How to ask a tarot question is most of how to get a useful reading, and the rule is short. Ask about your own side of something, in one sentence, written down before you draw. A question with you as its subject gives the cards a person to read, and a question about what somebody else will do gives them nothing, because no card can see into another person’s week.
That is not carefulness for the sake of it. It is where the useful information is. You cannot act on what he is thinking, and you can act on what you are going to do at four o’clock, and a question aimed at the second one comes back with something you can use before the day is out.
The questions that work
Half of how to ask a tarot question is choosing the subject, and the subject that works is you. Open questions about your part in a situation do best: what am I not looking at here, what is this waiting costing me, what would make this week easier, what am I avoiding and what would it cost to stop. These have room in them for a picture to land, and the answer comes back as something you recognize instead of something to wait for.
Decisions between two things you could do work well, especially over three cards, such as whether to apply, whether to send it, or whether to go on Saturday. Questions about how you are, honestly, are the best of all, and people ask them least, because they feel too small to bring to a deck.
The questions that do not
The ones that do not work are will he come back, when will I meet someone, does she still think about me, is he going to text, and yes or no about anybody who is not you. Every one of these is a question about another person’s inside or about a date on a calendar, and no arrangement of seventy eight pictures can see either. A reader who answers them is guessing in a confident voice, and the trouble with a confident guess is that people act on it.
When a question like that arrives here, the reading says so in one plain sentence and then reads your half, which is the only part you can do anything with. The page on whether tarot can predict the future says why at more length.
How to ask a tarot question, rewritten
Most of the questions that do not work are one rewrite away from one that does, and the rewrite is the same move almost every time: put yourself back in the sentence.
Will he come back becomes what am I doing with the waiting, and what would I do this week if I knew for certain he was not. When will I meet someone becomes what is in the way of meeting people, on my side, right now. Does she still think about me becomes what do I want to say to her, and why have I not said it. Should I quit my job becomes what am I actually tired of, the work or the place.
The rewritten question is harder to ask and easier to answer, and it comes back with a step attached, which the original never could.
Three small rules for the wording
The last part of how to ask a tarot question is the wording. Put it on paper before the first card is turned, one sentence, and keep the paper in view, because a question that lives only in your head is free to become a different question the moment the cards start showing. Keep it to one question at a time; the second one can have its own reading tomorrow. And ask it the way you would ask a friend across a table, in ordinary words, because the deck does not need the formal version.
The question underneath
Sometimes the question you type is not the question. Will he come back is often really can I bear this, and should I quit is often really am I allowed to want something else. If the card that turns up seems to belong to a different question, give it a minute before you call the draw a miss, because it may have heard the one underneath. And if what is underneath is heavier than any card can carry, if the thought has been that people would be better off without you, then the one thing to do before anything else is to tell one person tonight, or to call a helpline where you live.
The better question, tonight
Take the question you came here with and write it on a fresh page, and under it write what you would do this week if you already knew the answer. Then draw for the second line, at the reading or with your own deck. It is the better question, and it was yours all along.
Questions people ask
What are good questions to ask tarot cards?
Questions about your own side of a situation, asked openly. What am I not looking at here, what is this waiting costing me, what would make this week easier, what am I avoiding. Decisions between two things you could do work well over three cards. The best questions are usually the plainest ones about how you actually are, and they are the ones people bring least often.
Can I ask tarot about another person?
You can ask about your side of them. What do I want to say to her, what am I doing with the waiting, should I be the one who texts. No reading can see what they feel or how they will decide, and if you bring that question here the reading says so in one sentence and then reads the part that is yours to act on.
How specific should a tarot question be?
Specific about the situation and open about the answer. Name the job, the person, the week, and then ask what you are not seeing or what would help, rather than asking whether it will work out. A question that is vague about the situation gets a vague card, and a question that is closed about the answer gets bent toward the answer you were hoping for.