Reversed tarot cards: how to read them and what to do when you get a lot

What a reversed card means

A card is reversed when it lands in the spread with its picture upside down from the reader’s point of view. The key thing to remember is that it’s the same card. Its theme, imagery and suit haven’t gone anywhere; what changes is how that theme shows up in your situation. The card’s energy may be blocked, delayed, turned inwards or, on the contrary, overflowing.

Reversed meanings are nothing new. Back in the late 18th century, the cards of Etteilla, one of the first professional tarot readers, carried two meanings each: one for the upright position and one for the reversed. And the companion book Arthur Edward Waite wrote for the very 1909 deck you see on this site gives a reversed meaning for each of the 78 cards. Ever since, some readers have always read reversals and others never have, and both approaches make perfect sense.

Why isn’t a reversed card “bad”? Because the question gives it meaning. The Tower reversed speaks of change happening more on the inside than on the outside. For someone who dreads upheaval, that’s hardly the worst answer, and for someone who has long wanted to change everything, it’s a nudge to change things step by step before life does it for you.

Five ways to read a reversed card

To make the difference clear, let’s take one card, the Chariot. Upright, it’s about moving towards a goal, willpower and victory: the charioteer holds the course even though two sphinxes pull in different directions. Here’s what each method says about it when it’s reversed.

1. Blocked or delayed energy

The most common method. The card’s theme is there but can’t show itself yet: something is in the way, slowing things down or putting them off. Read this way, the Chariot reversed says that movement has stalled, you’ve lost your bearings or you’re waiting for conditions to line up. For questions about timing, this method gives an honest “not yet”.

2. Too much of a good thing

The card’s energy isn’t lacking; there’s too much of it. The Chariot turns into pushiness: winning at any cost, a race in which you’ve forgotten where you were going. This works well for cards of power and action, the Knights, the Kings and the Emperor: in our meanings, the Emperor reversed speaks plainly of rigidity and control.

3. Turned inwards

The card’s theme plays out in thoughts and feelings rather than events. Nothing may be happening on the outside while a lot is going on within. The Chariot reversed: two desires are arguing with each other, and until you decide which one is truly yours, there’s nowhere to drive. This method suits the Major Arcana and questions about yourself especially well.

4. The opposite meaning

The meaning flips along with the card: victory becomes defeat, joy becomes sadness. It’s the simplest method and also the bluntest, so use it with care. It works best where the upright meaning is heavy. The Devil reversed means release from whatever held you, and the Moon reversed says the fog is lifting. For the Chariot, “defeat” is usually too strong a word: more often it’s about being knocked off course, not about losing.

5. A hint at what’s missing

The reversed card points to a quality worth developing right now. Read this way, the Chariot advises: decide where you’re going and the strength will follow. This method is handy in an advice position and in spreads about yourself.

How to choose a method

Three things will point you in the right direction.

• Position. In the past, a reversed card often points to unfinished business; in the present, to what’s in the way; in the future, to a trend that is unfolding more slowly or differently than you’d like.
• Question. For questions about timing, the first method is usually the closest fit; for questions about your own behaviour, the second and third.
• Neighbouring cards. If the cards around it are about haste and pressure, the reversal is more likely about excess. If they’re about doubt and waiting, it’s more likely about delay.

And the golden rule: pick one main method and stick to it for the whole spread. Otherwise you can twist any card whichever way suits you, and the spread stops telling you anything.

Cheat sheet: the Major Arcana reversed

The table lists the keywords for each reversed Major Arcana card, taken from the meanings on our site. Treat them as a memory aid rather than a ready-made answer: each card’s page has the full meaning for both positions, plus love, work and advice.

Notice that the Devil and the Moon have reversed meanings that are lighter than their upright ones, while the Sun reversed is still a warm card, just with quieter joy. For Death, the Tower and the Hanged Man, the reversed position says more about how we cling to the old and put change off than about the change itself.

The Minor Arcana reversed, suit by suit

With the Minor Arcana, it helps to read a reversal through the suit: the suit tells you which area of life is involved, and the position shows what isn’t working there.

Reversed court cards usually describe the same personality traits, but immature or overheated: a reversed Page hesitates to begin, a reversed King pushes too hard. A reversed Ace points to a beginning that hasn’t happened yet: the opportunity is there, but it hasn’t been taken or noticed.

A word about the Swords. The Nine of Swords reversed says the most restless nights are slowly being left behind, and the Ten of Swords reversed, that the worst is over and your strength is returning. So if one of these cards lands upside down, it’s more often relief than fresh trouble.

When lots of cards come up reversed

Let’s start with some maths. On our site, each card has a one-in-two chance of landing reversed, like a coin toss. That means in a three-card spread at least one card will be reversed seven times out of eight, and all three will be reversed once in eight. In the ten-card Celtic Cross, seven or more reversals turn up in roughly one spread in six, and eight or more in about five spreads out of a hundred. So “almost everything upside down” happens more often than you’d think and means nothing alarming in itself.

If you read with a physical deck and the reversals keep coming in clusters, the shuffle may be to blame: cards that went back into the deck as a pile tend to stay together. Shuffle more thoroughly before your next spread.

So how do you read a spread like that? As an overall sign: the situation right now is more about the inner world than the outer one, a lot is still ripening, and there’s no point rushing things. It’s worth asking yourself where you’re holding back or what you’re avoiding. What you shouldn’t do is lay the cards out again until upright ones appear: that gets you the spread you wanted to see rather than an answer.

Reversed cards in a yes-or-no reading

In the yes-or-no spread, each card has its own answer for the upright and the reversed position. A reversal usually shifts the answer towards “likely no”, but it doesn’t shut the door. Of the 78 reversed cards in our database, 51 answer “likely no”, 14 “likely yes”, 12 leave the answer open, and only one gives a firm “no”.

That one card, the reversed Knight of Wands, still says no with a caveat: not at this pace, and a decision made in the heat of the moment is better left to cool. Meanwhile, some of the cards that answer “likely yes” when reversed are heavy ones where the worst has passed: the Nine and Ten of Swords, the Devil, the Moon and the Five of Cups. So in this spread, a reversed card is more likely to ask you to wait or try a different approach than to give a flat no.

Should beginners read reversals?

There’s no hard rule. Learning without reversals is easier: you memorise 78 meanings instead of 156, and you learn to see nuance through position and neighbouring cards. With reversals, a spread says more, but it’s also easier to get lost in.

You can take it in two steps. For the first few weeks, read without reversals and interpret each card in its position. Once the upright meanings feel familiar, switch reversals on and read them with one method, for example as a delay. On our site, that’s the “Include reversed cards” box in the settings below the question, and it’s ticked by default. With a physical deck, reversals appear if you turn some of the cards round while shuffling: for example, split the deck in half, rotate one half and shuffle them together again.

Runes follow their own rules. Nine runes of the Elder Futhark are symmetrical: turned through 180°, they look exactly the same, so they have no reversed position. They are Gebo, Hagalaz, Nauthiz, Isa, Jera, Eihwaz, Sowilo, Ingwaz and Dagaz. The other fifteen runes are read in two positions, just like cards. You’ll find each rune explained in our rune meanings section.

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