Asking YES/NO Questions with Your Tarot Cards

I am just going to come right out and say it….

The surefire way to get confused as f*ck is to ask your Tarot deck Yes/No questions.

In my opinion, Yes/No questions + the Tarot just don’t mix. The Tarot is an amazing tool for inquiring about things and making discoveries. But it is total shit at answering Yes/No questions.

I know, I know, it’s so tempting to ask. I do it all the time. Even though I know that Yes/No questions never really work well with Tarot, I ask them all the time….and I always end up confused and frustrated.

Why is the Tarot so hopeless at answering your Yes/No questions?

Here’s my take on it – the Tarot is a reflection of the world around you. If you study your deck closely you will see that all the archetypes, emotions, everyday challenges and joys are all depicted in the Tarot.

Our world is complex, messy, interconnected and bursting with colour, sensation and vibration. We don’t live in a black and white world where everything is distinct, separate, clean and neat. And Yes/No questions are black and white.

But here’s a sneaky way to get your Yes/No questions answered anyway…

All you need to do is rephrase your Yes/No Tarot question.

For example, if I want to ask “should I seduce my 19 year old neighbor, yes or no?” I could rephrase it as “how do you feel about me seducing my 19 year old neighbor?” (in this case the you could refer to your higher self, the universe, your spirit guides – whoever it is your trying to communicate with via your Tarot deck)

Asking open ended questions when working with your Tarot cards will make for much better readings and less confusion.

Let me demonstrate this concept a little more….

Today I asked my Tarot deck “should I take a month off to travel around Costa Rica in 2015? Yes or no?” and I pulled the Seven of Pentacles from the Anna K Tarot deck:

7 of pentacles
Anna K Tarot

I was confused at first. Does this mean “yes, but be patient” or does it mean “no, you should be focusing on work”?

So I rephrased my question and asked “How do you feel about me taking a month off to travel around Costa Rica in 2015?” and then I took another look at this card.

Suddenly, it all seemed very clear! A few months ago I planted some seeds (aka started some projects) and those “seeds” have taken root and are beginning to sprout. If I go away now, those shoots will die from neglect. I need to tend to my garden (garden = my life and my creative/business projects) first and once things are more established, then I can take off for a month. I need to be patient now – patient with my projects and business and patient because I will get to go to Costa Rica eventually, just not right now.

So not only did I understand that the answer to my question was NO, I could see the reasons why it was a no and what I needed to focus on in the meantime.

Here are some other ways to rephrase your Yes/No Tarot questions:

1. What is the potential of ___________________?
For example, “should I accept this job offer? Yes or No?” becomes “what is the potential of accepting this job offer?”

2. How would I feel if I ________________?
For example, “should I sell my house now?” becomes “how would I feel if I sold my house now?”

3. What would be the outcome of ____________ vs ____________?
For example, “should I marry Bob or Dave?” becomes “what would be the outcome of marrying Bob?” – draw a card – “vs marrying Dave?” – draw a second card.

Your turn!

What Yes/No question do you have for your Tarot cards? Try one of my alternate rephrases and see how it goes! Feel free to share all about it in the comments below 🙂

15 thoughts on “Asking YES/NO Questions with Your Tarot Cards”

  1. I used your method. Like i asked the question to my ancestors ” How do you feel about Daniel Mosako (my ex boyfriend) and i being twin flames ( two halves of one soul) .
    After shuffling the top card i pulled was a Queen of Wands. I use the images to interpet messages. And this card just has fire all over it and queen on her throne.

  2. Hi!
    Recently asked if my ex bf will contact me this month, july, and i got a Knight of Wands.
    Lol. I was thinking..

    It is a yes – he will contact me, he is making a bold move

    No – He is too focused on his project/career.

    It’s really hard to get a yes/no ans.. Haaa.

    What’d you think

  3. Great post! I learn so much from you!
    I’ve also tried to read yes/no questions with more than one card- like 3 or 4 but it didn’t ended like I expected. Using a pendulum was not a good idea either especially in giving time when something will happen. Giving the specific date or a time table is so difficult.
    It could be this way because I get too excited and not calm enough and maybe because I haven’t found ‘my way’.

    1. Thanks Daria!
      Glad you found this helpful 🙂
      I agree that timing is pretty difficult to discern with Tarot and it’s extra hard if you are feeling emotional about the reading or really invested in a particular outcome.

      Kate

  4. Hi Daily Tarot Girl!

    I love this and think it’s very true. I have used the old pull three cards and if most are upright it’s a yes and reversed is a no, but even with that method you have to be pretty specific! Like I asked if my BF was going to pass his driving test and got a yes, and it was a yes! WOW! But I probably haven’t used this technique enough to really know it’s success rate. Perhaps I should try it out for a while and see! I’ll report back! LOL!

    Lots of love,

    Vix
    (The New Age Hipster!) x

    1. Hi Vix!
      I haven’t tried your method of doing yes/no readings – it sounds interesting – let me know how it goes for you 🙂
      I feel that Aces always mean “yes” and obviously positive cards like The Sun, 10 of Cups, The World, also mean a “yes” and perhaps the more difficult cards like The Tower and 10 of Swords could mean “no”, but there are just so many cards that are inbetween that its tricky!

      Cheers,
      Kate (daily Tarot girl)

  5. Great post! I’m sometimes asked yes/no questions when I read for others and I usually don’t rephrase the question, but do the reading and give them the answer based on what story the cards are telling. This has given me a different way of looking at yes/no questions, which I very much appreciate 🙂 Thanks for writing this!

  6. What do you think about using this method in a pregnancy reading to ask the gender of the baby? How might the question be posed?

    1. I think in that case, you could actually just as “is this baby male or female?” and see what cards come up. Cups and pentacles are feminine suits, and wands and swords are masculine. Plus, most cards are either masculine or feminine, but some are not. Personally, I have NEVER had luck predicting the sex of babies with Tarot cards!

  7. I forgot to add one more thing about my experience with pendulum yes-and-no type questions that I think might apply to the Tarot. The information that I got from these yes or no questions were actually inaccurate much of the time. So, I abandoned it thinking that I mostly channeling bulls–t. But in retrospect, what I think happened is that I was coming from a place of fear when I asked these questions which would interfere with getting accurate results. I could see the same applying to Tarot. Anyway.. just my two cents.

  8. Hi Kate, Thank you for this post. I agree with you about feeling frustrated with yes or no questions (and yes.. I do ask them too). What I notice is that when I ask the Tarot a yes or no type question, I often come away feeling disempowered…. as if something else is in charge of knowing what is best and true for me. Years ago, I experimented with the use of a pendulum and later abandoned it because I feel into that yes or no trap. I appreciated those other ways you mentioned of asking the Tarot these questions . It seems that these questions gives the information needed and puts the choice back on the person asking the question. A fun way of finding out possibilities I recently read about is to pull a card for each possibility (moving vs not moving, for example) and then seeing what you draw. I recently did this and was surprised at the outcome! I would love to hear what other do as well….

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