Yet another Reversals thread :)

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 25 Oct 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

lawguy51	25 Oct 2003
OK, the first thing somebody is going to do is link me to an old thread so by all means, link away. But here's the question. How do you manage Reversals? Beyond my own aversion to viewing things upside down, the major problem I have with Reversals is deck management. Do you return all cards to upright positions when you're done with a reading or do you just leave your deck alone, in a 'reversed' state, awaiting your next shuffle when some reversed cards will return to upright and vice versa? When doing a reading, do you first purposefully invert a number of cards, say, by way of cutting the deck in 3 piles and reversing one pile? Do you return reversed cards in a spread back into the deck upright or reversed? With a deck that continuously contains reversed cards, how do you know which way is 'upright' for the deck? Do you care? (probably not). Myself, I rarely use Reversals, just with the Shining Tribe deck where I invert a very small pile of cards. But the Shining Tribe deck confuses me upright or reversed. All my other decks remain upright and I almost never have an accidental inverted card. So those of you less compulsive than I am, how do you do it? Lawguy51

Woof	25 Oct 2003
FWIW I do all my cards reversed. I just can't manage them any other way. If I have a deck that doesn't use reversals (and is different enough from the RWS that I can't use that system) I lay out the cards and then just turn them all rightside up. OK what I do is riffle shuffle and when I split the deck in two I inadvertantly turn half the deck upside down. I do this every time with every deck so I have about an even ratio of right to reversed cards that are switched around with each shuffle. I'm kind of anal: I riffle 3 times, do a hand over hand, and repeat until I've riffled a total of 9 times. Why? I like the number 9. I don't re order my deck unless I intend use it for study. Hope this helps Woof

lark	25 Oct 2003
Hi Lawguy51 I take my deck out of the bag split it in two piles , flip one pile around , and shuffle seven times. This seems to work for me. The same cards aren't always coming up reversed anyway. When I first started tarot I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to use reversals. So I kind of worked it out this way. If the artist didn't intend their deck to be looked at in reverse I respect that and read that deck only up right. All other decks are fair game for reversals. :) Nameste.

Astraea	25 Oct 2003
Hi, Lawguy. I leave it to serendipity and don't consciously manage the cards' directions in any way -- the "que sera, sera" approach seems to work well for me.

ihcoyc	25 Oct 2003
I tend to view reversals based on the reversibility of the card design itself. Even numbered Swords and Coins and almost all the Clubs look so similar to me, upright or reversed, that I tend to view reversals as having a fairly minor effect on those cards. All the Cups reverse fully, as do all courts and majors of course. I never attempt to reorder the deck after use. Occasionally I will take out all the cards and examine them briefly, as an exercise; this usually leaves the deck in the reverse order from where it used to be, but I don't imagine this makes a difference. If all the cards in a reading are reversed, I may assume I just picked it up the wrong way. I always reverse one of the piles when I shuffle, and then cut the deck in threes so as to avoid just shuffling halves. Other than that, I leave the cards to the order they were in when I last used them.

Mimers	25 Oct 2003
:D I am laughing. I had an adversion to reversals too. Basically, after a reading, I just kind of pull them all together and let them get put back into the deck that way. I never worry about which end of the deck is up, and by doing this it just takes care of itself. When I have reversals in a spread, I kind of go with my intuition. Do I think it is refering to the neg aspects of the card? Is it something blocked? Is the card just saying "I'm extra important!, don't miss me!". I just go with it and don't worry about it and then it all seems to go well. Mimi

Shadow Wolf	25 Oct 2003
I don't really have a problem with reversals. If that's the way the cards fall and the deck I'm using gives the meaning of reversed cards, that's what I go with. It's what I or the person I'm reading for is meant to see or hear !! If the deck doesn't have reversals , like the Vision Quest I like to turn all the cards face up, it's disconcerting having them upside down unnecessarily !!!!

firemaiden	25 Oct 2003
I don't consciously choose to do reversals but they get there anyway. What bugs me is when the same card is reversed all the time, just because it was reversed once and then it stayed that way. Those are the times when I turn it around and shuffle again. :D

Marion	25 Oct 2003
There are a couple of decks that I never reverse. Mostly I use reversed cards and turn the piles end to end as I shuffle so that theoretically I get about equal numbers. I did see someone comment that they keep the cards upright, and then break off a very small pile, say 10 cards, reverse them and shuffle them in. Sounds interesting though I haven't tried it. I know folks say reversed cards make them feel uncomfortable. It is sort of the opposite with me. When I read someone's throw in Your Readings and they use all upright, it makes me uneasy that I am missing something. :) hey, that's just me.

lawguy51	25 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Marion When I read someone's throw in Your Readings and they use all upright, it makes me uneasy that I am missing something. :) hey, that's just me. I know I didn't intend this thread to be yet another reversals pro and con thread, merely a deck management discussion, but I understand how the pull is irresistable to state one's practice and rationale for it. The above quote made me look down at my spread cloth where a spread has lain all day. The Queen of Pentacles looks up at me, and as positive a card as that one certainly is, I know from it's position and context, that I yearn for the material and spiritual energy of that card, but that energy is currently blocked or delayed or internalized or any other way that reversed cards are interpreted. So Marion, you're not really missing anything, it's all there! :) LG51

Lee	25 Oct 2003
I vacillate between using reversals and not using them. I don't riffle shuffle, not wanting to damage the cards. So when I use reversals, if the deck is all upright, I deal the cards out one at a time, reversing every other one. Then I pick the deck up and shuffle it hand over hand, or else deal out each card into seven piles, to thoroughly shuffle it. Then I leave the deck like that for several readings. After several readings, I may deal them out, reversing every other one, again, because otherwise the same cards will always be upright or reversed in relation to each other, if you see what I mean. If it's a deck like a Marseilles which has cards that you can't tell whether they're upright or reversed (it depends on the publisher of that particular Marseilles), I wouldn't use reversals to read with that deck. Reversing only a small number of cards is an appealing idea (it would prevent the tedium of being faced with a 10-card layout that has 9 reversed cards), but it would necessitate putting all the cards upright after each reading. I'm way too lazy to do that! -- Lee

jmd	25 Oct 2003
Personally, I tend to shuffle by riffling (mostly), so the reversals occur 'naturally'. After a reading, I tend to just reshuffle them once or twice, just to 'neutralise' them, and re-make them my own, so to speak. Only rarely do I place them back in order, and that only for study purposes.

lawguy51	26 Oct 2003
EUREKA! I believe that, via this thread, I have unlocked the mystery of why some of us use reversals and some of us just, well, we just can't. Mimers says she doesn't care which end of the deck is up. Are you kidding?!!! We obsessive-compulsive types will ALWAYS know which end is up. Shadow Wolf just 'goes with it'. Sorry, we on the other side can't just go with it, we must control it! So, here's how to recognize a reverser vs. a non-reverser: 1. Reversers didn't bother changing their clocks back an hour tonight. They'll just wait until Spring for the clocks to move ahead again. In the meantime, they will just consider time as blocked, or delayed or interfered with in some way. Non-reversers started changing their clocks yesterday. 2. Reversers forget which day is garbage day. Non-reversers have their blue boxes ready and cardboard piled and on the driveway as soon as the sun goes down. 3. Non-reversers will replace an entire deck if one card gets bent (remember my Queen of Swords debacle). Reversers will use their cards as coasters in a pinch, and are able to glean meaning from beer stains (ask Umbrae about that one!). 4. No reverser has ever had a bad trip. 5. In the Reading Exchange, a non-reverser who has posted a reading for someone, will check every five minutes to see if his or her querent has left feedback. The reverser will check after five minutes but then go to bed and forget about the post until they are PM'd by a buddy congratulating them on an amazing reading. 6. Non-reversers blow out all the candles before they leave a room, even if making a quick visit to the kitchen. 7. Somer reversers are actually non-reversers in disguise. Case in point...Lee's post! There you have it. Please feel free to add to the list. Lawguy51

Mimers	26 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by lawguy51 EUREKA! I believe that, via this thread, I have unlocked the mystery of why some of us use reversals and some of us just, well, we just can't. Mimers says she doesn't care which end of the deck is up. Are you kidding?!!! We obsessive-compulsive types will ALWAYS know which end is up. Shadow Wolf just 'goes with it'. Sorry, we on the other side can't just go with it, we must control it! So, here's how to recognize a reverser vs. a non-reverser: 1. Reversers didn't bother changing their clocks back an hour tonight. They'll just wait until Spring for the clocks to move ahead again. In the meantime, they will just consider time as blocked, or delayed or interfered with in some way. Non-reversers started changing their clocks yesterday. 2. Reversers forget which day is garbage day. Non-reversers have their blue boxes ready and cardboard piled and on the driveway as soon as the sun goes down. 3. Non-reversers will replace an entire deck if one card gets bent (remember my Queen of Swords debacle). Reversers will use their cards as coasters in a pinch, and are able to glean meaning from beer stains (ask Umbrae about that one!). 4. No reverser has ever had a bad trip. 5. In the Reading Exchange, a non-reverser who has posted a reading for someone, will check every five minutes to see if his or her querent has left feedback. The reverser will check after five minutes but then go to bed and forget about the post until they are PM'd by a buddy congratulating them on an amazing reading. 6. Non-reversers blow out all the candles before they leave a room, even if making a quick visit to the kitchen. 7. Somer reversers are actually non-reversers in disguise. Case in point...Lee's post! There you have it. Please feel free to add to the list. Lawguy51 There ya go!!!! You got it now! The funny thing is that last year for a couple of days I didn't get around to changing my clocks back, so just set my alarm for an hour earlier so I would get to work on time. I don't worry about garbage day. Thats what kids are for (hehe) Lawguy, a bad trip where? And it is very true, I don't care how someone handles my decks with 2 exceptions, my Camoin Mersailles and my Soprafino. The Prague deck I used to care about, but I ordered another one. So now I have one Tarot of Prague I can beat up and one that is never touched. Mimi

firemaiden	26 Oct 2003
Hmmm... lawguy51, as usual I don't fit the mold. I reverse by default, as you describe, and I only knew to put my clock back because of an invitation for brunch this morning... but I do obsessively check responses to the forum threads... hmm, and I have had one very very bad "trip".

Marion	26 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by lawguy51 EUREKA! I believe that, via this thread, I have unlocked the mystery of why some of us use reversals and some of us just, well, we just can't. So, here's how to recognize a reverser vs. a non-reverser: 1. Reversers didn't bother changing their clocks back an hour tonight. They'll just wait until Spring for the clocks to move ahead again. In the meantime, they will just consider time as blocked, or delayed or interfered with in some way. Non-reversers started changing their clocks yesterday. Yes, just yesterday I was thinking that finally one of my clocks which I don't like to set will be right again, and other one will now be wrong for 5 months 2. Reversers forget which day is garbage day. You can't imagine how much trouble I have with garbage day, hahaha 3. Non-reversers will replace an entire deck if one card gets bent (remember my Queen of Swords debacle). Reversers will use their cards as coasters in a pinch, and are able to glean meaning from beer stains (ask Umbrae about that one!). Or use cards for bookmarks and leave them all over the house 4. No reverser has ever had a bad trip. Not sure what you mean by that exactly. I certainly have. *quietly knocks wood, having to get on an airplane this afternoon* 5. In the Reading Exchange, a non-reverser who has posted a reading for someone, will check every five minutes to see if his or her querent has left feedback. The reverser will check after five minutes but then go to bed and forget about the post until they are PM'd by a buddy congratulating them on an amazing reading. I'll answer that when I stop laughing 6. Non-reversers blow out all the candles before they leave a room, even if making a quick visit to the kitchen. I generally remember the candles when I smell hot wax and realize I forgot them several hours previously 7. Somer reversers are actually non-reversers in disguise. Case in point...Lee's post! There you have it. Please feel free to add to the list. Lawguy51 Okay, too funny. Issue resolved. Reversers like the world to be free-form and non-reversers like to feel that things are being kept track of. :D :D edited to add: and p.s. thank you so much for even reminding me it was Standard time again, esp since I have to catch a plane this afternoon.

Dark Inquisitor	26 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by lawguy51 EUREKA! I believe that, via this thread, I have unlocked the mystery of why some of us use reversals and some of us just, well, we just can't. We obsessive-compulsive types will ALWAYS know which end is up. Shadow Wolf just 'goes with it'. Sorry, we on the other side can't just go with it, we must control it! Lawguy51 Do you return all cards to upright positions when you're done with a reading or do you just leave your deck alone, in a 'reversed' state, awaiting your next shuffle when some reversed cards will return to upright and vice versa? When doing a reading, do you first purposefully invert a number of cards, say, by way of cutting the deck in 3 piles and reversing one pile? Do you return reversed cards in a spread back into the deck upright or reversed? With a deck that continuously contains reversed cards, how do you know which way is 'upright' for the deck? Do you care? Lawguy51 ______________________________________ My decks are not troubled by rules & parking regulations- they lounge contentedly as they fall & I am not bothered. Before a new reading I like to swirl all the cards in a circle & that mixes them all up every which way before I shuffle. I like to think of it as mirroring the random nature of the universe - and the Wheel of Fortune, I might add --and giving the oracle full option to speak as it will, not as I will. Well Lawguy, it has taken a year or more, but we have finally come full circle- Happy Halloween to you ! Tarotphelia

punchinella	27 Oct 2003
Tarotphelia, you SWIRL ALL THE CARDS IN A CIRCLE before shuffling, oh my god, I feel sick at the very thought, how can you stand to do it Lawguy, NOW I understand why every single card of every deck I own is upright, facing downward in a perfectly-sized made-to-order bag, lined up with its head to the East in one of several drawers carefully cleaned & lined in advance for the purpose . . . & why the table I read on gets sponged down, wiped dry & allowed to air-dry for a further 3 minutes precisely before any deck, bag, journal or LWB is set down upon it . . . There IS a reason, yes, thank you for the enlightenment. . . . . . . . . . Now can you explain why last year January had already come & gone before a visiting friend happened to notice that the clock in my kitchen had not yet been set back, & set it for me??? P.

bonnycat	27 Oct 2003
And I thought I was a easy going type. Hmm time to do some reversals. maybe not!

Dark Inquisitor	27 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by punchinella Tarotphelia, you SWIRL ALL THE CARDS IN A CIRCLE before shuffling, oh my god, I feel sick at the very thought, how can you stand to do it P. Boo. It's FUN. ^t^arotphelia

lawguy51	31 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by punchinella Now can you explain why last year January had already come & gone before a visiting friend happened to notice that the clock in my kitchen had not yet been set back, & set it for me??? P. Yes, yes I can. Everyone, and I mean everyone, even the most anal retentive, obsessive-compulsive of us, needs a little chaos in our lives. You wild and crazy person, you!

Majecot	18 Nov 2003
Hmmm....Sometimes I wonder .... I don't do reversals because I just don't like to .. I like my cards all facing the same way... And I straighten the deck if they get reversed. ( Maybe some day I might start doing them) All my clocks at work have to be in sync, but I rarely change the clock in my car... and my alarm clock is set 15 min early (because I hit the snooze at least 3 times) When I put a deck away in favor of another one, I re order the whole deck.. I am one of those people that let the VCR flash annoyingly but I cannot stand for the picture on the wall to be crooked.. I am completely anal-retentive and meticulous about some things and with others, well.......? Maybe I will try a reversal tonite :)

ros	18 Nov 2003
LOL Sometimes reversal, sometimes not, depends how strong I am the day of the readings. I use reversals as block, sometimes using a conformation card to see how to unblock the situation , sometimes not. I have 4 clocks in the house. One upstairs & one downstairs are the correct time, the other one upstairs & downstairs are one hour behind. I never thought anything of it till now. lol

punchinella	18 Nov 2003
Majecot, yes yes yes YES!!! I think this is all about balance. Precision & obsession in one area make for outright chaos in another. & . . . all are good!!! Punch

Nevada	18 Nov 2003
I've wavered between reading and not reading reversals through the years (been reading for about 14 now). For many years I didn't read them, but then I was primarily using Thoth, and I still don't do reversals with Thoth, instead I look at whether the card is well or ill dignified according to Crowley's method--by what card is next to what card, what their suits are, how the spread is balanced between suits, and so forth. That's how the Thoth deck was designed, according to my understanding, so that's how I use it. Besides I like to see all those crosses upright--don't ask me why, it just looks neater. :) With other decks I use reversals ... about 50% of the time. It depends on the purpose of the reading, and my reasons are as numerous as the number of readings. :D When I don't use reversals, I often consider both the upright and reversed meanings and somehow decide which applies, or whether indeed both apply. I do my best to intuit this for the individual reading--and the particular card/position in the spread. I also use the Crowley weighting method with other decks. When I use reversals I split the deck in two, flip one half around and then shuffle. I do this a few times while shuffling. I found, when I first began doing reversal readings, that I tend to get a little too obsessive about how I turn over the cards, worrying which way to take cards from the pack--do I flip them as I remove them, or turn them over side to side? Ylch! I hate getting so obsessive about this, it makes me feel that I'm always second-guessing myself, so I have learned to use my intuition here too. I let the cards tell me how they want to be turned over for this reading. For that reading I turn them all over the same way. Sometimes I look at a spread with reversals, and wind up thinking the whole thing needs to be flipped over the other way. Suddenly it will all make much more sense! I know this sounds really chaotic, but I do my best to make an intuitive call each time, and I find that this works well for me. I rarely go through and turn cards upright or order them, except to study them or to help me find particular cards--such as to pull the cards for a reading someone posts here, so I can look at it, or to compare the same cards from different decks. Nevada

firestorm	19 Nov 2003
Quote: Originally posted by firemaiden What bugs me is when the same card is reversed all the time, just because it was reversed once and then it stayed that way. [/b] Exactly! I don't consciously do reversals, so once in the blue moon when they come up I do notice and check it out to see if it has significance, but the whole process just rings hollow for me. When I first started reading, I had a few reversed cards come up and it did fit in well with the reading but I left the cards reversed and subsequent readings never seemed to make sense. The cards felt like "leftovers". So if they do come up for me, I rearrange them when I'm finished with the reading, if they're significant, they'll turn up reversed again, or appear in a postition that lets me know it's still an issue.

lilsher	20 Nov 2003
I riffle shuffle my cards, so some usually end up reversed on their own. When I lay them out, I right any reversed cards, keeping in mind that it was reversed. I read them as reversed if I feel they should be. No idea what I mean by that; I just do sometimes and sometimes not. At the end of a reading, I turn all of the cards right side up again, more as a way to clear myself, rather than the deck. It gives me something to do. :)

Moongold	20 Nov 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Nevada34 When I don't use reversals, I often consider both the upright and reversed meanings and somehow decide which applies, or whether indeed both apply. I do my best to intuit this for the individual reading--and the particular card/position in the spread. I also use the Crowley weighting method with other decks. It is good to see someone say this as I had begun to wonder whether we had not gone too far with reversals? I wondered if our prediliction for reversals had prevented us from seeing the full dimension of meaning in the upright cards? Just recently a King apeared in a reading I was doing and every intuitive bone in my body said to read the card as if it were Rx so I did. This discussion has been interesting. If one has to go out of the way to ensure the presence of reversals in the deck, doesn't that to some degree defeat the argument of synchronicity or "....it was meant to be....." ? If it was meant to be surely the reversals would just find their way into the pack (from the last use or something similar). Just some thoughts. I do use reversals. Moongold

CompassRose	20 Nov 2003
This is funny! According to lawguy's definitions, I should be a reverser -- but I am not, I hate to read reversed cards, and hate to see a card (if it shows any kind of traditional, up-oriented image) reversed. My Universal Waite deck, my Thoth when I was still using Thoth, are always kept carefully right-way-up, and I check before I do a spread that it still is. (That was one other thing -- even apart from the bad drawing -- that made me itch about the Motherpeace deck when I was using that a lot. Cards -- with up-oriented images -- that could fall any old way! Yuk; it was like being drunk, which I also hate.) Thus, the Margarete Petersen deck is a huge revelation for me, for the images therein are meant to hold the potential for reversal -- and offer new and exciting things when they are turned! That, I love -- intended reversal. It makes that meaning still "right" within the world, even if not so positive, as opposed to an upside-down Rider-Waite card, which is uncomfortable and wrong to see.

lawguy51	20 Nov 2003
I didn't realize this thread was still active. Reading the last few posts made me wonder, is there a deck that has mirror images, that is, if a card comes up one way then it's 'upright' and if it comes up the other way, it's 'reversed'? The images would be slightly altered to signify upright and reversed meanings. That would solve a lot of people's problem of not liking to look at cards upsidedown. Maybe the next Aeclectic deck project should be a 'reversal' mirror deck! Lawguy51

Astara	23 Nov 2003
A reversal mirror deck...hmm... Quite an interesting idea you have there Lawguy51.....:) The only time I have been using reversals is for 3 card yes/no readings.

TemperanceAngel	26 Nov 2003
When my client sits down the very first thing I get them to do is this: I fan the deck out and get them to turn 3 cards anywhere in the deck upside (without looking at them). So they are reversed. I find either 1 or 3 of these cards come up in the first spread and if they don't, then they generally don't appear after that. This helps me to understand any blockages or anything that is stuck and needs worked on. I find when I explain that blockage via card reversal, it resonates very well with my client. But, hey, that's just me.....:D XTAX

The Yet another Reversals thread :) thread was originally posted on 25 Oct 2003 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.