AUTHOR’S NOTE: During the late 20^th Century, a common way to express utter futility was by citing the “dying cockroach” analogy and invoking the image of a roach with its legs waving feebly in the air, unable to right iteslf and scuttle away to safety. In tarot terms, the pentagram symbol appears in many of the cards (notably in the Waite-Smith suit of Pentacles and in the RWS Devil and Thoth Hierophant trump cards). Except for the RWS Devil and a few of the Minor Arcana in the Thoth deck, all of which portray an inverted pentagram, these emblems are usually displayed with a single point uppermost, an orientation that was interpreted to convey the supremacy of Spirit over Matter (in other words, a good thing).

When the pentagram is inverted as it is in the upright RWS Devil, the upright Thoth Fives except for the 5 of Wands, and all of the RWS Pentacles when the cards are reversed, I get the fanciful notion that its crown is buried in the sand and its erstwhile lower extremities are waving in the air like the cockroach of the title. The common assumption is that physical cravings now take precedence over spiritual aspirations (ergo, a bad thing). In a reading I might see this as trivializing and enfeebling the normally potent energy of Earth. Rather than being concentrated in a single elevated point and raised to the heavens in triumph, it is frittered away through splayed legs that never quite operate in concert.

When the Devil is reversed, we could say that it loses its dominion over the chained slaves and radiates its abundant creative energy freely through the apex of the now-upright pentagram like a beacon, allowing it to be tapped without impediment or obligation. This is a liberating occurrence, while with the Hierophant the inverted apex descends and the “soft underbelly” between the flailing legs is exposed, becoming an avenue for corruption to enter (although I would argue that many upper-echelon clerics are already corrupt enough). With the minor Pentacles, the energy is both enervated and squandered when inverted, leaving the affected card bereft of both stamina and single-pointed purpose, thus becoming an anemic shadow of its upright self.

Here is the reversed Queen of Cockroaches. Now I won’t be able to see her any other way.