Which cards say yes or no, and what to do with a "maybe"
The yes or no spread is the most popular reading in tarot, and the trickiest one for a beginner. It looks as simple as it gets: one card, a short answer. But this is exactly where people get disappointed most often, because they ask the wrong thing and expect more from a single card than it can give.
You ask a closed question, draw one card, and look at the answer it carries. Every one of the 78 cards on our site has a label: YES, NO or MAYBE. You can try it right away in our yes or no tarot reading.
Examples from the deck:
It helps to see the labels for a whole suit in one table. There's one, for example, in our guide to the suit of Swords.
The question should allow only two answers. "Should I go to the interview on Thursday?" is a good question. "What will happen with my job?" is a bad one: you can't answer it with yes, it needs a spread of several cards (lesson 9).
Two main rules will keep you from getting tangled up:
"Maybe" frustrates beginners, but it's a useful answer. It means the outcome isn't settled yet and a lot depends on what you do. Look at the card itself: The Hermit suggests waiting and thinking, the Two of Pentacles says you're juggling too much. The answer is hidden in the meaning, not in the label.
One card doesn't replace common sense. If the question is about health or money, a yes or a no from a card can be a reason to think, but not a decision. And don't keep redrawing until you get the answer you want: a reading like that stops meaning anything.
In lesson 9 we move on to three-card spreads and learn to build a story from them.