This upside-down tarot card debate never ends. Some readers swear you’re only getting half the story without reversals, others say every card already contains its full meaning.
Honestly, both sides are right.
The Tower wrecks things, whether it’s right side up or upside down. The difference is just how you interpret that destruction.
I’ve seen amazing readers who never use reversals nail every detail, and others who need that upside-down tarot card to trigger their intuition. Neither is wrong. The cards don’t care if they’re flipped - they care if you’re actually listening. Use whatever method makes the messages clearer for you. Anyone who says there’s only one right way is just gatekeeping.
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Honestly, I ignored reversals for the longest time. Just seemed like extra work.
I started keeping notes on my readings one weekend because I was bored. After tracking them for a while, I noticed that reversed cards were doing something weird. They weren’t just negative versions of the upright meanings.
Sometimes they meant the energy was blocked, sometimes it was too intense, sometimes it was pointed inward instead of outward. The Death card, reversed, kept showing up when my job situation was stuck.
Once I stopped reading it as ‘refusing to change’ and started seeing it as transformation energy that couldn’t get out, I had one of those moments where I wish I’d be using them all along.
reversals never made sense to me. kept getting confused trying to remember if upside down meant the opposite or blocked energy or whatever. now i just look at the position in the spread. card in the challenge spot = it’s a challenge. way simpler than flipping meanings around
I hardly look at reversals anymore. Part of me thinks I’m missing half the message but I guess after doing this for a while, my intuition decided it doesn’t need them.
Back when I started, I was constantly checking my guidebook and reversals were like a safety net. They gave me concrete meanings to work with while I figured things out. These days though, upright cards have so many layers of meaning on their own. The cards speak clearly enough without being upside down.
When I first started reading professionally, I spent months forcing myself to memorize reversed meanings until a mentor showed me how elemental dignities could capture those shadow aspects without flipping a single card - watching the way fire and water cards interact in a spread revealed far more nuance than any reversal ever did.
Reversals were like training wheels; useful for learning card dynamics, but eventually you develop enough intuitive range to read the full spectrum through card combinations and positions alone. You can just read the surrounding cards as ‘modifiers’ that naturally show whether an energy is blocked, excessive, or internalized.
Been practicing this way for years now and my readings feel more fluid, like having a conversation rather than translating a code.
Reversals always make me slow down.
When I see an upside down card, something about it makes me stop and think longer. It helps when I’m rushing through readings, that reversed card forces me to actually pay attention instead of skimming. Although, to be honest, maybe I’m just reading more into it because I’m taking more time? Hard to say.
I think differently people respond when they see reversed cards?
Their expressions often change before you even say anything, which can shift the energy of the reading. If you sense they’re uncomfortable, think about flipping the card upright and discussing the tough parts directly. This way, you can still explore the reading fully without adding to their anxiety.
Personally, I skip reversals.
Each card already has positive and negative meanings when it’s upright, so I don’t see the need. Plus, when I’m shuffling and cards go everywhere, I’d rather not stress about which way they landed. A card like The Tower is already about upheaval - it doesn’t need to be flipped to show that.
Same with Three of Swords and grief. But hey, lots of readers use them and that works for them.
Honestly, I don’t really flip the meaning when I get reversed cards. I just let my intuition do its thing. The energy feels the same to me, either way, upright or reversed.
Those textbook definitions about opposites never made sense to me. There’s a few reasons i see it like this
A friend of mine uses oracle decks exclusively and we were chatting about reversals yesterday. She mentioned how oracle cards are designed with these really specific messages, not like tarot cards that have all those layers of meaning.
So when you try to reverse an oracle card, it just doesn’t translate well. She stopped doing reversals with her oracle deck and just reads them upright now. Says it actually helps her give clearer readings.
Taught my first reversals workshop yesterday and it was rough.
Half the class couldn’t stop dropping cards while trying to keep track of which way they were facing. We basically spent the whole time on shuffle mechanics instead of readings. Kind of makes me think those tarot apps might have the right idea.
I’ve been flipping cards for about ten years and started noticing that using reversals was holding back my readings. They seemed to cut off the conversation rather than keep it going.
I always read with reversals! Why would you ignore half the message the Tarot is trying to give you?
My teacher stressed letting the cards fall however they want, so I shuffle without looking at which direction they’re facing. Started with runes about two decades ago (took an 18-year break though lol). When I returned to divination and began learning tarot, reversals felt familiar, as I had previously worked with runes.
Still learning tarot (aren’t we all?) so I rely on guidebooks, Kitchen Table Tarot, Otherkin, and Linestrider mostly. Plus BiddyTarot online. I actually just used all these for a Golden Girls deck reading, and it helped a ton. They all have reversals (I don’t think I’d use them otherwise).
Reversals give me more specific direction with a card instead of having to guess which of its meanings fits the situation.
I’ve been doing birthday party readings lately and realized I don’t really need reversals most of the time. The upright cards have enough range.
Someone asks about getting over a breakup? The Star or Two of Cups upright works just as well as any reversed card would. I think if the cards know you don’t care about reversals, they don’t expect you to use them.
At parties where everyone wants quick yes/no answers, sure, reversals help speed things up. But when I have more time with someone, sticking to uprights gives them more to explore. Different settings, different approaches, I guess.
I worked with reversals for years before dropping them. Don’t think I’d go back.
They always made me feel off - my readings felt muddy and I couldn’t get into the flow. My Druidcraft deck was the worst. It gave me way more reversals than I’d shuffled in, which drove me nuts. Eventually, I just flipped all my cards right-side up and called it quits with reversals.
I still get plenty of challenging messages without them. Every card has its light and shadow sides built in anyway. I think of each card as containing a whole range of meanings depending on context. Now I sometimes pull a card to represent how the querent sees their situation, then read how that interacts with the other cards.
Works pretty well for me so far but I’m curious to hear what works for everyone else. Maybe you’ll convince me to change 
When I’m shuffling, unless I’m really throwing my cards around, they tend to stay facing the same direction. Gentle shuffling doesn’t seem to flip them upside down, which got me thinking about how random my reversals actually are.
Unless you have to shuffle in a specific way to make reversals even mean anything at all. Maybe we’re just completely breaking the reading meaning by using reversals.
I do readings at the Saturday farmer’s market and my deck seems to know I don’t use reversals. It gives me upright cards that somehow show both the positive and challenging sides of situations. Pretty convenient actually and I don’t think it was just chance.
Reversals tend to be viewed negatively, but maybe upside-down cards just push us to change our viewpoint and give the Tarot a chance to convey a full message. The more options for messages they have, the better they can do.
Instead of seeing them as bad, perhaps they prompt us to rethink or reshuffle our approach. It might not be obvious at first, but there’s something to it.
Look, elemental dignities and reading surrounding cards as modifiers, that’s like counting card combinations in poker when you could just read the face values straight. Sure, it works, same as how the old-timers used to read court cards by their classical correspondences.
But just like how modern cartomancers read a Queen of Hearts differently than a Queen of Cups, today’s readers often get clearer hits by working directly with what they see in the imagery. Sometimes a spade is just a spade, and the pictures tell you more than any traditional dignity system, whether you’re laying out a deck of Bicycles or a full tarot spread.
