Why The Perfect Tarot Question Does Not Exist

Introduction: The Perfect Tarot Question

On the issue of what makes a good (or should I say perfect?!) tarot question, I am dogmatically liberal. I believe that the important thing about asking question in tarot divination is not how it is phrased but what your ongoing intentions are for your life; facta non verba!

Do you prioritize spiritual insight over material gain? Do you prioritize hard truths (delivered with love) over comforting lies? Do you respect yourself? If you focus on simply living your life in as ethically and wise as possible then how can you go wrong with your tarot question?

For this reason, I reject every rule you have ever heard (or missed!) about asking effective tarot questions. In lieu of specific words to make clear specific insights, I place Silence to make clear the Voice of Divine Wisdom.

That is, I believe God (my catophatic conception of the ineffable Divine) knows your heart; simply ask what you wish to ask and allow yourself to learn. Maybe you will learn that you should ask more effective questions for you. Or maybe you will learn that the open reading can be truly insightful. Or maybe you will learn that both things can be true at the same time! Different rules under different conditions.

Tarot Questions Are Deeply Personal

Or to wit: divination is a deeply private personal practice. Just as I know my Self best, you best know yours.

Indeed, you best know yours! Just as I can infer my dharma and karma from the expertise which I have on my own life, so the most expert astrologer (or tarot diviner!) is entirely ignorant on the subject - in comparison!

Any tarot diviner - teacher or reader - who gives you advice which might interfere with your life path and/or free will, is doing you a disservice. Any tarot diviner - teacher or reader - who claims to interpret your dreams or tell you about your overall karma and dharma in detail (instead of guiding you towards your own answers that you already know within your Self) is doing you a disservice.

Why, therefore, would any tarot diviner - teacher or reader - claim that you should ask open-ended (but very specific!) tarot questions, that you should focus tarot questions on yourself (or other people if you do wish to spy!) or about what is within your control (without stopping to wonder “what is outside of my control?”) is doing you a disservice.

The question is deeply personal and comes from the secret heart and secret mind within you. If men have three hearts and three minds - the public, private and secret - then the tarot diviner can make astonishing and titilating pronouncements about your public and private life (or those of others). Well done them! But what can they say about your secret heart or mind?

Nothing at all! Anyone who clutches at your secret heart with their hands will find nothing but air in their grasp; they cannot touch it. Anyone who peers into a secret mind will be doubly blinded; they will read neither the Soul’s shames nor the glorious Thoughts of the Godhead.

Ultimately, what I am writing about here is a set of arguments against the presumption, the arrogance and the lack of ethical restraint that has possessed the tarot divination community for it to think that it can tell individuals what questions to ask for the living of their individual dharma.

Why Specific Tarot Questions Are Unncessary

Tarot questions are surrounded by dogma in the tarot community. For example, it is often said that a specific question is very helpful or even imperative for the most precise tarot readings. But this is false in a divinatory context since intuition can fill in the specificity for us.

If this was impossible then specific questons would allow us to read only spreads rather than lines and tableaus. Why? Because the lack of fixed spread positions would cause the reader to doubt as to what the cards might mean! Yet tableaus have been around for hundreds of years and are actually praised for their accuracy. Writing in 2025, the practice of actually reading tableaus is now beginning to make a resurgence with books published this same year such as Tarot Tableau Revolution (co-author’d by none other than the renowned tarot scholar Mary K. Greer).

But we can go further than this; not only can one read tarot cards without a specific question, one can read a tableau without a question at all. This is called a general or open reading and is a well known technique among tarot masters. Aspiring tarot professionals should take careful note; you will certainly be asked to do this style of reading fairly regularly for clients.

But wait, it goes further! Not only do you not need any question (nevermind a specific one) - since can one do an open reading using tableaus - but you do not even need a full deck of tarot cards to answer your no question tarot reading - that doesn’t contain a spread! Don’t believe me? Please ask around in a community of Marseille readers and see for yourself.

Thusly do I slay the sacred cow that is the specific tarot question.

Conclusion: My Only Prescription

To summarize, my only prescription for effective tarot questions is an ethical one which says that, as possibly represented by the dual-bladed Sword of Truth wielded by Lady Justice, the reader should respect free will whilst appreciating the dance between rights and responsibilities.

To spy on someone else with tarot is wrong. But equally wrong is to tell people that they shouldn’t ask about the future or they shouldn’t ask yes/no questions or that they should ask specific questions or that they can’t enquire into issues affecting others when their intention is sincere and nothing bad would come of it.

Ethics, let us never forget, is not just about doing no more than is necessary so as to do what is right, it is about doing what is right whenever it is necessary.