Book that teach you NOT to use reversals

Rodney, I think it's an important topic.

Holy Smoke, thanks for the link and tips

Some books I'm finding helpful at a beginner level are:

"A Magical Course in Tarot" by Michele Morgan stresses intuitive readings with a necessity of using all upright cards to view them better.

"Power Tarot" by Trish MacGregor and Phyllis Vega uses only upright meanings and makes an "Empowerment" statement for each card that can be easily adapted into an affirmation.

"Romancing the Tarot" by Phyllis Vega uses only upright meanings. The infidelity spread gave me a chuckle.

"Taking the Tarot to Heart" by Mark McElroy only uses upright cards in it's spread examples, but avoids taking an upright only stance and includes "shadow" meanings for the majors in appendix A. Stresses using the tarot as a problem solving and self-discovery tool.

The "World Spirit Tarot" is a deck that is meant to be used upright only and was designed to be balanced without reversals.

rwcarter said:

I don't use reversals. If I see the Sun upright in a spread, the surrounding cards, spread position (if there is one) and elemental associations of all the cards will determine for me whether I apply a "regular" meaning for that card or whether I apply a blocked/ill-dignified/alternative meaning for the card.

Not using reversals doesn't mean not applying reversed meanings. It just means not using the orientation of the card to determine what meaning to apply to the card. So that shouldn't affect the balance of the interpretations in the reading.

And while I'm sure I have books that teach one how to interpret the cards without regard to their orientation, it's not a subject that I need help with (although I once did), so I don't know which of the ~400 tarot books I have might discuss that. If people think it's a worthwhile topic to add to the Tarot Books & Media Index, I'd be happy to create a listing for it in the Index and include all the sources suggested in this thread.

Rodney

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I completely agree with Rodney. There are 78 cards for a reason (unless you don't read with all of them) and there is a card that describes just about every situation, feeling and emotion. And many cards can easily have double meanings and interpretations and the cards reflect the situation at hand.

Anyway - back to the OP, simply don't use reversals. I know at times when I shuffle, some of my cards end up flipped or reversed and they happen to come out, then it is significant in some important way.

There is no real right or wrong way when it comes to using reversals and not using them.

Grimaud TdM

I've seen the LWB of the Grimaud Marseilles Tarot and reversals are not used. One thing I've noticed about some of these divinatory Tarots from France and Italy is that reversals are not always used. Are reversals mainly an American or UK thing?

I used to use reversals when I was using Rider Waite deck, but after I started using Crowley's Thoth deck I now use elemental dignity as suggested by the LWB and I think it is a brilliant way of reading cards. A card is dignified when it is surronded by friendly elements and ill dignified when it is in a unfriendly environment. Suggested text on this topic are "Tarot and the Magus" by Paul Hughes-Barlow and "Tarot Decoded" by Elizabeth Hazel. I'm not saying that using dignity is superior than using reversals, but believe me it is very useful and effective.

I also recommend Michele Morgan's "A Magical Course in Tarot." Her writing is lively and inspiring, too. It's a hardbound Tarot pep talk; very energizing book.

I can't contribute to recommending a book, but I prefer to not use reversals.

Bee

Mabuse said:

I've seen the LWB of the Grimaud Marseilles Tarot and reversals are not used. One thing I've noticed about some of these divinatory Tarots from France and Italy is that reversals are not always used. Are reversals mainly an American or UK thing?

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I don't really know the answer to your question--certainly my impression is that reversals play into some of the older, pre-RWS divination methods and thus wouldn't be purely an Anglo-Saxon thing--but it's worth noting that reversals are a lot trickier with a Marseilles-type deck (unless you have a newer edition with copyright notices on the cards, ugh). Many of the cards are nearly identical either way up, and in some cases it's subjective which way is upright (should swords be pointing up or down?)

To answer the original question, I don't read reversals, I didn't learn from a book, and I don't find balance to be a problem. I guess it could be if you're really used to reading all upright cards as love, light, and happiness, but that's not really what's in the cards (well, most decks ). I don't formally use elemental dignities or any system like that, but I do let the surrounding cards temper my interpretation of any given card.

I guess what I'm saying is: you don't need a book; just jump in and try it! I think you'll be surprised at how well it works.

(But if you want a book, the recommendation for A Magical Course in Tarot is a pretty good one, imo.)