The reversed cards reading: pro & contra.

[amaretta]

Well, there is a question I come back to in my practice from time to time.
It's about the reversed cards and their specific meaning.
At first I've tried to learn it with attention. That way of interpretation seemed to be logical enough and full of opportunities besides.
But than I began to doubt. Time was passing and the practice of reversed cards' reading seemed more and more unnatural to me.
The Tarot system (as is) seemed to be so variable and so full of values and I didn't see any necessity in supplements like 'reversed meanings'.
So, now I put my cards in a deck only in straight position. At the same time, I always pay attention to card which appears turned casually (or drops out of a deck in a process of shuffling). I think it may be a kind of 'sign'.

What do you think about it?
And have you any special system reading the reversed cards?

 

[Sophie]

I learnt to read tarot with reversals, because I didn't know there was any choice in the matter... The only book I had, though it didn't say "you have to read reversals" discussed them so naturally, that I just thought they were part of the whole game, like 78 cards or shuffling.

About 2 years ago (having long since discovered one could read cards any way one jolly pleases), I decided to read with cards upright, and develop various ways of doing so while still retaining possible negative (or positive!) versions of the same cards. It meant using my intuition much more & being more open about the whole range of possibles in a single card. I have found it invaluable.

So I keep my cards upright & shuffle so they don't reverse. But if cards do reverse themselves (as is inevitable) and I pick them in a throw, then I read them "reversed" - I pay especial notice to their "askew" meaning - that is, to what the card might want to say by being upside-down; how its specific imagery is changed, how the scene or implements (in non-sceninc decks) are affected, how an equilibrium is broken or established; the change in the balance of power on the card and between that card & others. I see how that reversal affects the other cards, or something might be blocked, or shadowed, or denied, or weakening - or not yet fully expressed (so of course, intuition plays a role there too).

I am half-way towards reading with reversals again, at least at times (and not for myself- I never could read reversals for myself). I needed a time away from them to explore another way of reading the tarot - a way that doesn't see the Devil as simply the big bad wolf, and the 2 of Cups as the epitome of joy on earth. But that sensitivity has helped my reading of reversals too.

 

[amaretta]

Thank you very much for your answer!
I've already found a few old threads about reversals and I've read them with attention but this problem seemed to have so much various aspects so I decided to post it anyway.

 

[amaretta]

I never could read reversals for myself

And could you explain why?

 

[Alta]

I started out just reading upright. Then I decided that I had to learn reversals and with the help of Mary Greer's book, "Tarot Reversals" I became quite comfortable with them. I am glad I learned as sometimes they come up in Your Readings threads, or sometimes they just occur. On the whole though now I always read the cards upright and I couldn't say why exactly. It just seems to me as if reversals are sort of barriers to letting your intuition loose on the reading, that is, they force your mind into one course.