Do you use the reverse cards?

[Chiska]

I tried it for a month or so, but I didn't like it. It seemed that it limited the possibilities for the card. I couldn't really get a feel for a card based on its settings because it was sitting there all reversed and trying to be pushed into a specific set of meanings.

 

[Grizabella]

I don't use reversals. I started out thinking I'd only use uprights till I learned to read better. I didn't want to confuse myself with reversed cards. But then I found that once I felt I could use the reversals, I had gone so long without using them that when I did use reversed cards, it was awkward to remember how to fix the cards so that they'd reverse during shuffling and then they just looked weird to me in the spread.

So now I don't use them but I make sure there are negative positions in a spread so that whatever cards fall into them are read in their negative aspect. Or sometimes I just put out a past, present, future and "know" what's negative in the spread, if anything. Or then of course, there are the "bad" cards---having a Devil come up, for instance, might be indicating a negative aspect of the reading.

If a card mysteriously comes out reversed, I read it that way, though.

But a card that's reversed doesn't always have a negative meaning. It can just mean something that's hidden or energy that's blocked. Or it might mean to refer back to the lesson of the card before it.

It's all a matter of just learning what works for you and learning to "hear" what the cards are saying to you.

 

[daffyart]

My Art Navou deck I do. But that's because it's part of how the deck opperates and how I atuned it. Even after 9 years that deck runs almost completely off it's booklet. It's really not that intuitive a deck for me. Not to say I don't feel the readings. It's just a very literal deck.

My other two I rarely read negatives except where my intuition dictates I should.

 

[Grymdycche]

I'm only a beginner, but I'm sure I won't.
There are 72 cards in that deck, if you can't get a clear enough message out with that many possibilities, I doubt doubling them will help either.
It just seems so... unnecessary.
Besides, how do you best introduce reversed cards to a deck? If you do a classic shuffle, then approx 50% of the cards are going to be reversals; that seems too high to me, and that reversals, if used at all, should be special and not as likely to appear as not (statistically).

A lot of people do the same thing with Runes. I used to, at first,, but I stopped, after reading that it was a modern new-age practice with no basis in runic history.
I don't see the added complexity of reversed cards as beneficial, I see it as distracting, detrimental, perhaps even self-indulgent, if anything.

 

[Angie9]

I didn't use reversals at first because the person who introduced me to the cards and was helping me didn't use them plus I didn't feel comfortable with reversals. I have recently started using them because something just clicked in my brain and it all made perfect sense and it became very easy to use them. It was like my cards had more to say to me and I was finally hearing them.

Angie

 

[Chiska]

I don't use reversals. I started out thinking I'd only use uprights till I learned to read better. I didn't want to confuse myself with reversed cards. But then I found that once I felt I could use the reversals, I had gone so long without using them that when I did use reversed cards, it was awkward to remember how to fix the cards so that they'd reverse during shuffling and then they just looked weird to me in the spread.

So now I don't use them but I make sure there are negative positions in a spread so that whatever cards fall into them are read in their negative aspect. Or sometimes I just put out a past, present, future and "know" what's negative in the spread, if anything. Or then of course, there are the "bad" cards---having a Devil come up, for instance, might be indicating a negative aspect of the reading.

If a card mysteriously comes out reversed, I read it that way, though.

But a card that's reversed doesn't always have a negative meaning. It can just mean something that's hidden or energy that's blocked. Or it might mean to refer back to the lesson of the card before it.

It's all a matter of just learning what works for you and learning to "hear" what the cards are saying to you.

That is pretty much the way I feel - and you said it so much better than I did. I tried doing reversals for a month or so and it was awful. My readings were difficult to understand and even turning the card right side up didn't help. It was as if the "right" card wasn't there - but there was some sort of "reasonable facsimile" instead. Close, but not close enough to make sense.

 

[Le Fanu]

I don't but Im thinking of starting

Although I have a pretty good sense of the cards upright, I find that what a card means when it comes out reversed gives added nuance and depth to things. Just recently in readings the odd card has accidentally come out reversed and it has made so much sense and I can't help thinking how much "flatter" the reading would have been without it.

I don't see reversed as adding a negative spin at all, just a different edge to a card, which I like. I like thinking about what the obverse or less obvious "opposite" of that card would be. Not the negative meaning, but what that energy pulling in a different direction might mean and how it might be harnessed.

 

[PAMUYA]

I know that some do and some say that the other cards do their job.
What do you think?
What do you do?
What have you found most effective?

Thanks

I think that tarot readers should use what they are comforable with.

When I first began using Tarot cards(first learned to read by using playing cards), I stated with only upright card meanings, then later progressed to using both upright and reversed. I use intuition to determine how to read the reversed card (blocked energy, full reversed meaning, or something in the middle, or not reading it as reversed at all). When a card comes up reversed it catches my attention, like it is calling to me "Look at me", then I study the cards drawn with it.

I found that for me using reversed cards opens up a new dimension of possibilites and insight to explore. I feel reversals give the flat 2D tarot card, a 3D effect.

I know many excellent readers who use only upright cards in their readings, so it all boils down to what works for you.

 

[Bluezman]

I rarely use reversals only because I have such a hard time understanding many of them, and explanations of Rx'd cards on the internet are vast (so I usually cant get the reading down correctly). For some odd reason, there have been times where i'll just randomly think "You know, I think I need to use reversals for this spread", or on other spreads. Once in a blue moon that'll come about, I just feel its the right thing to do. Then, i'll upright them for the next reading because I feel they need to be read upright.

 

[Fablin]

No reversals for me, I find that the cards have such a rich depth of meaning upright it is not necessary. I do look at them in the context of the other cards to get a better sense of their meaning.