Yes or no tarot

The most-asked thing in tarot is the simplest: will this happen, yes or no. One card, one word, done.

It is a fair way to read, and this site answers it directly — every card here carries a yes, a no or a maybe for each orientation, and a question that opens with will, should, is or can gets that word back immediately, before any interpretation.

How the answer is decided

Not by arcana, and not by whether the picture looks cheerful. Each of the 78 cards is assigned a yes, no or maybe by hand, in both orientations, and stored with the card — you can read every one of them in the card meanings.

Reversed is not the opposite of upright. A reversed Star is not a no; it is a maybe, because a dimmed outlook is not the same as a closed door. That asymmetry is deliberate and it is why the polarity is written per card rather than flipped by a rule.

Roughly speaking:

• Yes — the Sun, the Star, the Aces, the Wheel, the Ten of Cups.
• No — the Tower, the Ten of Swords, the Five of Pentacles, the Devil.
• Maybe — the Moon, the Hanged Man, the Seven of Cups, most cards about waiting, doubt or half-formed situations.

Where a yes is worth having

When the question is genuinely binary and genuinely yours. Should I apply. Should I say something. Is this worth another month. You already hold both options; the card puts a thumb on the scale and you find out how you feel about which way it went. That reaction is the reading.

Where it is worth nothing

• Questions about someone else's mind. Does he still think about me has a true answer that no card has access to.
• Questions with a deadline. Will it happen by Friday asks a picture to read a calendar.
• Questions you have already asked today. Drawing again until the answer changes is not a reading; it is a search for permission, and the honest way to get that is to notice you want it.
• Anything medical, legal or financial. A card is not a second opinion.

Ask it properly

Put it in one sentence, in your own words, starting with will, should or is. Then read past the yes: the interpretation under it is where the card says what it is actually pointing at, and it is nearly always more useful than the word.