Questions Decan Tarot will not lay a spread for.
Decan Tarot declines four kinds of question before any card is dealt: medical, legal, the price of anything, and harm to yourself. Two more are laid only with a warning that the cards handle them badly: errands, and small yes-or-no questions about today. Questions about what another person thinks are laid, and read as your side of it. Seven rules, checked against the question as you type it, and this page is the whole list.
- 78cards
- 24spreads
- 36decans
- The Sun, now☉ 1.8° Libra, Two of Swords
health, legal, money specifics, harm. No cards are dealt. You are offered one card for the day, or the question underneath.
errand, trivial yes no. The warning is printed where the cards would have been, and you can lay it anyway.
another person's mind. The cards cannot report on someone who is not here, so the reading is about your side of it.
The rules, in the words you would see
Each rule is a list of phrases in the code, and what follows is exactly what the page says when one matches.
Health.
Declined · a diagnosis, a symptom, a treatment, a pregnancy, whether you will recover
That is a question for a doctor, and the cards do not get a say in it. Nothing here is diagnostic and it would be dishonest to pretend a picture from 1909 knows.
If what you actually want is to sit with how you are carrying it, ask that instead, or take one card for today.
Legal.
Declined · a case, custody, a visa, a settlement, what a lawyer would say
That is a question for a lawyer. A card cannot tell you how a case goes, and a reading that implied it could would be worth less than nothing.
What the cards can do is the part that is yours: how you are holding it, and what you have not decided.
Money specifics.
Declined · whether to buy or sell a named asset, where a price is going
The cards have no opinion on a price. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something, and this site prints a checkable line precisely so it does not have to.
If the real question is whether you can carry the risk, ask that. The cards are good at it.
Harm.
Declined · harming yourself
I am not going to lay cards on that, and I would rather say so plainly than write something soothing.
If you are having a hard time, talking to someone who is actually there is worth more than any spread. findahelpline.com lists a line in your country. This page will still be here after.
Errand.
Laid, with a warning · groceries, laundry, dinner, the gym, a haircut
The cards are poor at errands. There is no reading of the Eight of Cups that tells you whether the fridge is empty, and pretending otherwise is how tarot gets its reputation.
If the errand is standing in for something else, that is the question worth asking. Otherwise take one card for the day and go anyway.
Trivial yes no.
Laid, with a warning · a should-I question small enough and soon enough to answer itself
That is small enough and soon enough that the cards will only reflect what you already think.
Which may be the point. Take it as one card, and read it as a mirror rather than an instruction.
Another person's mind.
Laid, and read as your side of it · whether someone loves you, is lying, is thinking of you, will call
The cards cannot report on somebody who is not here, and any reading that claims to is making it up.
Laid anyway, and read as what it can honestly be: your side of it, and what you are waiting for.
Why decline rather than answer
Everything else on the internet will read your groceries. A working reader would not: they would say what the tool is for. Twelve tarot practitioners interviewed for a 2026 study named the model's yes man energy as the problem with asking software about cards, and the authors recommend technology that enhances self-reflection rather than standing in for it. Declining is how this site does that. The list itself follows the convention readers already keep, set out in Biddy Tarot’s "What not to ask the Tarot": nothing medical about anyone, nothing about a person who is not in the room, nothing that needs a professional.
The fuller reading keeps the same rules
When a reading is kept and sent, a longer version is written by a language model from the cards and what you said. Its instructions include, verbatim: Never give a date except one already in the facts. Never give medical, legal or financial specifics, and never tell the person to take or refuse a treatment, a contract or a purchase. Never predict an outcome as certain. Never claim a track record or that the cards know. What is fixed, what is computed and what is generated.
Does tarot predict the future at all? No to dated events, yes to a way of looking at the present; the longer argument is at Cosmos Daily. More questions · Bring a question.