AUTHOR’S NOTE: “You’re missing half the fun” is one of my favorite rebuttals for those who avoid reading reversals because they find the practice unnecessary, inconvenient or confusing. (My title alludes to the old Doublemint gum commercial.) But, unless we deliberately ignore or suppress them as some do, they are going to dog us whenever we read the cards so we must make peace with them.

When the 78 tarot cards and their millions of possible combinations in a typical spread are subjected to reversal during the shuffle, the potential scope of their interpretation expands enormously. Thinking about this fact too deeply can be paralyzing, so it’s best to remember that in any reading it will “all come out in the wash.” Taking a rational approach to the subject will preclude getting too worked up over it.

I don’t believe that a reversed card is inherently more negative than its upright expression, nor is it more positive when the card itself is difficult, just “different” in its complexion; its core meaning doesn’t change significantly, only its mode of delivery and the way it is received and processed by the querent. Navigating this situation with aplomb is where the “fun” comes in.

After reading reversals for decades, I finally came to the conclusion that the swapped orientation seldom hijacks the card’s message but rather reflects a shift in the seeker’s practical or psychological posture toward it, which can run the gamut from denial to acceptance of its relevance. This epiphany focuses on the sitter’s subjective experience of the energy, not on any change in its implicit quality, and I love the wealth of nuance it offers to the divination since it can permit grooming the advice to be more thoughtful and measured.

For an auspicious card, it can show an opportunity to redirect one’s efforts in even more beneficial ways that may otherwise have been overlooked. For a discouraging card, I think of it as “taking a deep breath and two steps back” from the challenging aspects of its upright orientation, giving the querent a chance to look at them from a more detached perspective. (My euphemism for this phenomenon is “having a Hanged-Man moment.”) This in turn can reveal an alternate path to success in dealing with the implied difficulty. In either case the conventional approach may have to be adjusted or refined.

This often requires the diviner to be more sophisticated in judging the flow of potential events and circumstances. The customary portent loses traction in these scenarios and the uncommon outlook gains purchase. In a face-to-face reading I will often turn a reversed card upright, explain what it normally means, and then talk about how reversal might play out in a less transparent fashion, all for the purpose of preparing the querent to handle its oblique impact in the most effective manner. This will almost always be more profound than plainspoken, so the reader’s task is to ensure that it doesn’t come across as convoluted. There is no value in describing subtleties if they are going to be inscrutable to the sitter, or in giving advice that is likely to be mystifying rather than motivating.

The road to the destination may be packed with intriguing byways and compelling detours suggested by reversal that ultimately lead to the same place, and as the saying goes, for both the reader and the querent “Getting there is half the fun.” But for those who are still unconvinced, I will simply quote “President Skroob” (Mel Brooks) to the Doublemint Twins, Marlene and Charlene, in Spaceballs: “Whatever. Chew your gum.”