Redeeming Reversed Cards Through Coping
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In a recent reddit conversation about reversed cards, the OP asked “Can it be said that the aim is to do something that will turn the card upright again? But how does this work for cards such as the Devil rx or the Seven of Cups rx? I’d assume having them rx is the best-case scenario?”
This suggestion proposes that coping efforts can be applied to a reversed card as a way to “rehabilitate” its wayward influence through some kind of remedial action that brings it back into line with its upright expression. As I understand it, the goal would be to alter our response to accommodate the card’s oblique nature, thereby “normalizing” it. My answer was, in part, “I once wrote about reversed cards as showing ‘covert operations,’ so figuratively turning the reversed Devil or 7 of Cups upright could expose its dishonest intentions.” (In other words, reversal doesn’t make a difficult card less onerous, so changing its orientation wouldn’t improve its status. As the saying goes, “It is what it is.”)
This notion of “coping” takes my earlier opinion about reversal to another level: although a card’s “mode of delivery and angle of attack” may shift to make its emphasis less congruent, it can be kept “inside the box” by assuming that there is always a creative way to roll it into the narrative without sacrificing its uniqueness. Think of it as an actor changing costumes between scenes: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are one and the same but the outward appearance and comportment are often deceiving. (I’ve written previously about this concept of adaptation.)
The conventional wisdom that nothing about a tarot reading is carved in stone means that we can always work constructively with the energies to make the most of the counsel offered by the cards, and I see no reason why reversal can’t be approached in the same way. If we want call this conceptual adjustment “coping” when used to fold the outlier into the overall interpretation, that’s as good a name as any.
We can examine any incongruity between the upright meaning of a card and the subtle divergence suggested by its inverted orientation and chart a course of action that reconciles the two if necessary. It makes me think of the forensic act of matching fingerprints or DNA strands that we often see in crime shows: the picture snaps into focus and shows us the correct answer. In the case of a reversed card all that changes is our perception of its operation and the way we receive and process the input, not the fundamental meaning itself.
I never encountered this idea of “rehabilitation” before, but it makes perfect sense. If something is wandering off-script (another analogy I recently applied to the phenomenon of reversal), we can do a creative rewrite that tightens up the narrative and then finish acting out the scene without a hitch. Rather than simply ignoring reversal as some readers do, we should really make our peace with its intriguing possibilities by embracing or at least “coping with” its variation on a theme.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on November 25, 2024.
