More Adventures with Yes and No

I still don't think that yes/no questions are a totally appropriate, or most effective, use for Tarot, but I've been experimenting with different ways of approaching these sorts of questions, trying to determine if there is a method that is dependable.

In my last yes/no post I mentioned that since I work with reversals, I'd decided that I'd take reversals as "no" and uprights as '"yes," and then consider the card's message for additional insights. In my first experiment I asked a question that I was expecting a "no" for, received a strong "yes" (Magician, plus some), and in the end the event did in fact occur. There were some questions about psychic influence potentially contributing to the outcome, so of course, more testing must be done.

Deviant Moon Tarot
Patrick Valenza - US Games 2008

Since then I've conducted two yes/no experiments.  For the first of the two, I asked a question about an issue based entirely on outside chance (think of things like the lottery, or winning a contest with thousands of entrants). I pulled the 5 of Cups upright. Now this card seems like a "no" and yet it was upright, so I wondered if it did somehow mean "yes." I decided to do a spread of three cards to give me some major energies surrounding the answer, and I pulled the 5 of Cups (again!), the Ace of Wands, and the Tower.  All upright. So by nature of being upright I'd say that it seemed promising. And yet there is no doubt that the 5 of Cups and the Tower seem like pretty strong negatives. The Ace looked nice, but it also felt like it may simply have been representing the opportunity that had presented itself - not necessarily that anything exciting would come from it. So I decided to stick with my upright=yes method, and…… yeah, it manifested in real life as a "no." So then I thought, okay, perhaps the cards do mean more than the upright/reversed presentation.

I tried again. I asked a different question, also based on outside chance, and I pulled the Lovers reversed. Hm.  The Lovers would be a strong positive, but reversed I decided to take it as a "no." Underneath I found a reversed 9 of Wands, and an upright Ace of Pentacles. So my entire take was that I would not see results in the time I had inquired about, but perhaps later in the month something would change for the positive.  Well, two days later the situation manifested in the positive!  So this left me thinking that, again, the card itself is more important than its position.

Tarot Elements has a list of cards that she considers "yes," "no," and "maybe." In my own experience thus far, my cards have matched up appropriately with the list, based on the ultimate outcome. So I will keep testing things out, and will now be ignoring reversals, and going with card meaning instead. Let the journey continue! :-)