I’ve always employed a very simple method for obtaining a yes no tarot answer and I want to share that with you here. I’ve also included a yes or no list of all 78 Tarot cards, plus links to the individual cards in the tarot card meanings section, as well as an updated section to help you drill down your question to the tarot to get the most accurate answer you can when you ask a yes no question.
In this post we will explore answering yes no questions using the following techniques:
- How to Determine Yes No Tarot Cards to Suit Yourself
- Yes No Tarot Cards – My Own List
- Asking an Effective Yes or No Tarot Question
- Refining Your Yes or No Tarot Question
- Including Time Frames in Your Yes or No Tarot Questions
- Yes No Tarot Questions to Avoid
- How to Obtain a Yes or No Answer with Reversed Tarot Cards
How to Determine Yes No Tarot Cards to Suit Yourself
I ask a yes no question and draw a single tarot card. This can be a jumper from the pack, one drawn randomly from a pack spread out on a table, or just a plain shuffle and cut.
The only thing I then do is determine the yes or no answer based on my own positive or negative association with the card.
For example, the 6 of Wands would be a yes, while the 10 of Swords would be a no. It’s that simple.
That’s all well and good, I can hear you say, but what about those cards that are neither positive nor negative in nature?
There are two ways you can look at those cards. You can either say that a definitive answer isn’t available or hasn’t been brought to a conclusion yet. There are plenty of tarot readers out there who state in their code of ethics that the future isn’t set in stone… and sometimes it’s really not, hence your neutral cards.
You can also look at those neutral cards in relation to your question and use their divinitory definitions to help you decide on the outcome. Though with this method you’ll also be relying on the nature of the question in relation to the card, and of course your intuition.
I will show you how to do this after the ye no tarot list, as well as show you how to frame the yes no tarot question effectively so you can obtain the most accurate response from the cards.
Yes No Tarot Cards – My Own List
Here’s my personal list of yes no cards. It’s fluid and flexible, and subject to change, though there are a core of yes no tarot cards that never will.
Being Deck-Specific When Creating Your Own Yes No Tarot List
I’ve based my choices on the Rider Waite-Smith deck but if I was using the Thoth, the Four of Disks (Pentacles) would become a yes as I see it as a much more positive card in that deck. Bare that in mind as you make your choices – use your favourite working deck until you get a handle on calling yes/no tarot cards with confidence.
Think About how You See Court Cards
It would also be helpful to determine how you feel about the court cards. Not everyone sees all of them in a positive light. If you see the Knight of Cups as needy and co-dependent, you may want to put him in the no pile along with any other court cards you don’t see as positive. I don’t always have a good feeling about the Queen of Swords and some of the Kings, so depending on the question, they can hit the no pile in a flash.
Asking an Effective Yes No Tarot Question
The above system is simple by design. It’s a good introduction into how you see an individual tarot card and the feeling you get from it.
But we know tarot is deeper than that.
If we instead focus on whether the question is positive or negative, we can sometimes get a different outcome from a yes or no tarot answer. Tarot is nuanced and often there are many shades of grey in an answer and on a single tarot card, as you can see in How to Read a Daily Tarot Card.
If we ask the Fool a positive question:
- Will he stay with me?
- Will I get the job?
- Is this new person in my life good for me?
The answer is clearly a resounding yes to each. But what if the question is negative in nature, and indeed, what if we ask the same question but from a negative angle?
- Will he leave me?
- Will I lose the job?
- Is this new person in my life bad for me?
If we employ the simple system above, the yes no answers to the negative questions are still a resounding yes.
If we draw the 3 of Swords for those questions, we see an interesting change in how the questions are answered by the tarot.
For example, the positive questions when drawing the 3 of Swords:
- Will he stay with me?
- Will I get the job?
- Is this new person in my life good for me?
They are all clearly a no.
But what of the negative questions?
- Will he leave me?
- Will I lose the job?
- Is this new person in my life bad for me?
They are clearly a yes.
The answers flipped when we approached the topic from different angles, but no matter how those questions were asked, positively or negatively, the 3 of Swords is giving us the same response – the news is not good.
To get the most accurate yes no answer from tarot, you have to ask an effective, specific question & include a time frame. #tarot Share on XYou can see how this can get complicated and contradictory, but we can use the tarot to the full and bring in some visual and interpretive guides to help us. But first, we must focus on what we are really asking the tarot.
Refining Your Yes or No Tarot Question
We first need to determine what we are asking and be clear before we ask it. Will he stay with me? Or, will he leave me? Which one do we choose?
My choice would be with hope and my desired outcome. I don’t want to focus on the negative. I don’t ignore it, it is part of life but you know the saying: a negative mind will never produce a positive life. If I really want him to stay with me, I would focus on that.
Let’s look at those questions again, but this time, as well determining the yes or no answer, let’s look at the character of the card, the environment, the directional dignities if a person is depicted and the general meaning of the card.
The positive questions answered by the Fool:
- Will he stay with me? Yes! And he will bring joy, happiness and spontaneity to your life.
- Will I get the job? Yes! And you will love your new role.
- Is this new person in my life good for me? Yes! You will feel like a new person when they are around you.
The negative questions answered by the Fool:
- Will he leave me? Yes! It is best for both of you as you feel the freshness of freedom.
- Will I lose the job? Yes! But it is a blessing in disguise as something new is on the horizon.
- Is this new person in my life bad for me? So here we have a problem. This could be a yes or a no, even a maybe. We could say that this person is a wonderful addition to your life that brings joy and happiness. Or we could say they practically ignore you and do their own thing most of the time.. leaving you wondering if you even exist.
The positive questions answered with the 3 of Swords:
- Will he stay with me? No – he will break your heart
- Will I get the job? No, and you will be upset
- Is this new person in my life good for me? No, they will cause you pain and sorrow.
The negative questions answered with the 3 of Swords:
- Will he leave me? Yes, and it will break your heart
- Will I lose the job? Yes, and you will be upset
- Is this new person in my life bad for me? Yes, they will cause you pain and sorrow.
So with just a few guidelines, we can intuit and interpret a single tarot card that gives us not only a yes or no answer, but also fills in some of the grey. This provides us with clarity we wouldn’t get with a straight yes or no answer and it also gives us some direction. Reassurance is optional, depending upon the answer and your situation.
The takeaway from this section though is clear – define and refine your question before you ask the tarot. Also, be aware that you may not get a definitive answer to a very important question, as the Fool showed us.
Including Time Frames in Your Yes No Tarot Questions
Sometimes it seems like tarot has a terrific sense of humour. You ask your question, the tarot answers and you wonder, what the hell just happened? Likely you weren’t specific enough. Think of the genie in the lamp and you get the idea.
Asking if you will see each other again when you really mean, will we be romantically involved in the future will likely generate a yes because in all probability, you will see that person again, just not in the way you had hoped. I’ve seen this time and again so be absolutely clear about what you want to know and leave nothing open to interpretation. Be specific.
If you want to know if the man you like at work will call you, then name him in your question (first names are ok, but his full name is better). Do you want him to just call you for a chat or for a date? When do you want to know when this will happen by?
Then add a time frame because he may call you in five years because he became your boss, then tarot would answer yes and when he doesn’t call by the end of the month, you think the tarot was wrong….
So a great question in relation to the above would be:
Will Johnny Depp call me to arrange a romantic date by the end of April?
Now wouldn’t that be nice?! Seriously though, you can see the difference between your first thoughts to an effective question that will give you a definitive answer.
How to Turn Two Questions into One
Often I am asked, I want to know if I’ll see him again and will we get back together. That is two questions, but we can tighten that up. Finding out if you’ll get back together will trump finding out if you’ll see him again. I hope that looks obvious. And again, we should add a time frame to that to gain some idea of the when:
Will I get back together with Johnny Depp by the end of this year?
You get the picture.
Yes No Tarot Questions to Avoid
Shoulds, Actions & Permission to Act
Shoulds also incorporate actions and permission to act.
- Should I meet Tim in town?
- Should I defy my parents and go to the festival?
- Should I buy the house?
Imagine the scenario: you ask a should question, which is really just permission to act, and through the tarot you are given a green light to go. Yay! All is well. But then, you realise this isn’t what you wanted after all and now you’ve committed to this thing. In this scenario, you didn’t think about your choices properly, because you sought permission, you may also seek blame for your new situation and you may look squarely at me and the tarot for the predicament you now find yourself in.
I know, that seemed kinda harsh, but it’s important to be honest here. Delusions only confuse and the point of a tarot reading is to gain clarity. So remain objective, think about your choices and if you really want to do a thing, do you really need permission from an external source? Of course you don’t.
How to Obtain a Yes or No Answer with Reversed Tarot Cards
You may have noticed that the yes pile is significantly larger than the no and maybe pile combined. That may seem out of balance to you, I like to think that there’s more good in the world than bad, but there is something you can do to redress the balance, if you feel comfortable with it.
You can use reversed tarot cards to help you decide the yes no outcome. If you normally use reversed tarot cards in your readings, then using them in your yes no tarot questions makes sense.
All you have to do is decide for yourself if the reversed tarot card in front of you is positive or negative, or as above, use the card’s meaning to help inform your interpretation of the tarot’s response to your question.
Any reversed card to me would have negative connotations and my own feeling is that a card I already see as negative isn’t going to become positive because it’s reversed. But that’s just how I do tarot. You may have different views and that’s great!
Go through your tarot deck and put into piles the yes cards and the no cards. You will also have a maybe/not sure pile. You can decide on them later if you like. Take your yes pile and turn it upside down and now go through them, are any of them now negative to you? If they are, you now have some more no cards. Likewise if you take the no pile and reverse them, are any of those cards now positive to you?
A Word About the Sun and the 9 of Cups
I’m sure most other tarot readers would agree that the Sun is an undeniable yes card, as is the 9 of Cups. As the traditional wish card, if you are asking for your heart’s desire and you get either of these cards, you can be rest assured that your wish will be granted.
But what if either of these tarot cards turn up reversed? Is your dream shattered? Will it happen at all?
One way to interpret these cards if they are reversed is to say that initially your wish will be granted and your dream will come true, but only initially. After a time, you will see a change and it will seem that all has failed. You can also interpret these reversed cards as: it will happen, but not yet – you must wait.
Summary of Answering Yes No Questions Using Tarot
Initially all you have to do is make the association in your mind with each card, does it have negative or positive connotations to you. When you are ready to go deeper with yes no tarot questions, apply the positive or negative question technique and tighten that question up to include a time frame.
This is your tarot experience and it has to have meaning to you for it to work. If you commit to your method and card choices, tarot will respond and work with you.
It won’t be long before all of the cards you designate as yes/no answers become your working reality.
