Reversed tarot cards: what they mean and how to read them

What a reversed card means

A card counts as reversed if, when you turn it over, the top of the image ends up at the bottom, on the side of the person reading the spread. The upright position shows how the card’s energy expresses itself freely; the reversed position shows what is getting in its way.

There are three common ways to read a reversed card:

• Weakening. The energy is there, but it is weak or delayed. The Sun reversed: there is joy, but not much of it, or it is still ahead.
• Distortion or excess. The card’s quality is taken to an extreme. The Emperor reversed: not order, but control and rigidity.
• Inner instead of outer. The process is happening inside the person rather than in events. The Hermit reversed: a withdrawal into yourself that no one sees.

Which approach to choose depends on the question and the neighboring cards. The main thing is to stick to one approach within a spread.

Where reversed meanings came from

Tarot appeared in 15th-century Italy as playing cards for a game with a permanent trump suit, not as a tool for divination³. Divinatory interpretations began to take shape in the 18th century: in 1781 Court de Gébelin published his commentary on the 22 trumps, and two years later Etteilla proposed a method of divination with tarot⁴.

The most influential set of meanings was compiled by Arthur Edward Waite. The deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith following his instructions, was published by William Rider & Son in December 1909⁵, and in his book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot Waite gave an upright and a reversed meaning for each Major Arcanum¹. For example, The Magician upright means “skill, diplomacy, address, subtlety; sickness, pain, loss, disaster, snares of enemies; self-confidence, will”, and reversed means “physician, Magus, mental disease, disgrace, disquiet”¹. As you can see, in Waite even the upright meanings are not all good, and the reversed ones are not simply “bad”. Waite himself called the divinatory meanings of the Major Arcana artificial and arbitrary¹.

Modern interpretations of reversed cards, including those on our site, build on this tradition but are phrased more simply and closer to real-life situations.

Do you need to use reversed cards?

There is no single rule. Some tarot readers always use reversed cards; others lay all the cards upright and read the nuances from the neighboring cards. Both approaches have been around for a long time, and neither can be called “the right one”.

• With reversals: 156 shades of meaning instead of 78, and the spread shows more precisely where energy is blocked. The downside: it is harder for beginners, who have to learn twice as much.
• Without reversals: easier to start, less confusion. The nuances show up in combinations: for example, the Five of Swords next to The Sun softens it.

Beginners are often advised to learn the upright meanings first and only then add reversals. Decide in advance, before you shuffle the deck, and don’t change the rule in the middle of a spread.

How to get reversed cards when shuffling

In a new deck, all the cards face the same way. For reversed cards to appear at all, you need to mix them up:

• spread the cards on the table face down and mix them with your palms, like a jigsaw puzzle;
• split the deck into two halves, turn one of them 180° and put them back together;
• when laying out a spread, always turn the card over the same way, from left to right rather than top to bottom, or you will reverse it yourself.

In our online reading, a card comes up reversed with a probability of 1 in 3, which is roughly what you get when shuffling by hand. Try an online tarot spread or Yes or No Tarot, where the card is always upright.

How to read a reversed card in a spread

1. First recall the upright meaning: the reversed meaning always starts from it.
2. Look at the position: a reversed card in the “past” position often points to something unfinished; in the “advice” position, to something worth letting go of or handling more gently.
3. Count the reversed cards. If more than half are reversed, the spread is talking about delays or about the question not being ripe yet.
4. Check the neighbors: a strong upright card next to it can “pull up” a reversed one.

The upright and reversed meanings of each of the 78 cards are in the Card meanings section.

Examples: the most common questions about reversed cards

• The Sun reversed: joy and success are delayed or clouded, but not canceled: The Sun card meaning.
• The Hanged Man reversed: stagnation, a pointless sacrifice or an unwillingness to change your point of view: The Hanged Man.
• The Devil reversed: freedom from an addiction or, on the contrary, denial of it: The Devil.
• The Moon reversed: fears fade away, deception comes to light: The Moon.
• Strength reversed: insecurity, breakdowns, loss of composure: Strength.

Frequently asked questions

How this article was prepared

This text was written with the help of AI, based on the sources listed below and on the questions people actually search for. Every factual statement — about the history of decks, what a deck contains, what authors wrote — has a footnote. The text was then checked by a separate AI instance that took no part in writing it: it compared the facts with the footnotes, and errors were corrected. The English version is a translation of the original Russian article.

We describe reading practices — how to shuffle, charge or “cleanse” a deck — as traditions and habits of tarot readers, not as proven methods: there is no scientific evidence for divination. Read more on our editorial policy page. Found a mistake? Let us know via the contact form.

Sources

1. A. E. Waite. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part III, § 3: The Greater Arcana and their Divinatory Meanings. Upright and reversed meanings of the Major Arcana sacred-texts.com
2. A. E. Waite. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911). Full text of Waite’s book, table of contents sacred-texts.com
3. Major Arcana — Wikipedia. The Major Arcana: number of cards, origins of tarot, the beginnings of occult interpretation en.wikipedia.org
4. Le tarot divinatoire et occultiste — Encyclopædia Universalis. Court de Gébelin (1781), Etteilla, Paul Christian and the term “arcana”, Oswald Wirth (1889) universalis.fr
5. Rider–Waite Tarot — Wikipedia. History of the Rider–Waite deck: creators, publisher, year, contents en.wikipedia.org