the upright meanings. So they can be a time-saver that points me in directions I might puzzle over without them.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Barleywine

[DirtyVirgo]

I am brand new to tarot, and made sure to learn reversals, just in case I like them! It also helps me study and understand the card itself more in depth. I think it's interesting because people's interpretations of reversed cards are all different just as the interpretations of upright cards are. That being said, I don't think there's anything wrong with simply keeping them upright! You can easily achieve a level of understanding with some oracle cards for guidance instead! I know some people reverse their oracle cards too, but I personally do not. Some oracle decks can be reversed, some are less applicable, but honestly I don't think there's any right or wrong to choices people make! To me, it's the execution of the words that come out of people that makes a good reading! Whatever gives the best results, helps people out, and makes you feel good, is valid!

[katrinka]

I don't use reversals. I know how to read them (I was under the impression they were mandatory when I was first learning) but I stopped when the internet happened and I was finally able to access material on Lenormand and other traditional cartomancy.
Now I use attendance: distance and combinations. In Lenormand, for example, the Fish is a good card. It's money and abundance. But suppose you had Scythe - Fish - Coffin? Big losses coming! Stock up on ramen noodles - ugh! Or the loyal Dog was preceded by the Fox and followed by the Snake? Watch your back.
Same with Tarot. RWS, for example: 2 of Cups, excellent. 7 of Swords, 2 of Cups, Tower - run!
That's just the way card reading was done until fairly recently. Any card reading: Lenormand, playing cards, Sibilla, Kippers, and yes, Tarot.
I kind of blame the massive popularity of Waite for it being buried all these years. What came into vogue was reversals, and reading the cards in named positions as little islands unto themselves - which is fine if you want to do that. But for the most part, the available information here in the US pushed that to the exclusion of everything else.

Don't get me wrong, some books suggested considering nearby cards. But virtually nobody explained it, with the possible exception of Sasha Fenton. But her books weren't available to me (if they were available in the US, I blinked and missed them) until the internet happened. For the most part she was a UK phenomenon.
Crowley, interestingly, didn't use reversals either. But I don't think he gave any further explanation?
Anyway, I find them unnecessary at best, and oftentimes they can actually fuzz up the picture for me. I'm already doing context and attendance, and, rarely but sometimes, named positions - add reversals to that and it just turns into an ambiguous blob of contradiction and paradox.
 

Edited July 21, 2019 by katrinka

[ilweran]

@katrinka that is so interesting. I tend to read tarot a bit like that naturally, not something I read in a book, just something I do, and rarely read with spreads with named positions as it seems so restrictive. I also don't use reversals, never liked them at all, it's always been more about context, and which cards are nearby. To be honest I struggle with any other way and the day I realised the Celtic Cross wasn't compulsory and I didn't have to do this or that that the books said I should was a revelation 🤯

 

(As was buying the book on Lenormand by Andy Boroveshengra that I think you recommended me? I'm really enjoying it. I don't know how I'm going to fit it in with all the Celtic/Ogham/Greenwood stuff I'm doing, but I really want to make a proper go of learning the Lenormand as well, never knew the structure (is that the right word? Struggling to think of a better phrasing) was the same as Jass cards, just that snippet of information on it's own has changed how I look at it!)

Edited July 21, 2019 by ilweran

[katrinka]

3 hours ago, ilweran said:

@katrinka that is so interesting. I tend to read tarot a bit like that naturally, not something I read in a book, just something I do, and rarely read with spreads with named positions as it seems so restrictive. I also don't use reversals, never liked them at all, it's always been more about context, and which cards are nearby. To be honest I struggle with any other way and the day I realised the Celtic Cross wasn't compulsory and I didn't have to do this or that that the books said I should was a revelation 🤯

 

(As was buying the book on Lenormand by Andy Boroveshengra that I think you recommended me? I'm really enjoying it. I don't know how I'm going to fit it in with all the Celtic/Ogham/Greenwood stuff I'm doing, but I really want to make a proper go of learning the Lenormand as well, never knew the structure (is that the right word? Struggling to think of a better phrasing) was the same as Jass cards, just that snippet of information on it's own has changed how I look at it!)

It's a great little book, isn't it? And his blog is back https://abcartomancy.blogspot.com/  (Please do not link to it on facebook, as per his request.)
One interesting tidbit: Andy does occasionally use the Celtic Cross. But he takes card interaction into account. He says the idea is to make it a ten card reading, rather than ten one card readings. 😉

[Barleywine]

2 hours ago, katrinka said:

It's a great little book, isn't it? And his blog is back https://abcartomancy.blogspot.com/  (Please do not link to it on facebook, as per his request.)
One interesting tidbit: Andy does occasionally use the Celtic Cross. But he takes card interaction into account. He says the idea is to make it a ten card reading, rather than ten one card readings. 😉

I'm not even sure how to do a Celtic Cross as ten one-card readings. It invites being looked at as a whole first, and then sectionally, and finally as various sets. I tweaked it a number of years ago to make it work better as a continuum.

[katrinka]

28 minutes ago, Barleywine said:

I'm not even sure how to do a Celtic Cross as ten one-card readings.

"This covers you...", explanation, "this crosses you..", explanation, and so forth, in the order the cards were laid out. A lot of people do that. It's pretty much what Waite SAID to do, at least to the general public.

28 minutes ago, Barleywine said:

It invites being looked at as a whole first, and then sectionally, and finally as various sets. I tweaked it a number of years ago to make it work better as a continuum.

It's very sectional. 1 + 2 is talking about the present moment. 4 + 5, the roots of 1+2. Etc.

[Barleywine]

13 minutes ago, katrinka said:

"This covers you...", explanation, "this crosses you..", explanation, and so forth, in the order the cards were laid out. A lot of people do that. It's pretty much what Waite SAID to do, at least to the general public.

It's very sectional. 1 + 2 is talking about the present moment. 4 + 5, the roots of 1+2. Etc.

Yeah. I don't use Waite's process flow. I alway's liked Eden Gray's better, and I found out after reading Tarot Beyond the Basics that Anthony Louis apparently does too since he describes an approach very similar to the one I've been using since the mid-80s. I like Gray's timeline idea, moving from the bottom card clockwise. I don't use a Significator most of the time so it's "facing" is moot, and the "crossing" card (I dumped the quaint Victorian terminology as well) can be both a challenge and an opportunity. (Come to think of it, I renamed quite a few of the positions to some extent, while keeping the positional architecture.) I try to look at it as a gestalt first and see what jumps out of the mix, then build around that. It's a very powerful spread when used with flexibility. Unfortunately, it doesn't support Elemental Dignities all that well, but I even created a variant that does that.

[katrinka]

12 hours ago, Barleywine said:

 I don't use a Significator most of the time so it's "facing" is moot, and the "crossing" card (I dumped the quaint Victorian terminology as well) can be both a challenge and an opportunity.

I don't see any sense in removing the significator from the pack and burying it under two cards, either. Leaving it in the pack gives it the opportunity to show up on the table, or not. That tells you something.
I don't go around the circle combining. 4 and 5 combine well, but 3 strikes me as part of a different narrative. There's a ton of possible combos, though.
I made a thing in MS Paint just now showing some of my favorites. I didn't include every possibility, this is just an idea.
(Ignore the card under 1 and 2, it's a generic CC diagram I grabbed off of google images. It's getting harder to find diagrams laid in the standard order.

[devin]

16 hours ago, katrinka said:

And his blog is back https://abcartomancy.blogspot.com/  (Please do not link to it on facebook, as per his request.)

For general interest, here's Mr. B's piece on the CC: http://abcartomancy.blogspot.com/2019/03/signum-crucis-ancient-celtic-method-of.html

[katrinka]

It's VERY good to have that post available again!

[Barleywine]

3 hours ago, katrinka said:

I don't see any sense in removing the significator from the pack and burying it under two cards, either. Leaving it in the pack gives it the opportunity to show up on the table, or not. That tells you something.
I don't go around the circle combining. 4 and 5 combine well, but 3 strikes me as part of a different narrative. There's a ton of possible combos, though.
I made a thing in MS Paint just now showing some of my favorites. I didn't include every possibility, this is just an idea.
(Ignore the card under 1 and 2, it's a generic CC diagram I grabbed off of google images. It's getting harder to find diagrams laid in the standard order.

Anthony Louis makes combos of 3 and 10 and 6 and 10, and I can see his point. I use the old method of considering the first six cards to be about the question or situation itself, and the last four to show how the querent adapts to it. The first two cards reflect the "heart of the matter" and are more about setting the stage, while the next four are developmental. And to get back on topic, I do use reversals with the CC.

Edited July 22, 2019 by Barleywine

[Barleywine]

I wanted to revisit the idea that Elemental Dignities make reversals obsolete. I've thought a lot about it and spent a lot of time with Liber T and Jim Eshelman's Liber Theta, and I don't think they do. EDs affect the potency of the "principal" or focus card, while reversal can change the way in which its influence is delivered. It could of course just mean diminishment of the energy, but it can be so much more than that. I use both but not at the same time all the time, since some spreads don't support EDs and others don't benefit from reversals.

Edited July 22, 2019 by Barleywine

[Saturn Celeste]

On 7/20/2019 at 11:38 PM, katrinka said:

Now I use attendance: distance and combinations. In Lenormand, for example, the Fish is a good card. It's money and abundance. But suppose you had Scythe - Fish - Coffin? Big losses coming! Stock up on ramen noodles - ugh! Or the loyal Dog was preceded by the Fox and followed by the Snake? Watch your back.
Same with Tarot. RWS, for example: 2 of Cups, excellent. 7 of Swords, 2 of Cups, Tower - run!
That's just the way card reading was done until fairly recently.

I understand this!  I think I am gravitating more to this reading concept when I do the Celtic Cross and my past life readings.  I read the positions as influences and it gives so much fluidity to just read all the cards together instead of going through position by position.  What I do now is give an overall first impression quickie and then take the spread position by position.  Something I've noticed with past life readings is the High Priestess and the Hanged Man show up almost all the time.  And I use different decks!  But they, (maybe as high as 8 out of 10 times) either together or separately, show up in the reading.  I don't read Lenormand much but I understand the distance and how it works in Lenormand readings.  I will do that in a past life reading on how close or distant other cards are from a particular card I'm delving into.

[Arch]

I don't either read with reversals, mostly because I felt Tarot was complex enough in the beginning.

Now, when I probably could start reading reversals without too much problems,

I don't see the point, the cards tell me what I want to know, if I want to change something,

then changing the spread as someone pointed out earlier, is a much easier way than starting to turn cards around.

Also the deck I use right now, isn't ideal for reversals anyway, with a back that sort of telegraphs what is to come.

That is my favorite deck, so I'm even less likely to try out reversals any time soon.