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Hi there. I just returned to reading the tarot after a 20 year absence. I bought the Thoth deck because I used to read with the Rider Waite deck and I wanted somethng a little more challenging.
I am reading the Mirror of the Soul and also The Tarot Handbook. I find these books to be helpful as they deal specifically with the Thoth deck(because I can't remember all the meanings of the cards anymore).The problem I have though, is that there is no mention of card meanings when they are reversed(and they are not automatically the opposite of the card meaning right side up). So I am guessing alot,and assuming things I'm not sure of. Other books on the tarot(that don't specifically deal with the Thoth deck)give meanings for card reversals that don't seem right for some reason.
Can anyone reccomend a good book I can read on card reversals that deal specifically with that deck? Any other suggestions?
Hello Celeste, welcome to Aeclectic. I`ve just got the Thoth deck myself so I`m not at all knowledgable about it but as I understand it Crowley never intended to use reversals with this deck. The LWB mentions meanings when the cards are dignified or ill dignified depending on what cards surround them.
www.supertarot.co.uk is a good site which shows how to use cards this way.
Love and light
Crsytalmynx xx
Thanks for the information Crystalminx. I took a brief look at the link you provided and will look at it more in depth when I have more time. One thing I noticed about the website was that the author stated that when he read without knowing the "exact meanings" of the cards he got a more accurate reading. I have noticed that too. When I strain to 'remember'a meaning I am far less accurate than if I just follow my gut. I've also noticed that some people are easier to read for than others for some reason. With those people its like I'm just caught up in a vortex of information that sometimes takes my breath away.
Anyway, thanks for your welcome as well as the information.
Rusty Neon
13-03-2003, 22:09
Originally posted by crystalmynx
... but as I understand it Crowley never intended to use reversals with this deck. The LWB mentions meanings when the cards are dignified or ill dignified depending on what cards surround them.
www.supertarot.co.uk is a good site which shows how to use cards this way.
True. Crowley was of the view that dignified vs. ill dignified cards (determined using elemental dignities) should be used instead of upright vs. reversed cards. However, practically speaking and as a matter of developing your own approach, there's no reason why you couldn't use reversals: assign the dignified meanings to the upright cards, and ill dignified meanings to the reversed cards. A simple approach is to come up with divinatory meanings for the upright/dignified cards of the deck and then to assign ill dignified divinatory meanings (or reversals divinatory meanings) based on the "shadow" aspects of the pright/dignified DM. Thus, if your upright/dignified DM for the 4 of Disks is consolidating, investing, saving", the reversal/ill dignified DM for the card could be "greed, overpossessiveness, overacquisitiveness".
lawguy51
14-03-2003, 00:12
I have a very good book called "Keywords for the Crowley Tarot" by Hajo Banzhaf and Brigitte Theler and although there are no reversed meanings, the author suggests what the card encourages and what the card warns against and I find those two ideas very useful when I am looking at a spread. For instance, I just opened the book to The Chariot. The book says the card "Encourages tackling the matter immediately, decisively, and purposefully", however Warns Against: Believing that everything has been achieved by just setting out toward the goal." So, depending on the surrounding cards, one could glean an encouragement or a warning and that is how I have come to use the light and dark energy of an upright card in a spread. There is another book by Banzhaf and Akron called "The Crowley Tarot The Handbook to the Cards" and at the top of every card description they have these cryptic comments under the headings of Instinct Goal Guiding Principle Light Shadow and Quality. Using The Chariot as the example once again, under Shadow it says: "High-handedness, meglomania, ultimate failure because of obstacles." Sure sounds like reversed meanings to me. So it's just up to you to 'know' which energy the card is displaying in a spread. I highly recommend both books, especially the Keywords book because it's an easy primer to use, especially after you've done a reading to add that little something that you hadn't thought about it. It also breaks down all of the symbols in every card.
Lawguy51
Thanks for both your comments. I was planning to get the Crowley Tarot Handbook anyway. I will look for the other book as well-it sounds helpful.
What I've been mostly doing up to this point is relying(heavily)on my intuition if I'm not sure what a card means. Mostly this works,but later when I look up the meaning of the card after the reading(especially when I'm doing it for other people)then I start to second guess myself,especially when the card is reversed.
Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Originally posted by Rusty Neon
(determined using elemental dignities)
You know, I'm not so sure about elemental dignities. I can't recall him ever mentioning them in the Book of Thoth.
On top of that, let's say you pull out 7 of Swords (the Lord of Futility). I can't imagine that putting the 9 of Swords (the Lord of Cruelty) on top of that would improve things any, even if they are both Airy.
Sometimes a situation is made worse by adding more of the same - the solution to drinking too much isn't taking another shot.
And this kind of reading seems to be implied in Crowley's treatment of the numerology behind the small cards, where issues of balance and purity are very important.
I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on this, as it's been itching at me for a while.
Love is the Law, Love under Will.
Yeah, the elemental dignitaries seems more of a Case thing than a Crowley thing. Of course, they were both describing the same divination method (more or less), so I suppose it's possible that Crowley used the elemental associations. Of course, it's just as possible that he didn't.
Case says something good about them, though...that they strengthen the message for good or ill...thus the Seven of Swords next to the Nine of Swords would be VERY bad indeed.
I've given up on both elemental dignitaries and reversals at this point. I do keep track of what suit is most prevalent, but I generally just read the cards be the keywords, without tweaking them. That said, I did a reading for a friend a while ago (for boyfriend problems) that showed one possible outcome with the Lovers next to the Tower, and the other with the Hermit next to the Sun. Given what the reading was about, I don't think the Lovers was terribly positive...
Cascade_Jon
22-04-2003, 03:12
"On top of that, let's say you pull out 7 of Swords (the Lord of Futility). I can't imagine that putting the 9 of Swords (the Lord of Cruelty) on top of that would improve things any, even if they are both Airy."
Minos, I think you may have missed an important point that that site outlines on using the elemental dignities. The website above states only that water and fire weaknen one another, as do air and earth. All other combinations STRENGTHEN the effect of the cards. So drawing the 7 of Swords and crossing it with the 9 of Swords would strengthen the effect of Cruelty, since air strengthens air. You seem to be mistaking the strengthening effect as automatically implying an improvement. In fact, elemental dignities that strengthen a card can be positive (if the card is positive) or negative (if the card is negative... not that anything is purely positive or negative, mind you).
Elemental dignities that weaken a card can take away the card's positive effects (for example the 2 of Cups crossed by the Ace of Wands... this would imply emotion and will conflicting in what amounts to a fizzle). They can also weaken a negative effect (I'm imagining the Ace of Pentacles against the 10 of Swords... that would imply catastrophically bad thinking being saved from causing ruin only by tremendously unexpected good fortune).
paradoxx
22-05-2003, 00:38
I find it ironic that the art style of Lady Harris in the minors can be reversed without too much difficulty as the Majors are specific pictures. It seems to be teh back of the cards that do not hold well to being reversed, as it is the back of the cards that identify the overall energy present in the specific deck.
one method of forming dignified/illdignfied cards:
shuffle the deck face down, allow reversals, when the spread is laid out any cards that are reversed are ill-dignified regardless of what the keyword or element is. realign the cards if it is wished. From there the forming of interpretations of what is dignified and ill-dignified can be done with the Case/Crowley form in connection with the backside reversals.
While i am not sure what specific spreads this method can be used, but i have recieved the hanged man card reversed a few times recently and has inspired me to use this method in all of my decks, even if i do not read the front of the cards reversed.
MystiqueMoonlight
22-05-2003, 03:54
The Thoth are not meant for reversals. Aleister Crowley didn't use this new age method of Tarot reading.
MM
celeste for learning to use reversals get the book tarot reversals,
it deals mainly with the rider deck images, however,
the concepts can easily be applied to the toth deck. (or any deck )
and remember it is your choice to use them or not for many of us use them , many of us don't.
I have been looking at that very book as the next one to buy. I'm in the middle of moving, so my Tarot book acquistions are slow at this point (to save $$).
I have tried reading the cards all right side up but I find they make more sense to the person recieving the reading when some of them are reversed naturally.
Also, I have been wondering if I can apply the Rider-Waite reversals to the meanings of the Thoth deck. I guess so. The Mary Greer book says you can adapt them to any deck.
Rusty Neon
22-05-2003, 23:17
Originally posted by MystiqueMoonlight
The Thoth are not meant for reversals. Aleister Crowley didn't use this new age method of Tarot reading.
Actually, Elemental Dignities (the technique originated by the Golden Dawn and used by Crowley) is a more recent technique than Reversals. The technique of Reversals was around in French taromancy/cartomancy before the Golden Dawn ever existed.
MystiqueMoonlight
22-05-2003, 23:24
Originally posted by Rusty Neon
Actually, Elemental Dignities (the technique originated by the Golden Dawn and used by Crowley) is a more recent technique than Reversals. The technique of Reversals was around in French taromancy/cartomancy before the Golden Dawn ever existed.
It's important to remember here guys that although Crowley was a member of the Original Golden Dawn (not the New Golden Dawn) he did form his own covent called the Thelemic Golden Dawn. His techniques differed from that of the OGD.
Rusty Neon
23-05-2003, 00:16
Originally posted by MystiqueMoonlight
It's important to remember here guys that although Crowley was a member of the Original Golden Dawn (not the New Golden Dawn) he did form his own covent called the Thelemic Golden Dawn. His techniques differed from that of the OGD.
hi MM ... I agree that the esoteric teachings of Crowley's order _Ordo Templi Orientis_ differ in various respects from those of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. However, in the Book of Thoth, in Appendix A, Crowley does describe the card reading method borrowed from the Golden Dawn: the Opening of the Key, consisting of five operations.
Is it your thesis that Crowley didn't use the technique of Elemental Dignities?
MystiqueMoonlight
23-05-2003, 00:21
Originally posted by Rusty Neon
hi MM ... I agree that the esoteric teachings of Crowley's order _Ordo Templi Orientis_ differ in various respects from those of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. However, in the Book of Thoth, in Appendix A, Crowley does describe the card reading method borrowed from the Golden Dawn: the Opening of the Key, consisting of five operations.
Is it your thesis that Crowley didn't use the technique of Elemental Dignities?
They key word here "borrowed" :)
hi
When I first started with the Thoth deck I intended to use elemental dignities and not reversals. However, my first reading had an accidental reversal turn up.
I decided to ask the deck if it wanted me to use reversals. The card I drew as an answer was The Highpriestess. Now I always use reversals with it as well as elemental dignities. On the other hand one of my RWS clones doesn't like reversals at all. My suggestion to any one who is unsure about reversals to ask the deck. It puzzles me that we frequently look for answers to these sort of questions from all sorts of sources but forget that we can ask the deck itself.
teb
found that while she uses the Rider-Waite deck as examples (all the illustrations are Rider-Waite images)of the reversed and upright positions, she also mentions the corresponding Thoth deck cards throughout the book.
And an interesting technique that she writes about
towards the end of the book is (once you have your spread)to turn over all the upright cards and read all the reversed like a story. Then do the same to all the upright cards. Then read the cards in blocks of triads or dyads. This helps you to understand the dynamics of what is going on-sometimes at different levels too I've found.
Anyway, I found and continue to find this book helpful and de-mystify some of the issues with reversals.
The Thoth deck was never mean't to be read in reversed card mode. To understand the use of the thoth deck, you first have a key word which literally "locks" the card. Second, you look then for patterns of energy within the spread. Can explain this only to those who ask.
Crowley heavily relied on the kabalah and also his journies, inspiried by snuff. So most of his writings only have personal meaning to him alone.
Regardless, his thoth deck is powerful, beutiful and full of metaphysical brilliance.