Reversals
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 04 Jun 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| Luminessence |
04 Jun 2004 |
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There seem to be a lot of differing opinions about the meanings of reversals. Some people take them to mean the opposite of the card's upright meaning. Some people see reversed cards as representing problems or obstacles. Some people (myself included) see them as representing the same basic energy as the upright card, but stagnated or used wrongly. And there are lots of other opinions, as well.
Then there's the question of whether to use reversals at all. Myself, I don't use them. I feel that whether the energy of a card is positive or negative will be made clear by where it is in the spread and the question that was asked. I also think it would make it harder for the tarot to get the right message across if half the cards in the deck were reversed. If I was meant to get Judgment upright, for instance, but it was reversed in the deck, I would draw Judgment reversed, and get a completely different meaning. If cards reverse when I'm shuffling in perparation for a spread, I generally leave them that way - I figure that means that those cards need to be reversed in my spread, or will if they come up, and so if one of these spontaneously reversed cards comes up in my spread, I will interpret it using its reversed meaning. But I don't like the idea of always having approximately half the cards reversed, and thus imposing a negative meaning on half the deck (and, since the cards that aren't reversed would then be thought of as positive, instead of encompassing both possible meanings, I would also be imposing a positive meaning on the other half of the deck). But I don't discount the possibility of using reversals in the future.
So that's why I don't use reversals. But there's also the equally valid argument that to only use upright meanings is to dismiss half of the possible meanings the cards could give you, and so using only upright cards is a serious and unnecessary limitation. It's true that you have access to a wider range of information using reversals than you do without using them. But I guess it also depends on how you interpret reversals.
So here are my questions: Do you use reversals or not? Why or why not? And how do you interpret reversed cards? I'm curious to see the range of opinions here.
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| dadsnook2000 |
04 Jun 2004 |
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This question, in similar forms, has been asked many times. First, there is no automatic "reversal" of a cards meaning that makes it "negative" in meaning. A card that might typically be seen as negative (when upright) might be seen as positive when reversed.
But it is not that simple. As you noted, a card's position within the spread and relative to adjacent cards or specific other positions may greatly influence an interpretation. Combining two or more cards when one is reversed can give very rich meanings to a reading.
The answers you seek will require many inputs from the forum, time, and study. Those answers will surely arrive. Good luck, Dave.
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| piebald |
05 Jun 2004 |
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I use reversals if they happen to appear in a spread that I'm doing. I don't shuffle and turn the pack to put them in, the reversals have occured when I have been shuffling and have dropped the cards on to my lap. As I always shuffle with my eyes shut I can't tell if I have put them in upside down or not. I use Mary K. Greer's book The complete Book of Tarot Reversals to help with my interpretations.
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| FoxFire50 |
05 Jun 2004 |
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I'm just starting to get more familiar with reversals and had an instance last week during a reading in which they played a useful part.
In terms of the issues we were reading for, there were two upright cards that just didn't make sense in the positions they came up in. We were puzzling over them and then my querent asked, "what if we reversed them?" We did and by slightly alterning the "energy" (rather than the "meaning") of those cards, they more accurately spoke to the issues.
I've recently purchased Joan Bunning's excellent book, "Learning Tarot Reversals" and she specifically deals with the ways in which energy flows and doesn't take the view at all that reversals are simply a "negative" or "opposite" interpretation. I like that - and my experience last week validates (for me) that I want to explore reversals further.
Nancy in Texas
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| Thirteen |
05 Jun 2004 |
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I've been reading tarot for some fifteen years now and I've yet to use reversals. I know how to read them. If asked to interpet a spread with reversals, I'll interpet them as set out--the reversed reversed, the upright upright. But reversals are just not for me. If I'm doing the reading, and laying out the spread, I want the cards upright. In such instances, reversed cards jar me and my concentration, they upset the flow of the reading. So I don't use them--though I will take note of them if they accidently turn up.
Over the years and the many discussions on this subject, I've concluded that using or not using reversals is more a matter of reading style, of what opens that inner eye for the reader. Most arguments for or against really don't hold water. It's not true, for example, that those who use reversals artifically make half the deck negative. Readers read what they see and a reversed card may not read negative. Similarly, it is not true that readers who fail to use reversals are cheating themselves of half the card meanings. The cards do not have just two meanings--upright and reversed. Each card has a thousand interpetations, and we each have our own way of discovering those. You do what works for you.
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| Imagemaker |
05 Jun 2004 |
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Each card has a thousand interpetations, and we each have our own way of discovering those. You do what works for you.
This quote should be written in every LWB, Thirteen! Or, is it in your ebook with the basics? It's greatly wise.
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| Shalott |
06 Jun 2004 |
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I'm one of those who feel that not using reversals is limiting the deck's language. But I would like to just point out that reversals aren't negative, but a variation on the upright meaning. In some cases, the reversed meaning is happier than the upright, like the 9 of Swords (RWS), with the swords falling away from the woman she can begin to hope again.
I also think that a reversal coming up is no more arbitrary than the card coming up in a certain position in the first place. How can the card coming up in this position not be arbitrary, but it coming up reversed doesn't mean anything? I'd like to think that whatever powers the tarot knows that the reader is not going to use the reversed meaning and therefore does make it arbitrary for that reader. But I fear missing an important message if I don't read the reversal as reversed when it is reversed. Ya know?
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The Reversals thread was originally posted on 04 Jun 2004 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.
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