Why I Don’t Read Reversals
When I see a reversal, I just turn it back upright. The core reason why I do not read reversals is because it all came from the tarot reader’s hand. You can be conscious enough not to have reversals while you’re shuffling. Conscious meaning paying attention and having intent with every single shuffle of the hand. So if you do that, there’s no way you can have reversals in your deck. I’m not saying you should. I’m just saying that when you get reversals, it came from the way you shuffle. It wasn’t just a message. It sounds basic when I say it out loud.
When they came to tarot, you guys, it came after people started adding magic, and occult people started getting their hands on it and started using it. Once you get into that, you can make stuff up, because by that time you’re like a magician, whether you wanna be or not. You get something that already has a system, and you start doing things. Now you’re in the magician side of the world, and yes, anybody can do pretty much anything when you cross over into that kind of a spiritual world, but that does not erase or negate the fundamentals. Those are still there to be followed, and are perfect.
So if you don’t wanna be consciously shuffling all day, then turn the cards back upright, because that is how they were meant to be read initially. Are you an occultist? Do you wanna go into a pledge or something like that? Okay, take tarot to astrology, numerology, hermeticism, and have fun with the magic. But you never needed it. So do you want to read tarot cards, or do you want to be a practicing occultist in 2025? If you wanna build a tarot business, maybe start a YouTube channel, help friends and family, guide yourself, then you don’t need all that other extra stuff.
And that’s well beyond just reading reversals. So turn the cards back upright. Because if it’s something bad, which is what people usually associate reversals with, then it’ll come out in the quote unquote bad cards, instead of just making it up on the spot with reversals. Because essentially that is what people are doing.
I think reversals are toxic tarot, both for the reader and the querent who accept those things.
The 78 cards that we do get in tarot are enough. And they already have quote unquote bad cards. I take it a few steps further, in that they directly align with the average human’s experience. Tarot was made for us specifically. Now, I’m not saying I don’t appreciate all of the occult adages and the stuff that they have put into the cards, but it was never needed. And tarot can be so incredibly helpful on the spiritual journey, the life journey, the lifestyle journey, all the journeys that humans can go through. And you can read tarot for yourself.
I think that reversals are just outright toxic, and they come from projection of the reader, even if you projected onto yourself. Very toxic. Because how bad can a reading get, and keep getting, with all those reversals, for once again the tarot reader who doesn’t take the time to upright their cards or consciously shuffle? It’s in the tarot reader’s hands. They are the one doing the shuffling. So if the tarot reader is getting a lot of reversals, maybe they don’t spend enough time with their cards. That’s one. And number two, maybe they don’t know about conscious shuffling. The easiest thing to do is just turn the card back upright and read the reading as it is. And if you get quote unquote bad cards, that is what it is, but you don’t need to make it up just because the card came out upside down. Now you just making stuff up, even if it resonates. You made it up.