Thoth – Oxbow

Reading With Reversals

If asked the question, Do you read with reversals? I will have to say, “Yes and no.” Mostly, it depends on the deck. I haven’t been asked this question, but it seems like an Obligatory Topic, so I want to talk a little bit about my practice and why I think tarot readers will strengthen their reading skills by reading with and without reversals.

(Reversals, by the way, are when a card appears upside down. They’re pretty hard to ignore.)

I can’t even dignify it with the word “controversy,” but there’s definitely a lot of variance in the tarot community about whether or not one should read with reversed cards. I began reading with reversals before I realized that not doing so was an option, so I came into this conversation with a practice already established, although it has evolved over time. I think I began reading with reversals because I shuffled my first deck of cards riffle-style. Now, it’s possible to riffle and not use reversals–you just have to make sure that both piles are pointing the same direction before you shuffle them together. But to me, it was just a given that some cards would be reversed and some wouldn’t.

One of the biggest factors in how I use a deck is the design on the back of the deck. Deck backs might seem like a minor aesthetic feature when compared to the fronts of the cards, but make a great difference to me because I draw my cards from a fan, rather than off the top of the pile. A sorta-reversible-but-not-really deck back can make the cards frustrating to work with. (I’m lookin’ at you, Dreaming Way Tarot.) When I say that deck backs are “reversible,” I mean they look exactly the same upside down as they do right side up. Some people think that putting a random pattern on the back of a deck makes reversible, but not always. The Dreaming Way, for example, has a pattern that looks consistent, but it’s quite random. If you take one card right side up and another upside down and let the edge of the upside down one peek out from under the right side up one, you will see a difference.

When I go to draw cards after I’ve shuffled, I fan the cards out and choose based on visual cues. I ask the appropriate question for that part of the spread and scan the fanned cards to see which catches my eye. Sometimes my eye goes straight to a card before the question can even be formed in words, sometimes it takes a little longer. I get the best readings from this method; when I cut the deck to draw cards or draw cards off the top of the pile, my readings often make little sense. I need that moment of “choosing” the cards to really connect, but that moment of choosing still needs to be based on intuition rather than intellect.If I know in advance whether or not a card is upside down or right side up before I draw it, it throws me off.

Some of my decks fanned out: Tarot Nova, Thoth, the William Blake Tarot, the Wild Unknown Tarot, the Smith-Waite Centennial Deck, and the Earthbound Oracle. Note that reversed cards are immediately noticeable in the Thoth and Blake decks. The Smith-Waite is technically non-reversible, since the Rosicrucian rose on the back is 5-pointed, but as you can see it doesn’t matter much when the cards are fanned out.

For card backs that aren’t reversible, I just don’t use reversals with that deck and I’m completely fine with that. Thoth and the William Blake Tarot are the two decks I own and love that have completely non-reversible backs. I still use them all the time, especially Thoth. When I can’t use reversals, I just read the cards in other ways, relying more heavily on elemental dignities, visual cues, and spread position to tell when a card is being weakened, challenged, inverted, or begins to shade over into its shadow side.

Deck by Deck

However, it comes down to more than just the card backs. I decide whether or not to use reversals on a deck-by-deck basis after working with a deck for a while. For instance, the Wild Unknown was the second deck I’d ever gotten. I used it all upright for a while because it was a bit of a learning curve for me as a beginning tarot reader. I think I’d also read some stuff online about people not using reversals and thought that maybe I shouldn’t either. One day I was reading with the deck and got a very strong intuitive sense that I was not letting the deck speak with its full voice. By using it only upright, I was limiting it in some way. Since then, I have always used reversals with the Wild Unknown and get very good readings with it.

Conversely, I have never felt comfortable using reversed cards with the Wildwood tarot. Not sure why, but I’ve just never gotten good answers when I’ve tried to use reversals. I find that the deck creators’ intentions have little influence in this area, but it is good to note that the creators of the Wildwood explicitly say that the deck is not designed to work with reversals. However, they do give us that option by making the card backs reversible, which I greatly appreciate. Even so, I keep the cards all upright when I shuffle them.

In my experience, many decks in the Waite-Smith tradition read well with reversals, while I’m not sure that I would read reversals with Thoth even if the card backs were reversible. My next deck purchase will probably be the Mary-el Tarot, which is more of a Thoth based system and I can already tell that I will probably only use it upright, although, again, the backs are reversible. Perhaps it has to to with the more thematic feel of Waite-Smith, versus the archetypal feel of Thoth.

Oracle decks are another topic of discussion here as well. I get the impression that most oracle decks coming out nowadays of the Doreen Virtue / Alana Fairchild / Toni Carmine Salerno variety are not meant to be used with reversals at all. These decks contain mostly positive messages and are meant to be gentle and uplifting in all situations, so working with reversals doesn’t make sense. However, the two oracles I own are the Earthbound Oracle and the Druid Animal Oracle–both quite different from this vein of oracle decks. Both are designed to work with reversals , since the Earthbound Oracle has reversible card backs and the Druid Animal Oracle has both reversible card backs and reversed meanings in the guidebook. However, I’m still on the fence about using reversals with the former and have never felt comfortable using reversals with the latter. I have no good reason, just my gut sense of working with the decks.

Times when I don’t use reversals, even when I can

There are some times when I choose to take a deck that I usually read reversals with and only read the cards upright. For instance, if a spread uses a million cards (like a 36-card year ahead spread) I will only use upright cards, since so much of the deck is being used that a wide range of meanings will be present. Another instance is if I am working with archetypes–say, asking questions about the role of my birth card in my life, or figuring out who I am in the court cards–I’ll only use upright cards. In those cases, I will make it a point to study the upright and shadow meaning of the card anyway.

To switch in a deck from using reversals to all uprights, I will state my intention out loud before the reading: “I am going to use all upright cards in this reading for XYZ reasons.” (I mostly do this for myself, although some might see it as being about communicating with the deck.) I then go through the deck, turn all the cards upright, shuffle, and proceed with the reading. After that reading, I may put the deck back in order to “realign” it.

Practicing with and without reversals

Many people whose opinions I’ve read on this topic pretty much have an all or nothing policy when it comes to reversals. They either read with them all the time, or don’t at all. People who don’t often say that they tried it but it just wasn’t for them. I think there is much to be gained by regularly reading with and without reversals. The two methods build different strengths as a tarot reader.

To me, reversals add a layer of depth to a reading–they give extra information that might be more difficult to access, especially in a reading with only a few cards. Sometimes they can be information overload for sure, which is why I don’t use them with large spreads as I said above. They do, however, add nuance at multiple interpretive levels of the reading–visually, spatially, with elements, and with numbers. (I don’t know enough about astrology or Kabbalah to say if reversals make a difference in these.) I’ve heard people say that the cards are meant to be looked at right side up, so why would you turn them upside down? Well, the Knight of Pentacles in the Waite-Smith deck faces right when he’s right side up–the side of goodness and the conscious. Upside down, he faces left–the direction of shadow and the unconscious. Isn’t that a meaningful change? It’s not that you can’t see the cards properly when they’re upside down–you have to look for the nuances in how they change instead.

But the real reason for reading with reversals is that they do require a lot of the reader. They absolutely require a lot of your intuition to know what the reversal means in that specific context–is it the opposite of the upright card’s meaning? Does it mean that the upright meaning is weakened or delayed? That it’s a negative influence on the situation? Reversals ask a lot of readers, but they repay the effort in increased precision and, of course, increased skill over time.

Finally, one of the best reasons for reading with reversals is the simplest: are there more reversed cards in a spread than upright? Well, that’s a sign we’ve got some very blocked or negative energy around a situation. That information alone can tell us a lot about how to proceed with the reading before we even get to card meanings.

I also think it’s important to learn without reversals. I only truly began to understand the importance of elemental dignities when I started reading without reversals. Not using reversals with certain decks forced me to listen to the quieter aspects of the cards, which can sometimes be a whisper compared to the shout of reversed cards. Without reversals, you have to give more attention to your intuition in figuring out what the dominant ordering principles of a spread are. Do elements matter the most here, or numbers or directionality? Sometimes it’s nice to just sit with the cards and see what comes burbling up.

But ultimately, I think the most important thing is being consistent and deliberate in your practice. If you’ve tried reversals in the past but didn’t like them, you might want to try them with all of your decks before deciding not to read with reversals at all. Have a trial period with each deck to feel what’s best, and once you’ve got a sense of it, be consistent. I deviate from my practice every once in a while, but I do so deliberately and not without good reasons. If you are afraid of reversed cards, then it might be good to work with them and sit with why they make you uncomfortable. Don’t turn all the cards in a deck back upright just because you’re anxious about what will happen if you read with reversed cards. When we are anxious about what answer a tarot deck will give, that’s a sign we need to think about why we’re asking a question.

Those are my thoughts on reversals at the moment. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this, especially if your practice has changed over time.

Self-Care Spread–and a Conundrum

I’ve been focusing a lot on posting my Wooden Tarot card meanings lately and I’ll continue to do so after I sit with the majors a bit. But this blog isn’t just about the Wooden Tarot and I want to do some different things, too.

This morning I woke up feeling subtly off-balance. I sort of looked at everything with a “why even bother?” attitude and generally felt discouraged. So I decided to reach for my cards and googled “self care tarot spread.” I figured there would be a million of them out there, but there aren’t as many as you’d think. So I just made up my own.

This is a very straight-forward spread with six positions, although the sixth one was a little tricky for me, as you’ll see in a moment. The questions are: How can I take care of my…

Body
Mind
Heart
Practice (that is, my daily asana and meditation practice)
Practical concerns
And how do I implement these answers?

I used the Thoth tarot, as I usually do when I’m looking to the tarot for some sort of comfort. The answers were lovely until the very end, when I got a nice little jab that I’m still thinking about.

self care spread.jpg — The original spread was done with my huge Thoth deck, but I’ve recreated it with my trimmed tiny Thoth. The order is 1-3 down the left-hand column, then 4-6 down the right.

The Priestess. I can take care of my body by listening closely to it. Many of the signals about what I need to be eating, drinking, or how I need to be moving, sitting, and standing are not going to be obvious, so I have to listen carefully and intuitively. Lately, I learned this lesson the hard way by knitting with bad posture, which gave me pain in my shoulders, arms, and hands for over a month. The pain has mostly gone away now because I’ve made a point of correcting my posture, but I wish I hadn’t waited until my body was screaming at me before I changed what I was doing. This is also a wonderful card to draw because it’s my birth card.
The Two of Swords–Peace. Wow, what an amazing card for taking care of one’s mind. It’s literally the peace of mind card! Not everything needs to be worked out in my head; not everything is a problem that needs to be solved by logic; sometimes it’s OK to leave decisions undecided or to reside in paradoxes and contradictions. Honestly, it’s probably better to live that way most of the time.
The Star. Another lovely card! I can take care of my heart by remembering that everything is workable, that new things come to flush out the old, that blood moves through the heart like tides.
The Four of Wands–Completion. Ha–I actually did this spread before I had done my morning practice. I can take care of my practice by completing it!! But more generally, this card is about wholeness. One of the most difficult aspects of meditation practice (and yoga practice, as I’m learning) is to remember to practice throughout the day. Ideally, we take our practice into each moment. Sometimes I do my morning practice, but really resist taking it into the rest of my life. The Four of Wands is about wholeness, and I have to remember to think of my practice as something I do with my whole life, not just something I do for 45 minutes each morning.
The Ace of Cups. How to I take care of my practical affairs? By reaching out to people, interacting with others, opening myself to new experiences. This is about saying yes to opportunities that feel joyous–and to bring a sense of joy to new opportunities.
Nine of Swords–Cruelty. DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNN!!! So how do I carry all this stuff out? The Nine of Swords? To me, if there’s a card that embodies self-hatred, it’s this card. Even more so than in the Waite-Smith deck, this is about self-cruelty.

So what do I do with the Nine of Swords? What happens when you ask a question and the cards give you an answer that is literally the least appropriate of all possible answers? I think many would say that, well, it’s obviously telling you what not to do. I usually never read cards that way, though–it feels like bending the answer to what you want to hear.

And yet, it does seem significant, as if the card were saying, “You have a choice. This is what you have to keep in mind.”

In any case, sitting with this spread did indeed make me feel better. It’s good to remember that doing a self-care tarot spread, regardless of what the cards say, is an act of self-care already. Instead of proceeding in my foul mood, I recognized what was happening and approached it with a sense of curiosity and caring. I think the cards reflected back to me what I was already feeling for myself, but the Nine of Swords is a little sting in the tail that will keep me thinking for a while (or not, as per the Two of Swords.)

I also had Angeles Arrien’s Tarot Handbook by my side when I did this which helped me frame the cards in a healing way. I’ve been meaning to do a post on this book for months, having worked a lot with it this fall. I let it fall by the wayside over the winter as my tarot practice slowed down in general, but now I’m fired up about tarot again. I finished reading Rachel Pollack’s Tarot Wisdom and have started my second pass on Benebell Wen’s Holistic Tarot. I hope to show you all my work with Arrien’s book soon as well.

If you do this spread (or have any ideas about wtf the Nine of Swords is doing here) let me know!

The Mirror

I tend not to watch or read the news on a regular basis, preferring not to learn about the sufferings of the world through the heavy filters of daily mainstream media. But I do think that it is important to know about suffering, even if everything in our own existence is comfortable for the moment.

Yesterday I found Sympathy at Slaughter, a Toronto-based project focused on bearing witness to the suffering of animals as they are about to be trucked into the slaughterhouse. I am vegan–but my cats are not. I also ate meat–and lots of it–for the first 20 years of my life. I am just as complicit in this suffering as anyone else; I am not trying to put myself on a pedestal or bathe in self-righteousness because the truth is that ALL food–even vegan food–involves suffering, violence, and exploitation. I have complex views about killing animals for food and am not a knee-jerk member of the Vegan Police or a supporter of PETA. I realize that not everyone is in a position to go vegan–people live in food deserts, or they can only afford the cheapest of cheap food, like ramen, and yes, some people need meat in their diets in order to live.

That being said, I feel it’s important that those who buy meat from a grocery store or eat it in restaurants bear witness to the suffering that they are eating. Not only is factory farming one of the most environmentally destructive factors in the world right now, but the suffering of the highly intelligent animals featured in Sympathy at Slaughter is palpable: animals piled on top of one another, driven to the slaughterhouse in freezing temperatures or in temperatures so hot that they smother; animals standing in their own feces and that of others; animals covered in cuts and scratches; animals who, if they cannot get off of the truck quickly enough, are struck and poked with cattle prods over and over. This is the reality of the cheap meat that North Americans eat for two or three meals a day, every day of the week.

I then read the story of another kind of suffering: 6-year-old Strider Wolf, who at the age of 2 was beaten so severely by his mother’s boyfriend that a hole was punched in his stomach and his intestines were broken open. Strider and his younger brother now live (in poverty) with their grandparents, the only adults stable enough to take care of them. Living in rural Maine, they spent a spring and summer in an RV, moving from place to place after getting kicked out of their mobile home for failure to make rental payments on their lot. Strider’s grandparents’ health problems keep them from getting regular work and they struggle with not only financial stability, but creating an emotionally stable environment for the boys.

Bearing witness to suffering like this is difficult, but necessary. How could I begrudge some cheap meat to Strider and his brother? And yet, I know where it comes from. Reading these pieces, however, will lead to despair if it’s not done within the context of cultivating compassion and not followed up with self-care. Last night, feeling heavy with what I’d seen and read, I decided to turn to tarot, not to make the suffering go away, but to affirm what I was feeling.

When I am in pain, the most helpful thing to do with tarot cards is to not ask them a question. When we ask questions, we want answers–we want certainty. But I didn’t need any answers, I just wanted confirmation of what I was feeling. So I pulled out my small Thoth deck and asked, “Can you please just mirror what I’m feeling back to me?” I then laid the cards out in a cross formation (I did a Celtic cross, but I have also done a full-on Latin cross for this exercise.)

This is what I got: the Empress, surrounded by Justice/Adjustment, The Knight of Cups, the 3 of Wands (“Virtue”) and the 5 of Disks (“Worry.”) I wrote in my journal:

Seeking justice,
supported by virtue,
worried, saddened,
a questing heart,
a grounded healer.

An earthy center surrounded by the four elements on all sides. The Empress is an expression of my desire to heal and my capacity to feel compassion. She looks forward to the Knight of Cups, whose heart seeks after ideals based in love. She is supported in all that she does by a strong sense of goodness and virtue–not ethical perfection, but the desire of trying to figure out what is right in every moment. Above her is the ideal she seeks for: justice, the righting of wrongs. Behind her, compelling her actions, are the worries and sorrows of the world.

I have not done this mirroring exercise many times, but when I do, it always turns out to be a potent method of self-love and self-care. It’s not that the cards are somehow sentient and tell me things about myself that I don’t know. Rather, the images and words on the cards give me a space to remind myself of my own good qualities, the validity of my struggles, and the fact that I feel pain when seeing the suffering of others is a positive quality. That being said, it seems like the art of the Thoth deck is most conducive of this result for me and I’ve never entrusted this exercise to any other deck.

Tarot always functions as a mirror, but I think sometimes we can see more clearly when we do not expect anything of the deck apart from simple recognition. No answers, no certainty, no advice; just confirmation and a sense that your feelings are valid. I’ve never seen this method written about anywhere else, but I doubt I’m alone in practicing it. Has anyone else tried?

Some First Thoughts on the Thoth Tarot

When I first began reading about tarot, I came across references to the Thoth deck and was not interested at all. A deck by Aleister Crowley about some Egyptian god? I’ll pass. But one day a few months later, I googled the deck for some reason and was amazed by what came up on image search–whatever I had been expecting, this wasn’t it at all. The images were colorful, surreal, evocative. Still, I held off of buying the Thoth deck because it seemed advanced and intimidating . And while the Waite-Smith deck, despite its connection with occult societies, has been fully integrated into several cultures of tarot-reading, from fortune-telling to intuitive psychological reading, it seems like the Thoth deck is still pretty closely associated with the occult, in which I personally have no interest. And then of course, there’s the big sticking point: Aleister Crowley. No, I do not think he’s a baby-eating Satanist, yes, I can appreciate his brilliance, but I have very short patience for rich white boys who claim that a new religion has been revealed to them.*

Recently, however, I have been wanting to expand my tarot knowledge into systems other than the tradition of the Waite-Smith deck. All of the decks that I owned up until a few weeks ago were variants–some radical, some less so–on this tradition. While I’ve by no means mastered the art of reading with these decks, I have become comfortable enough with them that I started looking for something new. So I ordered three decks at the same time: two historical reproductions (a 1709 Marseille deck, and the Visconti-Sforza deck) and the Thoth tarot.

I decided to order the large Thoth deck because I was so drawn to the images and wanted to see them in as much detail as possible. The deck is big and unwieldy and riffling it is out of the question, but I can still do hand-over-hand shuffling with it just fine. The cards are pretty thin, which is a good thing because if the deck were too thick then it would be difficult to shuffle at all. The cards are quite slick, flexible, and resilient.

A love-it-or-hate-it feature of this deck is the large, art deco border that surrounds each card. I like the style of the border myself, but it also holds my least favorite feature of the deck, which is that the title of each card is superimposed over the word Trumps, Wands, Cups, Swords, or Disks, depending on which it belongs to. At first this really annoyed me, but I hardly notice it now. I have seen people trim the borders off these decks, which reduces the huge cards down to a manageable size. I have no plans of trimming the borders myself, but the pictures of these trimmed decks I’ve seen are stunning–the colors of each card seem so much more vivid without the gray border.

The Thoth tarot beside the Universal Waite tarot for size comparison.

The backs of the cards feature a Rosicrucian cross on a checkerboard pattern of the four suit symbols and are not reversible. The Thoth deck was not meant to be used with reversals and, although I love reading with reversals in general, I have no plans to do so at the moment.

Right after I got the deck, I did an interview, took a picture of resulting spread, and put it out of my mind. After having worked with the deck for two weeks, I pulled up the picture of the spread and said to myself, “Oh, yes, this makes a ton of sense.” This is the deck interview spread that I borrowed from Beth at Little Red Tarot, who borrowed it from TABI (Tarot Association of the British Isles.)

1. What is your most important quality? XIV–Art.

Art–temperance or alchemy, the blending of various qualities into a tempered, unified whole. I think this means that this is a deck that is going to get shit done at a psychological and spiritual level, that it’s a deck that can lead to understanding and action. I’m not surprised that the Art card came up in this position, since visually it was the one that drew me to this deck the most.

2. What is your strength as a deck? 10 of Wands–Oppression

Okaaaay. Not going to beat around the bush, are we? The 10 of Wands is not a happy card in either the Thoth tarot or the Waite-Smith tarot, but I in this position I think this deck is telling me that its strength is in its power and directness. In working with this deck over the past two weeks, I’ve definitely gotten the sense that this deck demands–and rewards–loyalty. I don’t mean that the deck itself literally does this, but that immersing oneself in the images and systems of symbolism behind them is the way to get the most out of the cards. In that sense, the deck has a feel to it that could be called oppressive–heavy, serious. However, I don’t find it oppressive in a victimizing or degrading way.

3. What are your limits as a deck? I-The Magus

This was something that I found out right away. The Magus is a juggler. He can work with all the different elements and deftly transition from one area of concern to the next. That’s definitely not the case with this deck. In my experience so far, it is really bad for practical, everyday matters and for predictive readings. This deck has one strength: personal meditation on spirituality, creativity, and emotion. It’s a one-trick pony, but fortunately the trick this pony performs will always be useful.

4. What are you here to teach me? VII–The Chariot

In this deck, the Chariot is a card of victory–particularly victory in service, like a knight riding forth.

5. How can I best work with you? 4 of Cups–Luxury

This is not a particularly positive card in general, but an overall theme of the card is abandonment to desire. The best way for me to work with this deck is to throw myself into it and use it when I feel like doing so, rather than leading with some intellectual idea about when and how often I should use each deck.

6. What is the potential outcome of our working relationship? 6 of Wands–Victory

Well–can’t really get a clearer message than this! Working with this deck will be good for me personally and for my tarot practice.

Elementally, this spread is very telling–three fire cards, two water cards, and one air card. The lack of earth tells me that, again, questions about things like finances, housing, employment, etc. just don’t really have a place with this deck. It’s much more concerned with creativity/spirituality (fire), emotion (water), and psyche (air.)**

To my surprise, I have not wanted to use any other deck since I got the Thoth. I’m sure this will change since it’s pretty common to go on deck benders and just focus on one deck at a time. But I really do feel an intense attraction to this deck and honest to god, using it over the past two weeks has helped me understand some emotional and psychological blockages that have been plaguing me for years. I have a lot of thoughts about this deck. A lot of them. I’m working up a couple of giant ass blog posts as we speak, and I will need to add a third to the mix because I got Angeles Arrien’s Tarot Handbook in the mail a couple of days ago, which is currently blowing my mind. In the meantime, I’ll just say to those who are on the fence about the Thoth tarot: if you are hesitating about using it but are drawn to the images, just jump in. This deck is intense, but I find it to be much more transparent than occult and I certainly don’t feel like Aleister Crowley is breathing down my neck when I use it.

_____________________

* The rich-boy-as-founder-of-a-religion thing could also be applied to the Buddha, but I think we can all agree that in most cases the Buddha’s personal ethics were a cut above Crowley’s.

** I actually have no idea what element the Magus/Magician is in the Thoth tarot. The Art and Chariot cards are pretty clearly fire and water cards respectively (look at the flames at the base of the Art card and the preponderance of blue plus the crab on the Chariot card.) I learned my elemental correspondences from Benebell Wen’s Holistic Tarot and she aligns the Magician with Earth, but in my gut I just feel that he’s air. The great thing about tarot is that it can accommodate multiple interpretations like these.

What’s new?

I’m back after over a month on hiatus. I returned from my wonderful trip to Vermont on August 8th and spent the next three weeks finishing my dissertation. Tarot was indeed a powerful part of my experience in Vermont and I’m drafting a post about it, but right now I thought I would do the easy thing: a big fat update on all the stuff I’ve bought.

Before all that, though: you’ll notice that I’ve tinkered with the design of this blog a little. It took a long time for me to find a theme I was happy with. I also updated the about page and decided to unashamedly write this blog under a pseudonym: Emily Francis Clare–Emily to you, bub! The reason behind the pseudonym is that down the line I may want to start a tarot business and I have ideas for an oracle deck and a book on tarot that I’d like to publish. I’d like to keep these separate from my day job and academic publications, at least for the foreseeable future. Those are huge plans, though–many years in the works. In the meantime, it’s fun to take a new name, so why not?Continue reading “What’s new?”

Category Archives: Thoth