How-to Guides · 8 min · 2026-07-18
Reading Reversed Tarot Cards: 10 Ways to Decode Them
Many tarot students find reversed cards bewildering. This guide offers ten flexible approaches—from suppressed energy to misuse of power—to expand your reading skill and deepen your understanding of each card's layered meaning.
Why Reversed Cards Confuse Learners
When you first encounter tarot, reversed cards can feel like stepping into unfamiliar territory. Beyond the complexity of the imagery itself, interpreting the relationship between upright and reversed positions often leaves beginners caught between rigid formulas and wild guessing.
Should You Work with Reversals?
Tradition holds that some tarot practitioners believe all meanings held in a reversed card already live within its upright interpretation. They read upright only, or ignore reversals altogether.
This is a legitimate approach, especially for beginners. You might start by working only with upright positions to become fluent in the full spectrum of all 78 cards—avoiding the overwhelm that reversals can create in early study.
Yet reversals can become the linchpin of an entire reading. When a single reversed card appears among many upright ones, it often becomes the focal point—and may hold the real key to your answer.
What Energy Is a Reversed Card?
Tarot author Mary K. Greer, in The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals, describes it this way:
- Reversed = suppressed energy, dormant potential, or a caution point
- Upright = energy manifesting actively, already expressed
They don't create an entirely different card, but rather two faces of the same force. Reversal is a way to expand or explore additional dimensions of the upright meaning.
10 Methods for Reading Reversed Cards
1. Suppressed or Denied Energy
Reversal shows what the querent refuses to face or acknowledge—and this refusal is often the real answer to the question.
Example: - Strength reversed = unwilling to reclaim personal power - Temperance reversed = refusing to return to balance or a steady life
2. Diminished Intensity
Reversal softens the force of the upright meaning, turning down the volume of interpretation.
Example: - Six of Wands reversed = achieving the goal, but with less impact or recognition - Seven of Pentacles reversed = harvest that falls short of expectation
3. Amplification or Expansion
Reversal can sometimes strengthen the upright meaning, especially when surrounded by other reversed cards or cards of the same elemental quality.
Example: - The Fool reversed + many other reversals or air cards = amplified instability, scattered energy
4. Excess or Overextension
Reversal appears when a quality or state has developed too far.
Example: - The Emperor reversed = power and dominion become tyranny or control
5. Absence or Depletion
Reversal signals a missing energy or quality that creates obstacles or hardship.
Example: - King of Cups reversed = loss of trust in love or emotional healing - The High Priestess reversed = absence of calm, inner knowing, or intuition
6. Timing Markers
Upright often suggests smooth development; reversal may indicate: - Delay or slowness (when multiple reversals appear) - Sudden ending or breakthrough (when reversed in the "cause" or "past" position)—suggesting suppressed energy breaking free
7. Misuse or Corruption
Reversal reveals a force being twisted or abused.
Example: - The Emperor reversed = abuse of authority - Six of Pentacles reversed = waste or stingy withholding - Seven of Cups reversed = greed masquerading as desire
8. Complete Negation
Flip all upright meaning into its opposite. Use this method with care—it's the most forceful.
Example: - Justice reversed = injustice, unfairness
9. Reading Through the Image
Imagine the card flipped over: where do the symbols sit now? What shifts visually?
Example: - Eight of Swords reversed = the swords that were planted in the earth now fall away. The figure is freed from self-imposed constraint.
10. Return to the Card Before
This is the method the author uses most often: When you see a reversal, focus your attention on the card preceding it—that may be the real key.
Example: - Three of Swords reversed → Look back to Two of Swords. Was there a refusal to communicate? A cold war that finally broke, leading to separation?
Growing Into Reversals
Reversed cards offer no fixed formula or absolute answer. They have high flexibility and invite creative application.
You need not study reversals at all. Yet as more tarot guidebooks weave reversals into their interpretations, understanding how to work with them will deepen your reading vocabulary.
Tip for beginners: Try each method above, one at a time. Notice which ones resonate with your natural reading voice, then weave them together organically.
Read deeper
Reference: Tarot reversal guidance tradition