Yes or No?

How to decide?

What happens if I say yes, and what happens if I say no? These oracles and card readings work through both paths and help to get an idea of where they can lead.

About coins and oracles

A coin for a yes or no is flipped easily. One can take the result as advice for a decision or as an answer of higher forces to a question. However, such simple oracle methods are more than just a superficial game.

Sigmund Freud recommended flipping a coin when making important choices. Not to let it make the decision, but to observe yourself how you react to its judgment. Whether one accepts it that way or realizes that actually the opposite is wanted.

The either/or answer was given to the common people by the oracle priestess in Delphi. Only richer citizens obtained detailed advice from her. Ordinary people received a yes or no answer to their questions, and they were probably able to do more with it than with cryptic prophecies. Children and young people already know the game with the flower, whose blossoms you pluck and at the end find out whether your crush loves you or not. The result depends on whether the number of blossoms is even or odd.

Consult the cards

Card spreads comparing two possibilities belong to the most popular ones.

this could be:

  • Advantages and disadvantages
  • leave or stay
  • person A or B
  • call someone or still wait a little
  • be brave or stay cautious

In the process, two or more cards can be drawn. In some readings, the consequences and the future are discussed, to which the decision for one or the other leads. In other spreads it is also shown what happens if one remains uncommitted and does not want to decide.

Under circumstances, possibly, eventually …

In addition to the two dimensions positive and negative, a third one can be added, the maybe. This is especially useful when the answer appears as a text, or possibly as a number when rolling the dice. A coin will hardly be able to provide it.

More exciting, on the other hand, is when the puck of a hex board heads for it and stays there. Or if you open a fortune cookie and it contains a maybe. How useful it is to the questioner depends, of course, on the entire situation.