Do you reverse cards?

[Dorita]

It depends on how I shuffle the cards. If I'm sat at a table I lay them down and mix them well so the cards get rotated and then I can read with reversals. Otherwise when I just shuffle them in my hand I don't read reversals. I prefer to read with reversals though.

[TheMadHatter95]

I read reversals sometimes. Depends on the card largely, some of the minor arcana are little easier to read reversals. For example if I see a reversed 3 of swords it is almost as if the swords are falling out, as if the person is recovering from something. Other times the reversal can be like a blockage, such as the queen of cups might be blocking progress towards emotional growth or something. 

Other cards are more difficult to read the reversals for in my opinion. Sometimes I use intuition if I pull one upside down, if I get the feeling it needs to be upside down, I will try to read it that way. Or sometimes I will flip half the deck and shuffle it, though I feel some decks are easier to read reversals for, I think shadowscapes is easier to read reversals for than the alice tarot. 

 

 

[chongjasmine]

I don't do reversed.

I am still learning tarot, and doing reversed means more cards to commit to memory.

[Barleywine]

59 minutes ago, chongjasmine said:

I don't do reversed.

I am still learning tarot, and doing reversed means more cards to commit to memory.

It's not so bad once you recognize that the core meaning of the card doesn't change, just the way in which it is delivered (which might be oblique or covert rather than straight-up). Think being "blind-sided" by something you may not have seen coming. Since we've been talking about the Sun, reversed it could mean "too much of a good thing" (oops, you left the sunscreen home). But it could also just mean "a passing cloud," or maybe even "a nice surprise."

Edited August 7, 2019 by Barleywine

[Grizabella]

I really don't believe in accidents. If a card is reversed, it's supposed to be reversed in that reading. I don't purposely reverse cards but I can read reversed meanings so if a card appears reversed, then that's how I read it. It's possible, though, that the reversed card is there simply to catch my attention so the card will stand out from the reading somehow. It might not stand out to be read as a negative or reversed meaning, though.

 

You can design your own spreads to include positions that will be read as the reversed meaning even though the actual card isn't reversed. That's why I often stress the value of named spreads with precisely named positions. It's a lot easier to read a spread of that sort than it is when you just "pour a puddle" of cards out and then try to figure out what they mean.

 

For instance, you might be thinking "Hmm, I wonder what Mr. Fine is thinking about me now." and then you just lay out some cards, you're kind of groping around in the dark. (I know, I know---some readers believe it's wrong to do this sort of reading, but I'm not one of them. Humor me  :D)  You've got such a huge. vague question there that there's really not much you can glean from the reading. You need to be precise with the question, first of all.  "What does Mr. Fine think of me after last night's date?"  is going to be a more precise question.  But it's still kind of vague, so naming three positions and putting cards out for each is going to really answer your question much better and you can read it more easily. 

Position one: what did he think of my physical appearance?" 

 

Position two: What did he think of my wit? 

 

Position three: What did he appreciate most about me overall?

 

Position four: What was least interesting to him about our interaction?

 

See what I mean?  🙂

[Grizabella]

1 minute ago, Grizabella said:

I really don't believe in accidents. If a card is reversed, it's supposed to be reversed in that reading. I don't purposely reverse cards but I can read reversed meanings so if a card appears reversed, then that's how I read it. It's possible, though, that the reversed card is there simply to catch my attention so the card will stand out from the reading somehow. It might not stand out to be read as a negative or reversed meaning, though.

 

You can design your own spreads to include positions that will be read as the reversed meaning even though the actual card isn't reversed. That's why I often stress the value of named spreads with precisely named positions. It's a lot easier to read a spread of that sort than it is when you just "pour a puddle" of cards out and then try to figure out what they mean.

 

For instance, you might be thinking "Hmm, I wonder what Mr. Fine is thinking about me now." and then you just lay out some cards, you're kind of groping around in the dark. (I know, I know---some readers believe it's wrong to do this sort of reading, but I'm not one of them. Humor me  :D )  You've got such a huge. vague question there that there's really not much you can glean from the reading. You need to be precise with the question, first of all.  "What does Mr. Fine think of me after last night's date?"  is going to be a more precise question.  But it's still kind of vague, so naming the positions and putting cards out for each is going to really answer your question much better and you can read it more easily. 

 

Position one: what did he think of my physical appearance?" 

 

Position two: What did he think of my wit? 

 

Position three: What did he appreciate most about me overall?

 

Position four: What was least interesting to him about our interaction?

 

See what I mean?  🙂

 

[Page of Wands]

I think that a upright card normally brings all details that you need about a reading.

 

Reversed meanings to me can be very clear about some cards, but very complicated about other cards.

I used a lot for quite sometime, but i stopped after i realized that normal upright cards could bring the same details like the reversed cards.
 

 

[InkBaby]

As I am still learning the meanings of the cards upright I don't read reversals, learn one thing at a time. 

[Metalrose]

For me I normally tend to organize.my cards and let them in a straight position on the deck after using them. But sometimes I get a reversed card. I think I am afraid of what reversals mean and that is why I keep them all straight. Don't know if it ia good or bad

[NeptuneBloom꧂]

Hi, Twilightlo,

 

Not sure if I even qualify for sharing opinions on this considering I'm a novice, so take this as a timely disclaimer before I go further into the subject. 😅

 

On 1/23/2019 at 8:39 PM, Twilightlo said:

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?

I shuffle my cards using the riffle shuffle technique. Since I try to divide the deck into equal halves and then distribute them evenly, the ratio of upright vs reversed cards will regularly be about 50:50. If you shuffle them several times, the cards will continue switching up, ensuring no card stays upright or reversed for all eternity. However, if a card were to accidentally become reversed, and I weren't interested in reading any reversals, I would simply lay it upright.

 

On 1/23/2019 at 8:39 PM, Twilightlo said:

And also, it is absolutely necessary to read with reversals?

To my understanding - there are no strict rules that absolutely must apply in your tarot readings. So no, it is far from obligatory. How you choose to approach your tools is entirely your prerogative. 💪😁🧙‍♀️

 

Personally, I have one deck that's more illustrative and another that's a bit less "visually in touch" with the traditional energies of the cards, so I like to go off the imagery and read the former without the use of reversals while trying my hand at reversed meanings with the latter. ☺️

 

Alternatively, you could always keep your cards upright but occasionally read them as reversed if they happen to fall into reversed position during shuffling, but that further depends on how you choose to pick the actual cards for your spread, and whether you even accept them as jumping cards.

 

Hope this helps! (Also, if anyone spots anything faulty about my posts, I would appreciate any and all rectifications on this!)

[AlmostSilent]

On 8/17/2019 at 1:00 AM, Grizabella said:

I really don't believe in accidents. If a card is reversed, it's supposed to be reversed in that reading. I don't purposely reverse cards but I can read reversed meanings so if a card appears reversed, then that's how I read it.

This sums up my philosophy almost perfectly. At some point I might decide to purposefully reverse part of the deck, but at this point in time I'm happy to let the cards do what they're gonna do. I definitely think being a beginner has something to do with my decision though to be fair. I just don't feel like I know the cards well enough yet. 

[Annaporia]

I have always read reversals. It just felt like if I ignored them, I was trying to pull the wool over my eyes. When I first started playing around with tarot cards as a very unhappy teenager, reversals terrified me. I had a very overbearing inner critic and they seemed to mirror this aspect of myself. It’s like they were shouting at me and no matter how useful or encouraging the spread, all I could see were the reversals. I wisely put the cards aside until I’d had some therapy. 
 

I tend to favor complications. It’s one of my challenges with tarot. I want to read them on so many levels that I can overwhelm my understanding. For me, simplicity is the hardest thing. When I read that the late, great chef, Judy Rogers used to keep the quote, “Wait. Stop. There has to be a harder way,” in her kitchen I laughed and said, “Yep! That’s me!” So I will always read reversals. But, I’m old enough now that I don’t see them as harsh or critical anymore, but as lamplit answers of the darker corners I have probably avoided for too long.

[DanielJUK]

Just a mod note to say I have moved this thread from the individual card meanings section to tarot talk and technique as I think it will fit in better in that area

[vulprix]

I can read with reversals but I do not prefer it or find it necessary.  So, I would say rarely 🙂

[supersentai]

I do read reversals, and I'm now just over halfway digesting the meanings of the 78 cards, upright and reversed. I always make sure to refer to tarot resources (books or online) that provide reversed meanings as well. I've read that if you don't read reversals, then you really need to take attendance (influences by surrounding cards) into consideration in a reading, which sounds more difficult to do for me.

 

 

[Nishaagni]

I do read reversals, in fact I really like reversals.  I prefer not to consider reversals as negative thins, but rather opportunities for Change. In saying that, there are certain decks where I don’t read reversals and those are usually decks with deities in them. I personally feel its disrespectful to turn the cards upside down, because they’re almost like sculptures and contain the essence of the deity.

[Pretzel]

When I started reading I decided I wouldn't read reversals - especially since I had enough to think about with the cards upright. Then one day a card fell out reversed and I decided I should at least read that one card reversed, but I kept reading all other cards upright.

Now I shuffle until cards fall out rather than cutting & taking from the top. So if the cards fall out reversed, then that's how I read them. But I never reverse cards in the deck on purpose.

[Annaporia]

38 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

When I started reading I decided I wouldn't read reversals - especially since I had enough to think about with the cards upright. Then one day a card fell out reversed and I decided I should at least read that one card reversed, but I kept reading all other cards upright.

Now I shuffle until cards fall out rather than cutting & taking from the top. So if the cards fall out reversed, then that's how I read them. But I never reverse cards in the deck on purpose.

This made me think about shuffling and turning over the cards. I’m trying to picture how you shuffle the cards “until they fall out.” I have very small hands so sometimes it’s a challenge to shuffle the cards, particularly since tarot cards are usually quite a bit bigger than playing cards and the decks are thicker. I have had the cards go flying in every direction on more than one occasion but it never occurred to me to then go full on Joan Didion with the scattered deck and “play it as it lays.”  It’s just part of my lack of dexterity and I gather them all back up and reshuffle. The cards get reversed, or not, while I shuffle them. I’m not careful about which direction each side if facing when I divide and shuffle. When I turn the cards over, I take hold of the left side of a card and turn it over to the right, as opposed to picking up the bottom of the card and turning it up. When you said you wouldn’t purposely reverse a card, that is what I would consider purposely changing the direction of a card - picking it up by the bottom and reversing it’s direction bottom to top as I turned it over. I’m not sure if that’s what you meant. I wouldn’t purposely reverse a card either but neither would I turn a reversed card upright if that’s how it appeared coming straight off the deck. I think I have a touch of OCD when it comes to reversals. I have to leave them and interpret them as they are.

[Pretzel]

1 hour ago, Annaporia said:

This made me think about shuffling and turning over the cards. I’m trying to picture how you shuffle the cards “until they fall out.” I have very small hands so sometimes it’s a challenge to shuffle the cards, particularly since tarot cards are usually quite a bit bigger than playing cards and the decks are thicker. I have had the cards go flying in every direction on more than one occasion but it never occurred to me to then go full on Joan Didion with the scattered deck and “play it as it lays.”  It’s just part of my lack of dexterity and I gather them all back up and reshuffle. The cards get reversed, or not, while I shuffle them. I’m not careful about which direction each side if facing when I divide and shuffle. When I turn the cards over, I take hold of the left side of a card and turn it over to the right, as opposed to picking up the bottom of the card and turning it up. When you said you wouldn’t purposely reverse a card, that is what I would consider purposely changing the direction of a card - picking it up by the bottom and reversing it’s direction bottom to top as I turned it over. I’m not sure if that’s what you meant. I wouldn’t purposely reverse a card either but neither would I turn a reversed card upright if that’s how it appeared coming straight off the deck. I think I have a touch of OCD when it comes to reversals. I have to leave them and interpret them as they are.

I shuffle like usual, one hand over the other (not riffle/casino) - and if a card jumps out (or goes flying as you said( - that's the card I take. My fingers are flexible so I can handle a regular deck or even a little bigger quite fine. But if I'm shuffling a giant oracle deck, then I shuffle them vertically. I see some people shuffle even a regular Rider Waite deck vertically if they have small hands. You can see some YouTubers who take jumper cards - Scorched Earth Tarot is one of them.

I had 4 cards fly out today at once and I read all them - it works really well for me. It's like spirit/universe knows that sometimes I need two cards or more at once to get the story. Of course if 10 go flying out, I'll put them back in and shuffle, I figure the right ones will come out again if they were meant to be.

When I said 'I don't reverse on purpose', I mean like some people who will pull out a bunch of cards and reverse them before they shuffle. Or others will mix the cards on the table then gather them up. I keep all mine upright in the deck, then shuffle and see how they jump out. I turn the cards over the same as you. Hope that makes sense

[Annaporia]

21 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

I shuffle like usual, one hand over the other (not riffle/casino) - and if a card jumps out (or goes flying as you said( - that's the card I take. My fingers are flexible so I can handle a regular deck or even a little bigger quite fine. But if I'm shuffling a giant oracle deck, then I shuffle them vertically. I see some people shuffle even a regular Rider Waite deck vertically if they have small hands. You can see some YouTubers who take jumper cards - Scorched Earth Tarot is one of them.

I had 4 cards fly out today at once and I read all them - it works really well for me. It's like spirit/universe knows that sometimes I need two cards or more at once to get the story. Of course if 10 go flying out, I'll put them back in and shuffle, I figure the right ones will come out again if they were meant to be.

When I said 'I don't reverse on purpose', I mean like some people who will pull out a bunch of cards and reverse them before they shuffle. Or others will mix the cards on the table then gather them up. I keep all mine upright in the deck, then shuffle and see how they jump out. I turn the cards over the same as you. Hope that makes sense

Oh, yes, this makes sense. I riffle the cards- kind of at an angle so its just the corners that catch - It never occurred to me that you could shuffle them vertically. I’ll check out Scorched Earth’s videos - Thank you! I think I’ll give your hand over hand technique a try as well, to see what flies out. 

[Mouse_in_the_Sun]

I find that I have difficulty shuffling the cards in such a way that get reversed and flipped around, so usually all the cards come out upright or reversed in my readings. It's not particularly useful when they're all the same 😅. The times I have read reversals in the past (thanks to digital decks/tables) it mostly bogged me down and gave me more questions than answers, and what reversing a card means can also be hard to interpret: does it mean the card's energy is blocked in some way, or does it represent the darkest sides of the card's most general meaning? Also, the guides to readings cards I like most most tend not to cover reversals, so I'm certain that plays a role in my dislike of reading them.

[Holly]

I just stopped doing reversals. It was confusing me too much. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it, though, so I did an advice spread and.....I mean, I suck at reading, but near as I could tell it said that if I ignored the reversed meanings, then I would be able to be in control and overcome obstacles easily. 

[Nisaba]

It's not really about "ignoring the reversed meanings".

 

I don't read with reversals, and it has nothing to do with anything I read somewhere. When I was learning, say, for the first few years, I swore by reversals. But after a while I realised that there weren't only "upright" or "reversed" meanings for each card, that each card had a continuum of meanings or flavours or nuances. I started noticing those, regardless of a card's position. At that point I gave up shuffling for reversals.

 

Also, the older I get the more disrespectful it feels towards a deck to have some of the cards reversed.

[gregory]

Oh my; I agree with nisaba 100%. I hate that and so does she....

[legendaryelement]

When I feel an urge to try them, it is mostly through my apps from Fool’s Dog. At times, I “experiment” with counting through a deck x times to deliberately create a small ratio of reversed cards. Recently, I did something that used the Major Arcana only. (no spread; just a two-card) After shuffling a bit, I counted through to the 5th card so that 4 of 21 were reversed. (Fool was not included)