Is the refusal to answer yes/no questions in a reading a "cop-out"?

[Dain]

Thank you for your replies!

Yes, empowerment is a rather new concept, and like many new concepts it has been commercially (ab)used and often misunderstood, imho. Hence, it's become another buzzword, but it's also a very positive concept that touches upon the interactivity of a reading, the interaction between the reader and the sitter, as well as the usefulness of the "result" for the reader.

I absolutely agree that it's a matter of choice for the reader to accept or refuse to answer a yes/no question.

@The crowned one: That was a great idea, asking the tarot itself for an answer!

 

[AJ]

You didn't indicate if the conversation was in using one card or a pile of them.
Either way, my response to a yes/now question is one card or a 3 card draw, review, and answer yes or no. period. No explanation. This generally leads to better formed questions to which specific positions can be ascribed, resulting in a better outcome for the sitter, regardless of our method of reading, fortune telling or guidance.

 

[Dain]

You didn't indicate if the conversation was in using one card or a pile of them.
Either way, my response to a yes/now question is one card or a 3 card draw, review, and answer yes or no. period. No explanation. This generally leads to better formed questions to which specific positions can be ascribed, resulting in a better outcome for the sitter, regardless of our method of reading, fortune telling or guidance.

The conversation was theoretical without focusing on the type of spread/reading but it mainly had to do with bigger spreads, not a 1 card draw. It also had to do with how the "main question" of a reading ought to be phrased to get the best results and whether a reader should or should not ask the sitter to rephrase a yes/no question.

My feeling is that drawing one card is more like turning on a flashlight for a second to illuminate something fast (although I do realize that one card can contain many messages), unlike a bigger spread with preset card positions, that requires more time to interpret.

 

[MikeTheAltarboy]

Sometimes a yes-or-no question *is* the real question, and sometimes, "yes" or "no" is as detailed as the answer could be!

One reason that I often find Astrology or Geomancy more useful is precisely because of this - and the ancient methods of interpretion that support it.

If I ask, "I lost such-a-trinket. Will I find it?" - if the answer is yes, more information is welcome! If the answer is "no", well, that's it, isn't it. And the answer is easy: Is the figure in the fourth house stable?
If the answer is yes, my follow up question will be "Where is it?" - to this question, I don't want a thousand words! I want, "In the basement, next to the TV." - and this is found fairly easily with modes of perfection to the fourth house.

Although the Opening of the Key is the closest technique I've found to getting concrete answers, the Golden Dawn was also afflicted with "modernism" in it's interpretive methods on Astrology and Geomancy - and these carried over to Tarot.
I am still hoping to find a method of reading the cards that is as clear and unambigous in specifically answering specific questions (without *requiring* seeing through the veil with my third eye- although that is always a welcome help!) as is presented in Lilly's Christian Astrology, or J.M.G's works on Geomancy.

So, for me, yes-no questions on tarot are *hard to answer due to a lack of acknowledged method* - I think that lack is the cop-out, not the reader's refusal per se.

 

[Dain]

Sometimes a yes-or-no question *is* the real question, and sometimes, "yes" or "no" is as detailed as the answer could be!

One reason that I often find Astrology or Geomancy more useful is precisely because of this - and the ancient methods of interpretion that support it.

If I ask, "I lost such-a-trinket. Will I find it?" - if the answer is yes, more information is welcome! If the answer is "no", well, that's it, isn't it. And the answer is easy: Is the figure in the fourth house stable?
If the answer is yes, my follow up question will be "Where is it?" - to this question, I don't want a thousand words! I want, "In the basement, next to the TV." - and this is found fairly easily with modes of perfection to the fourth house.

Although the Opening of the Key is the closest technique I've found to getting concrete answers, the Golden Dawn was also afflicted with "modernism" in it's interpretive methods on Astrology and Geomancy - and these carried over to Tarot.
I am still hoping to find a method of reading the cards that is as clear and unambigous in specifically answering specific questions (without *requiring* seeing through the veil with my third eye- although that is always a welcome help!) as is presented in Lilly's Christian Astrology, or J.M.G's works on Geomancy.

So, for me, yes-no questions on tarot are *hard to answer due to a lack of acknowledged method* - I think that lack is the cop-out, not the reader's refusal per se.

Your answer puts the question under a different light and a very interesting one too! Thank you. So, If I understand what you're saying right, you mean it seems like a cop out because no accurate method (spread?) has been developed by tarotists to answer yes/no questions reliably?

(btw, I never thought of using astrology - a horary chart? - to ask definite and exact yes/no questions; very interesting use!)

 

[gregory]

I have a friend who used from choice to run with a coin toss if people insisted on yes/no answers, with a reading on details afterwards. After she got this kind of thing from sitters, she now uses three cards. All upright = yes; all reversed = no; 2 + 1 maybe , veering towards yes for 2 upright and towards no with 2 reversed.

It is crude, almost, but seems to keep such people happy

 

[Carla]

I think your friend should read the way he reads and you should read the way you read and leave it at that.

 

[momentarylight]

I think your friend should read the way he reads and you should read the way you read and leave it at that.

Agree

 

[Dain]

@gregory: Whatever works for the sitter!

@carla and momentarylight: Good point but I should point out that the argument between my friend and me was not a puerile "my way is better than yours" thing. It was a theoretical argument, impersonal, about tarot reading in general and the ethics involved in particular. Ethics as in my friend's judgement by using the expression "cop out" which I disagreed with.

 

[momentarylight]

Tarot is such a personal craft. Some of us use it in varying ways ourselves. I don't believe in fortune telling myself but others do. I wouldn't argue about it.

Some people use knives for cutting bread. Others use them for carving wood. Different knives, different people, different functions, different skills.