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Yes or No Tarot: Does It Work, and How to Do It Sensibly
Yes or no tarot works about as well as any coin you've agreed to be bound by. The deck has no built-in yes or no; 78 pictures don't sort into two piles on their own. What makes a yes or no reading honest is deciding the rule before you draw and then keeping it.
Three methods that hold up, and one better option.
Why the deck resists binary answers
- Most cards carry both a bright and a heavy reading. The Star is hope, and it's also loss and abandonment in the older sources. Which pile does it go in?
- A yes tells you nothing about why, when, or at what cost.
- Binary questions are the easiest ones to re-ask until you get the answer you wanted, which is where self-readings go to fall apart.
Method 1: upright and reversed
Shuffle with reversals in play, draw one card, and read upright as yes, reversed as no. The card itself tells you the flavor: a reversed Ace of Cups is a different no from a reversed Ten of Swords. If you don't normally use reversals, our guide to reversed tarot cards covers the whole idea.
Method 2: assign the suits
Decide your rule up front, for example:
- Wands and Cups are yes.
- Swords and Pentacles are no, or "not yet".
- A Major Arcana card means the question is bigger than a yes or no, so ask a better one.
Any assignment works as long as it's fixed before the shuffle. The rule is the ritual.
Method 3: three cards, majority wins
Draw three, count upright cards. Two or three upright is a yes, two or three reversed is a no, and you still get to read the three cards as a normal three-card spread for the reasoning behind the verdict. This is the version most worth your time, because you end up with an answer and an explanation.
The rule that keeps it honest
- Write the question down before you shuffle. Word for word.
- Fix the yes/no rule before you draw, not after you see the card.
- Ask once. If you re-ask the same day, you're not reading, you're negotiating.
- Write the answer down even when you don't like it. Especially then.
The better option
Most yes or no questions are open questions in a costume. Try the swap:
- "Should I take the job?" becomes "What would this job cost me, and what would it give me?"
- "Will we work out?" becomes "What does this connection need from me right now?"
- "Should I move?" becomes "What am I moving toward, and what am I running from?"
You get an answer you can act on instead of a verdict you'll argue with. More of these in how to ask tarot questions, and the tarot spreads guide helps you pick the layout to answer them with.
Method one is easy to run in the Toe Bean Tarot app: pick the Single Card spread, turn on reversed cards, type your question, and draw. The reading is saved to your journal with the question attached, so re-asking next week leaves a paper trail. It's on Google Play, with iPhone coming soon.
Quick answers
Does yes or no tarot work?
It works as well as any coin you agree to be bound by. The deck has no built-in yes or no, so you have to define the rule before you draw and then keep it.
How do you do a yes or no tarot reading?
Pick a rule first: upright means yes and reversed means no, or draw three cards and let the majority decide. Ask once, draw, and accept the result.
Which tarot cards mean yes?
There's no official list. Readers commonly treat The Sun, The Star, and the Aces as strong yeses, and The Tower, Three of Swords, and Ten of Swords as noes, but that's convention, not rule.
Why do readers dislike yes or no questions?
Because a yes or no answers nothing you can use. "No, and here's the part you keep skipping" is a more helpful reading than "no".