Reversed Tarot Cards

What are reversed tarot cards?

A reversed tarot card is a card that lands upside down as you face it, and in most modern readings it shows the card’s theme in another state rather than its opposite. The Empress reversed is still about care and growth, but care that is withheld, smothering or not reaching you. The Eight of Wands reversed is still about speed, but speed that has stalled.

Readers who use reversals tend to read them in one of five directions:

Direction	What it shows	Example
Delay or block	the energy is present but held back	Eight of Wands: news or movement that stalls
Inward turn	the theme is lived privately, not shown	the Sun: joy you feel but do not share
Too much or too little	the card’s quality is out of balance	the Emperor: rigid control, or none at all
Shadow side	the card’s difficult face comes forward	the Lovers: a choice made against your values
Lesson not yet learned	the theme returns until it is faced	Justice: a consequence still being avoided

Knowing whether a card is reversed is simple: if the figure stands on its head from where you sit, the card is reversed. Turn cards over from side to side, like the page of a book, not from top to bottom; a top-to-bottom flip turns every card and swaps all your orientations.

Where reading reversed cards comes from

Upside-down meanings are older than the tarot’s esoteric era. Cartomancers in eighteenth-century France already read ordinary playing cards differently when they lay reversed, and Etteilla, the Parisian card reader who published one of the first methods for divining with the tarot in the 1780s, gave his cards separate upright and reversed meanings.

In 1910 Arthur Edward Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, the companion book to the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, listed a short “Reversed” meaning for every one of the 78 cards. Many of those lines simply invert the upright meaning, which is the root of the idea that a reversed card is “the bad version”.

Twentieth-century readers moved away from that. Reversals came to be read as the card’s energy blocked, internalised or in excess, the approach most readers follow today. Others drop reversals altogether and let the position and the neighbouring cards carry a card’s difficult side. Both are sound practices; what counts is a reader’s consistency.

How to read a reversed card in a spread

Start from the upright card. Name its core theme in a few words first. The reversal never replaces that theme; it tells you what is happening to it.

Let the question choose the direction. In a question about a new job, the Ace of Pentacles reversed points to a delay or an offer that is not yet solid. In a question about how you feel, the same card points to an inner sense of not being on firm ground.

Read the neighbours. A reversed card between two upright cards that support it is usually a delay that the spread itself resolves. Surrounded by Swords, it leans towards worry and overthinking; surrounded by Cups, towards a feeling that is being held back.

Check the position. A reversed card in the past position often describes a lesson still echoing; in the advice position, it names what to ease off or let go of; in the outcome position, it shows a direction that is slower or more internal, not a closed door.

Don’t turn it back. Flipping a reversed card upright because you dislike it, or drawing again on the same question, silences what the spread is trying to tell you. A reversal often marks the place you would rather not look, and that is where the information is. If it is hard to read, leave it where it is, read its neighbours first and come back to it last.

Count the reversals. One or two reversed cards add nuance. A spread with more reversed than upright cards describes a period of slowing down, and the upright cards show where things can move.

Reversals come up naturally in the Larisa app’s spreads: each card can be drawn upright or reversed, and a reversed card is shown upside down. In a Three Card spread, read a reversed middle card as the knot in the situation, and look at the first and third cards to see where it came from and how it loosens.

Reversed card examples

The Three of Swords reversed. Upright, a heartbreak openly felt. Reversed, two directions: the hurt is starting to heal, or it has been pushed down and not yet grieved. Beside the Six of Swords, healing and moving on; beside the Nine of Swords, pain kept inside that still keeps you awake.

The Star reversed. Hope has not gone; it is hidden. After the Tower in a three-card line, the reversed Star describes someone who has been through a shake-up and does not yet believe things can get better. The advice is small: one thing to trust again.

The Emperor reversed. In a work question, too much control: a manager who cannot delegate, or you holding every decision. In a question about your own life, too little: no structure, no boundaries, plans that never get a frame.

A spread with three reversals. You ask about a relationship and draw the Two of Cups reversed, the Knight of Cups reversed and the Four of Pentacles reversed, with the Six of Cups upright. The bond is real, but feeling, initiative and security are all held back. The upright Six of Cups, about shared memories and tenderness, shows the warm ground where the conversation can begin.