Dealing the cards 'correctly'

[Alistair]

I'm wondering how everyone hear approaches shuffling and dealing the cards.  I get hung up on the position of cards as I shuffle, and what is 'meant' to be reversed vs. upright, and the manner in which I shuffle and flip the cards having an effect on that.  I resolved recently to just stop dealing with reversals all together for the next while, and place all cards upright.  It feels more natural for me to flip the cards vertically as opposd to revealing them by turning them horizontally like the pages of a book.

 

I set the intention that's how I will flip the cards, so after I'm settled from shuffling any futher, I'm essentially left holding the deck upside down face down, and as I flip the cards vertically they reveal in the upright position.  How do you guys feel about whether there is a 'proper' way?

 

 

[katrinka]

I virtually never use reversals (except with Italian Sibilla - that one kind of requires them).
But a lot of that can depend on your reading style. Reversals came into vogue with Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot. In it, he presents a simplified method, and outlines the Celtic Cross with no explanation of how to blend the card meanings. It's presented as ten one-card readings rather than one ten-card reading. So I'm guessing he added reversals for nuance, since he doesn't explain how a good card can change if it's hemmed in by bad ones. (His context comes from the question, the named position, and whether the card is upright or reversed. I prefer the question, the neighboring cards, and no reversals or named positions.)

It caught on in a big way, and it will work. But it's not necessary for Tarot reading, or even Golden Dawn style Tarot reading: Crowley certainly didn't use reversals. (Can you imagine if he did? In addition to all those correspondences?)

[Oxfret]

I've personally enjoyed reversals quite a bit. I remember feeling like they where too complex (from my child perspective) but now I feel like without them I loos a lot of the meaning. I don't like when I feel like the cards are too one sided, and without the reverse the readings I do just don't fill out the right way.

I heard that you where supposed to draw each card exactly the same way, but as an adult I've found that very limiting. I go on intuition and sometimes will draw from the deck at random. I like to ruffle shuffle my cards very carefully, along side cards that pop out, if the shuffle gets caught I take that as a sign and split the deck where the card didn't intersect. This will leave me with three piles, the two that didn't mix, and the one below that did. It doesn't matter how you split them as long as it feels right.

I try to avoid bias on which direction the cards lay, taking special attention to not noticing if they are up right or not. I take a step to breath and make sure I am not trying to "intend" anything about the reading. "Do I think this is going to get me the result I want?, why am I taking this action as I lay the card?" I take note on whether I had an instinct to flip it, or place it in a different position and when the reading is laid out I examine if the cars make more or less sense in the positions I considered. From there I can start to gauge where my intuition is doing the cards justice or not.

I am also pretty compulsive about how I shuffle to make sure the cards that I get often aren't being drawn because of how they are worn down. So I'll slip the middle of the deck bellow and above in between shuffles. Lately I've been trying to flip one side of the deck every time I split it for a shuffle, but I'm still pretty lax on that. I've been appreciate the diversity in my readings when I do though.

Of course there is no wrong way, I am still very new and this is just the methods I've found are great for me. The best bet is to keep learning what is best for you, and trying to gauge how it effects your readings IMO.

(I also go out of my way to shuffle them face up when I am not doing readings to make sure the bend doesn't lean too far to one side)

[Barleywine]

My opinion on shuffling is two-fold: one aspect is randomization of the cards and the other is their proper alignment for the reading. I see these as two separate operations. We randomize in advance to avoid clumping of cards, either in their out-of-the-box order or as left over from a previous reading; on the other hand, we shuffle to put the cards in the right order to tell the present story (this is my main argument against drawing cards from a "fan"). I intentionally introduce a random percentage of reversals during the preliminary step, and I never put my cards back in their original order, so the reversals can aggregate ("complexify?") over time. I use them in many but not all of my readings, depending on how I create the spreads. Reversal is just another useful tool in my interpretive toolbox.

[53rdspirit]

I read the cards like reading a story, so I turn the cards as I do pages in a book. I also read reversals, but not always. Also, I don't think there is a right or wrong way to shuffle, lay the cards, or interpret. 

[Merrick]

Usually I riffle shuffle for randomization, then I overhand shuffle while visualizing the spread I will be using until the cards feel heavy or locked into place. Then I usually deal out from the top, but sometimes I will randomly cut the deck and pull the top card from the cut instead. I don’t mix those two methods of dealing, either I pull from the top for the whole reading or I make cuts for the whole reading. 
 

I do it this way because it feels right to me. I don’t worry about whether it’s wrong or right, suggested or prohibited.

 

My partner riffle shuffles only then fans the deck for the querent to pull their cards. If she is the querent she still fans the deck and holds her free hand over the cards until she feels a pull from a specific card. She said each card has a different feel to it and she goes off of that. I cannot discern those energies at this time so I let chance do the deciding for me.