To allow reversals or not - that is the question!

I voted `no` as I don`t deliberately turn my cards so that some of them are reversed. I do think that most cards have a spectrum of meanings and as others have already said it depends on the spread and the surrounding cards as to how I interpret them.

love and light

Crystalmynx xx

Reverse or not to reverse

This discussion reminds me of some writers' meetings I have attended. On one side are those who always plot, then make a detailed outline before starting to write. They affirm, with red faces and lots of shouting, that there's no other way to get a story right.

On the other side are those who start with an idea, or just one character with a problem. Usually they have some idea of what's going to happen in the middle and how it will end. In between the characters take over and dictate the story, scene by scene. These writers say it's the only way to write a novel that's fresh, spontaneous and not stilted. Some of them even shout about it.

Those not shouting watch the others carefully; make notes of the discussion and the by-play, how various individuals react. The time will come when they use it in a story.

To reverse or not to reverse? To outline or not to outline?

I wonder if other professions, like engineers, doctors, artists, have similar strongly felt, if opposite, feelings?

Goddess Bless,

Red Emma

Oh My My There All Upright?!

The statistician in me can't help noting that all the cards upright in a spread is as likely as all cards reversed. Well when you shuffle to allow for reversals.

I use reversals -- it adds a whole layer of subtlety and reversal cards have lead to my most accurate readings. On case was a reversed Empress as an unseen infuence (the only major card to come into the spread). The querent was going home -- in context I read that this was fairly literal -->an old aquaintance who had been spreading negative gossip about her. She came back amazed and said it was exactly true except that the gossiper was a man (a 'queen'). Given that I use cards as a psychological tool -- not being a great believer in spiritual stuff -- this was a tad spooky.

I have often considered doing a deck where the reversed meanings are depicted instead of the upright ones. Many of the reversed meanings seem more fundamental/useful to me.

I have started using reversals..Not sure how that is working out for me yet...

I still don't understand why one has to have the cards turned up-side-down to get reversed meanings.

I mean, is there any Tarot reader in the whole world that doesn't read reversed meanings? Regardless of how the cards land up on the table?

To reverse or not to reverse?

I guess I'm a little confused.

Some people on this thread discuss reversing cards as if they somehow deliberately turn a few cards upside down...before?...after? they lay out a spread.

I've always thought that when one shuffles, cuts, and lays out, some will naturally be right side up and some will be upside down, or reversed.

Am I misunderstanding some people's comments?
Yes, probably.

Goddess Bless,

Red Emma

Red Emma: I don't think anyone deliberately turns cards up-side-down. However, when one shuffles, and if one is a good shuffler, , the cards will not reverse themselves automatically. I never get a reversed card when I shuffle - I would have to deliberately shuffle clumsily for this.

I read all my cards upright, and read the so-called "reversed" meaning upright. Although, now that I come to think of it, it's not a "reversed" meaning. It's just the meaning - sometimes so-called postive, sometimes so-called negative. The Sun can make me smile or shudder. I don't know if the latter is a reversed meaning. It's just a meaning. Punkt.

for now, i'm doing upside down cards ;-)

at first i didn't want to because i wanted to keep it simple. i am a very new beginner, after all. but somehow it feels to me that if i don't let the cards land as they will i'm not letting them say what they want to say. i don't see a reversal as a negative card, but rather as a modified meaning (read that somewhere...lol). so i don't see the upright as good and the upside down as bad. i don't think it's that simple.

maybe one day i'll be able to read what they are saying without them having to spell it out for me so clearly.

I think the reversal can add meaning not available elsewhere.

I mean, the card simply doesn't have a single meaning -- it has many possible meanings depending on this place, surrounding cards, how it fits with what I know about the querent from other sources, and for me, it's orientation. Each card holds many possible meanings from a variety of traditions, which I tend to move between as appropriate. Some might not find that inverse meanings add any significant value to the reading, but I definately employ them.

And I would agree that inverse meanings are not so unsubtle as to simply make negative into positive and vice versa. The reversed Empress, for example, might be a lovely person - just one that might be, for example, characterised by a polite demeanor and careful approach to life, rather than extroversion and warmth.