How do you know that a card is reversed?

How do you know that a card is reversed? That question concern the minors cards. I mean, when minors are like picture is easy to see if they are reversed. But, for the classical tarot or for the Oswald Wirth tarot for exemple how do you see when the minor card is reversed, specially the swords, wands or pentacle? Answer please because this simple matter blocked me for a while.

Gandalf,
Some decks do not use reversed meanings. If the deck you are using looks the same upright and reversed, then there would be no way to tell. (Well, with intuition, you can tell that a card just doesn?t seem to fit or is a bit out of line with the others. This would indicate that you might explore the reversed meaning and see if you get a better fit.)

With the decks you use is the number of the card written on the bottom edge of the card? The 1JJ Swiss doesn't have scenes on the Minor Arcana but they have the number i.e 4 Deniers on the bottom edge of the card. If there really is no way to tell the reversed card then just read them upright.

I see what you mean now - I've just been looking at the Oswald Wirth deck. And the Minors are numbered top and bottom - oh well. There is an upside - On one of the sites I've just been to Wicce's I think, it says that the Oswald Wirth deck is now out of print so it'll be a real collectors item in a few years.

I used to read with normal playing cards, and on some of the pip cards, you cannot tell if the card is reversed or not. I did this with the cards when I used reversals:

Just put a dot or mark on the 'top' of the card. Use your intuition to know which istop and bottom... It's as simple as that.

Hope this helped some.

Kiama

I agree with raeanne's reasoning. I do not get reversed cards when I shuffle, so if a card jumps out at you or doesn't seem to fit the rest of the spread, I consider the reversed meaning as a possiblility for that card and see if it makes more sense.

Quote:tarotbear (12 Aug, 2001 02:19):
I agree with raeanne's reasoning. I do not get reversed cards when I shuffle, so if a card jumps out at you or doesn't seem to fit the rest of the spread, I consider the reversed meaning as a possiblility for that card and see if it makes more sense.

I, too, concur with both raeanne and tarotbear. I don't normally get reversed cards because of my shuffleing but always watch the "feel" of each card as I draw them. Even if I feel the reversed meaning is the better fit, I don't lay down a card reversed in a spread as some people can be VERY reactive to certain cards when they appear, let alone when they're reversed (like the tower or death cards in particular). I simply give my interpretation to the card and the spread.

-rob

Thanks a lot to all of you. Yours answers help me a lot!!! ;-)