Tarot has been a part of Barbara Moore's personal and professional lives for nearly twenty years. Right from the start, tarot intrigued her with its marvelous blending of mythology, psychology, art, history, mystery, and magic. She has studied under...
Just as elemental dignities can affect a card's interpretation, so can the use of reversals. Reversals are when a card appears upside down in a spread. Here's a card upright and reversed:
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In the early days of fortunetelling, reversed meanings were always used in readings, as far as I know. If you look in older books on interpreting the cards, you will notice that sometimes the reversed meaning was the direct opposite of the upright meaning or something altogether different. Here is an example of traditional upright and reversed meanings for the Two of Swords:
Upright: balanced forces, stalemate, indecision, impotence, a temporary truce in family quarrels.
Reversed: release; movement of affairs, sometimes in the wrong direction. Caution against dealings with rogues.
I suppose it is always good advice to use caution when dealing with rogues, whether or not the Two of Swords shows up reversed. This example is not unusual. In the past—and even now, to some extent—the idea of a reversed card didn't or doesn't always have consistency. There often seems to be no relationship between the upright and reversed meanings. Modern tarotists have addressed this issue and devised various solutions to the problem. Readers look for a system that makes sense and has consistency. For example: all reversals mean the exact opposite of the upright meaning. Or, all reversals mean the same as the upright meaning, simply weakened, delayed, or blocked. Or special attention should be paid to that card. One popular system is simply not to use reversals. If a card is upside down in the spread, simply turn it right-side up and continue on with the reading. There are many readers who use this method, or non-method. For a beginner, I would suggest not using reversals for a while. However, if you are interested in employing reversals, check out Mary K. Greer's Complete Book of Tarot Reversals, where she presents an intelligent discussion of reversals and various systems to try for yourself.
