Tarot Journaling

court cards · reversed cards

Tarot Journaling occupies a distinctive niche within the depth-psychological corpus: it represents the systematic application of reflective writing to the interpretive encounter with the cards, transforming divination from an oracular event into an ongoing practice of self-examination. Mary K. Greer stands as the preeminent architect of this methodology, structuring her workbook around written exercises — free association, first-person card narration, intuitive dialogue, affirmation composition — that position the journal as the primary instrument of psychological integration. Greer’s framework synthesizes Jungian shadow work, active imagination, and experiential pedagogy, insisting that the written record externalizes and thereby makes tractable the unconscious material surfacing through the cards. The treatment of court cards and reversed cards within journaling practice generates its own subdiscourse: reversed cards are read not as negations but as invitations to acknowledge shadow dimensions and unconventional wisdom, while court cards serve as mirrors of the querent’s own psychological modes and identity masks. Pollack similarly employs reversed cards as diagnostic indicators of interior dynamics, reading reversals through the lens of relational and archetypal meaning. Hamaker-Zondag’s Jungian framing further situates court cards within yin/yang typologies, extending the journaling encounter into personality differentiation. Across these voices, the central tension is between systematic interpretive method and the irreducibly personal, synchronistic encounter that journaling is meant to honor and preserve.

In the library 19 passages

Become a figure in the card and talk about who you are and what’s going on. Use the first person singular, present tense. Dialogue with figures in the cards using intuitive writing. Free-associate and use intuitive writing when relating to images in the card.

Greer articulates the core methodology of tarot journaling as an embodied, first-person, present-tense encounter with card imagery through intuitive writing and free association.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984thesis

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Reversals, like planetary retrogrades, suggest other ‘re’ words, denoting backward motion, withdrawal, opposition, negation, or having to do something again. You might need to review, reconsider, or redo previous actions. Reversals can be both the disease and its remedy.

Greer theorizes reversed cards as multivalent diagnostic markers within journaling practice, coding them as shadow indicators and invitations for psychological revisitation rather than simple negations.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984thesis

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Court Card ‘Roles’ Understanding the Court Cards Dealing with Depression Discovering Joy Clarifying Your Relationships Your Inner Masculine and Feminine Turning Points and Major Milestones Clarifying Your Options The Five-Year Fantasy

Greer’s workbook structure positions tarot journaling as a comprehensive self-development practice, integrating court card analysis, shadow work, and affective inquiry into a single written methodology.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984thesis

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Court Cards almost always represent aspects of yourself. In the reading, they represent the way you are acting in the situation — those aspects of your identity that you are drawing upon or the mask you put on in any particular circumstance.

Greer establishes court cards as primary instruments of self-reflection in journaling, functioning as persona mirrors that reveal identity modes operative in any given situation.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984thesis

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The Two of Swords reversed (card four) behind me as the skills and abilities I’ve brought with me from the past, I realize that I have been compromising my needs. I need to make peace with both Casi and myself.

Greer’s sample reading demonstrates the journaling process in action, showing how reversed cards within a spread catalyze written self-disclosure and the recognition of psychological compromise.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984supporting

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What made them different from the other cards? What were the special qualities they possessed? What would be the best way to learn how to use them in readings?

Greer frames the journaling investigation of court cards as a structured inquiry into their distinctive psychological qualities and the problem of their identification in reading practice.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984supporting

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I combined Jungian and New Age processes, such as those developed at the Esalen Institute, with exercises I’d learned as a theatre student and in encounter groups, to explore the potentials and interactions of the cards.

Greer locates the genealogy of tarot journaling at the intersection of Jungian psychology, experiential pedagogy, and embodied theatre practice, explaining its distinctively participatory character.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984supporting

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The fact that every card so far had come up reversed; and yet several — such as Eight of Swords reversed — invited a positive reading, showed the need for change. The King described an attitude to take towards herself and others; strong minded, yet tolerant of confusion and weakness.

Pollack illustrates how reversed court cards within an interpreted spread generate nuanced psychological directives, demonstrating the journaling-adjacent practice of reading reversals as agents of transformation.

Pollack, Rachel, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980supporting

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The two court cards that are receptive to the world are the Page and the Queen. We shall not go far wrong if we call these yin. The court cards that tend to be controlling and active, which we can call yang, are the Knight and the King.

Hamaker-Zondag’s Jungian typology of court cards as yin/yang polarities provides a structural vocabulary for journaling encounters with these figures as psychological orientation modes.

Hamaker-Zondag, Karen, Tarot as a Way of Life: A Jungian Approach to the Tarot, 1997supporting

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The question of how to interpret court cards — as someone else or as an aspect of the subject — remains for most people one of the most difficult elements of Tarot reading. Usually it takes experience and a strong feeling for the cards.

Pollack identifies the interpretive ambiguity of court cards — as projections of others versus aspects of self — as the central hermeneutic challenge that journaling practice must negotiate.

Pollack, Rachel, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980supporting

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Place the Court Card representing your Inner Teacher in front of you. Look at it carefully until you can reproduce it in your mind with your eyes closed. Relax into a deep rhythmic breathing, and ground your energies.

Greer integrates visualization and somatic grounding with court card contemplation, extending the journaling encounter into active imagination in the Jungian mode.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984supporting

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Your Personal Potential Card is the Court Card corresponding to your sun sign. Your Inner Teacher card is the Court Card corresponding to the sign your moon is in.

Greer’s astrological assignment of court cards to natal positions provides a personalized anchor for journaling inquiry, linking archetypal figures to the individual’s developmental profile.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984supporting

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REVERSED The isolation turns around to become communication, in particular seeking advice on what to do about one’s problems. The card can sometimes refer to the act of finding help, such as consulting a reader or a therapist or simply friends.

Pollack reads a reversed Minor Arcana card as opening toward therapeutic communication, modeling the kind of dialogic self-inquiry that tarot journaling formalizes.

Pollack, Rachel, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980supporting

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Here are some ideas for getting to know the Tarot better and for writing stories at the same time. The Fool’s Tale Fairy tales are often about the youngest or only child, or a simpleton, or a fool who is set some great task.

Greer extends journaling into narrative story-creation through the cards, deploying fairy-tale archetypes as a vehicle for integrating the Fool’s journey with personal myth-making.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984supporting

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Through his sensitivity to the world of the unconscious, paranormal gifts of one sort or another can reveal themselves. The Page of Cups is still open to the world of the intuitive. New opportunities in the domain of the feelings, and of unconscious manifestation, are all part of this card.

Hamaker-Zondag’s analysis of the Page of Cups as a portal to unconscious intuitive experience defines the psychological register that journaling with this court card is designed to access.

Hamaker-Zondag, Karen, Tarot as a Way of Life: A Jungian Approach to the Tarot, 1997supporting

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REVERSED: A deceitful schemer or over-sensitive esthete. Seductive, especially through guile or manipulating emotions. ‘In love with love.’ Secret or unconventional love.

Greer’s reversed court card interpretations exemplify the shadow-mapping function of reversed-card readings within a journaling framework, cataloguing the negative and hidden potential of each figure.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984aside

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REVERSED: Inhumane. Unsympathetic. Unwavering. Harsh discipline. Sarcastic. Unforgiving. Prejudiced. Unreasonable. No mercy. Or, weak-willed, lax, spineless.

Greer’s keyword-dense reversal entries for the King of Swords demonstrate the reference-grammar function reversed-card lists serve within a tarot journal’s interpretive toolkit.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984aside

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Justice symbolized a commitment to reality, to creating a real future for herself. Notice that the Sun shows a free child, without responsibilities — the opposite of Justice.

Pollack’s comparative reading of two spread cards illustrates the contrastive close-reading of symbolic imagery that journal-based interpretation makes possible and sustains over time.

Pollack, Rachel, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980aside

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