Different interpretations from different guides?

[64d7b40fd5e1dcad7b855c9b418d9420]

Hello – sorry, reposting this as my previous post was taken down (sorry! I’m learning as new to this sub!). This sub has been so useful with its advice and the breadth of discussion going on. Sorry if I’m doing any of this wrong. I’m using the basic Rider–Waite–Smith deck.

**How do you deal with different interpretations from different guides?** I’ve followed some advice on this sub and am keeping a notebook of daily card readings etc so I can re-familiarise myself with what each card says, develop my own interpretations, etc. I’ve also been using the Waite guide (The Key to the Tarot) and the Labyrinthos app as reference, and sometimes Biddy Tarot. Sometimes, the guides don’t match up or even contradict each other. For example, for a reversed Four of Cups, Waite and Labyrinthos suggest new beginnings, novelty, or new relations… while the Biddy Tarot site suggests withdrawal, retreat, going into yourself. How do you deal with contradicting information? Am I being a massive idiot and over-complicating things?

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Thanks 🙂

Discussion

[brujando]

My inexperienced opinion is look what everything else is showing you and what completes the story. I have the problem with The devil specifically. A lot of guides talk about it representing vices, set backs, and self imposed barriers, materialism. Labarynthnos as lists playfulness : ???

[Teevell]

I’ve always thought Biddy Tarot’s meanings had more of a positive spin to them, which is why I usually prefer Labyrinthos.

People can write whatever they want as the tarot meanings and post it online, which is why it’s good to get perspectives from multiple sources. When you’re learning, I would say stick to 1 or 2 really good ones until you have a better grasp of the cards, and then branch out.

[paganwolf718]

When it comes to reversed cards, there’s more than just one way to go about interpreting them. They can be interpreted as an excessive amount of that energy, the opposite meaning, blockages… the list goes on. I’d highly recommend using your own intuition.

But also with sometimes contradictory meanings from websites, there are two really important things to note. One, tarot cards aren’t defined by keywords. They’re energies, life experiences, and stories. Stories can have many interpretations and takes on them. Two, both can be true. I just commented on a post (I think on this sub) about how The Tower can both be a warning of destruction and an invitation to rebuild at the same time. That’s just one of many examples of how meanings can seem contradictory but both be true.

[smallobjects]

I would guess take what resonates with you and the framework you’re using to read. If you can find some kind of logical consistency in how you choose your meanings, that helps. Don’t worry about interpretations that don’t work for you, even if they’re from a big name or the deck author themselves.

For me, I would prefer the second meaning because it makes sense to me personally as someone who sees reversals as blockages of energy, delays, or the flip side of the card meaning. 4 to me is a number of stability or stagnation and the reversal would be a blockage in that cups energy (of relationships and emotions), so it makes sense for reversed 4 of cups to mean withdrawal imo.

[soggy_n_groggy]

The old Aeclectic Tarot forum did an excellent series on reversals, as there are different ways of handling them. The three main options are: blocked, opposite, up-side down.

Using the 4 of cups as an example, Labyrinthos’ interpretation would be the opposite meaning of the upright card, and Biddy’s would be the blocked version (if you’re not allowed to express dissatisfaction you would most likely retreat into yourself). As with many things in tarot the context and placement are key to helping you decipher the meaning.

[Uisgah]

I learned a long time ago not to bother with Waite’s reversed meanings since they’re kind of “all over the place;” he may have owed too much to Etteilla, whose own reversed meanings were even more scrambled. I suggest you pick a couple of key assumptions for the impact of reversal on a card’s upright meaning and apply it across the board until you get a better feel for individual nuances. My own premise is that reversal doesn’t materially alter a card’s core meaning, just its intensity, mode of delivery and “angle of attack.” One of the most effective ways to use it is as an “internalized emphasis” rather than as blockage or delay.

[LatinBsnDude]

Yes and no. Each card has an essence. Different guides do their best to convey this essence. There are potentially infinite examples to do this.

[LillyReynoldsWill]

You’ll see a lot of conflicting or added on descriptions of the cards. It helps if you find a deck with art that you enjoy and study what the art on the cards mean to you. It’s like having a personal connection with the card. If you know the basic meaning then tie in what you’re seeing even what stands out during a reading it’ll help you better understand the message. Learn to trust yourself and your instincts.

[LawOrc]

There’s no objective, right answer to something like that. If it worked that way, one could just make a tarot computer that mechanistically applied the rules.

I think the most important things are consistency and variety. You need to make sure you know in your own head what the cards need, because if you need to think about it or look it up, it breaks the flow. And you need to have the range of things you want to look at coverd by the cards. Like, okay, Death doesn’t mean death, right? But _something_ had better mean death, because otherwise if you do a reading in which death is relevant in some way, there’s no way for that notion to even be presented by the cards. If one uses meanjngs that are _all_ happy, or all about internal spiritual development, or what have you, that means they can only do readings that are about those things, because the symbolic language they are using does not even have words for sad or practical things.

This is one reason why variant sets of meanings, as long as you know in your own head what you’re using, can be a _good_ thing. It means you can pick a set that does a good job of expressing what you want to look at.

[bubblewrapstargirl]

It’s good to remind yourself that the cards are meant to be read with the others in the spread, and they all have a multitude of meanings. I like the Biddy Tarot website cause I think she looks at the cards from a slightly different angle and I like how thorough she is. However, it’s worth remembering that her interpretations are basically the guidebook for her own minimalist deck which you can buy. It’s not directly for the RWS.

Personally I use my own intuition most of the time, but if you want a reference to adhere to, Rachel Pollock’s 78 Degrees of Wisdom is the definitive guide to RWS imo.

[kharmatika]

So, the big thing is just learning every interpretation of the card, and why those interpretations may show up in a particular guide, then building personal associations with it.

Some guides will show inversions as opposites (4 cups upright is apathy and slowing down, and pulling back of emotion, so the “new beginnings, novelty, etc interpretation would be a direct inversion of the card), while others may showcase the negative aspects of what would be a positive(pulling back of emotion can be a good thing, but retreat into ones self is actively dangerous to one’s mental health, so this showcases the risky side of the aspect represented in the upright version). Some guides will discuss both(Labyrinthos for example threw me for a loop when it had an inverted card represent both Miserliness and Debt).

The best way to combat this is to find ways of interpreting cards, especially inversions, for yourself, and deciding what you think works best.

And sometimes you just need to take what you know about a card and it’s suit, face and orientation, and the situation you’re reading, and do what feels right. For example, I once pulled the King of Cups inverted for a girl who was cheating on her husband with a dude she liked but who seemed to be using her for sex. Instead of just looking at the card and going “this represents keyword keyword keyword” I said “cups are the suit of relationships, the king clearly represents a man in your love interest circle, the inversion means he’s a prick who doesn’t actually care about you. Stop cheating.”

She didn’t really like that interpretation but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I stand by it

[7vincent7]

Happy cake day

[Lazy_Surprise_6712]

Err… whatcha mean?

A part of what makes up a card’s meaning is the context of your reading. The card would have a different meaning depending on the position and your question.

I would suggest looking at the reasons for that meaning. When you understand the “why”, it’ll make more sense. :3

[ReflectiveTarot]

Firstly, I’d be cautious about Waite because he contradicts himself so much, and I have little interest in his general (very predictive) style of reading. Secondly, reversals are not simple: there are at least a dozen ways of reading them, and ‘this has a separate meaning from the upright card’ is probably the least helpful, closely followed by ‘it means the opposite’.

A lot of seemingly contradictory meanings are within the same spectrum and which of them is the right answer depends, in the end, on the question, the spread position, the surrounding cards, the querent, the reader’s experiences, and, and, and.

This is a skill that will come over time.