Be Your Own Oracle: What's the Question? by James Wanless, PhD.

It has been said by the sages of the world that, "The question is more important than the answer." Why is that? No questions, no answers, I answer. And because wrong questions can lead to answers that appear correct but are, in fact, false solutions. We become misled by our own certainty. What a strange life, as things are not as they seem. In truth, the best way to get the right answer is to ask, "What is the question?"

The next time you want an answer to anything, play with different questions. You will intuitively know the right question, probably because you will have found the right answer as suggested by the question. Questions ARE answers.

In the traditional process of reading tarot or using any oracle for another, the querent asks the questions and the seer is the answer provider. I confess as a tarot reader, however, that I don't have the answers. Because of our modern world of complexity, diversity, change, and thus uncertainty, answers are not so simple and easily ascertained. A contemporary sage must ask questions and questions to get clarity. I pepper the client with questions, some of which are answered verbally and others through the cards.

Effective counselors have great curiosity and are curious about people. We sleuth our way through signs and indications in a reading to find the truth, to solve the mystery and to resolve the doubt. Like a dog after a bone, we keep digging and digging, searching and questing. Sniff with your wisdom nose and get clear. Discerning the right question is where my intuition works.

What is a good question in a Reading, anyway? Usually, the opposite of what clients ask.

When a person requests a reading, I ask what they want to ask. Often they respond with some vague generalities about wanting to have a general forecast of what's going to happen in their life. The truth is that most want to know about something specific, and I ask them what that is. And then I ask, "What is it about this aspect that you want to know?" Usually, the answer is, "What's the future?"

I counter and ask, "What about now? What's going on now?" How can we know anything about the future unless we know something of the present situation? Indeed, the present is the seed for the future. The present context is very, very telling. The danger, however, is in making assumptions about a person and their future based upon how we have usually perceived such a particular state of affairs.

To get more clarity about the meaning of the present, I ask, "So what happened in your past?" The present is a product of the past. If we know the past and the present, we have an idea of the "probable" future. One step back to go two steps ahead is an ancient adage that makes sense.

How can we know anything without knowing some history? Without acknowledging the past, we are on track to make the same mistakes.

Instead of asking about the future, first look to what has already occurred. We are often in denial of our patterns and habits, conveniently forgetting that they tend to effect a somewhat predictable reality in the future.

Again, most people ask questions that get a person nowhere. They ask me how their fiancee will work out and how their finances will go. The reader has to reformulate the question. So, instead of something or somebody outside of the client, the real question is about what's inside of them. Who are they? It has been said by the sage Ralph Waldo Emerson that, "What lies ahead of us, and what lies behind us is a tiny matter compared to what lies within us." How true.

The most valuable question that gets at the very heart of the oracular process and future of a person is about the individual and their qualities. For love life issues, are they a loving person, capable of giving and receiving love for oneself and with others? For money issues, does the person feel they are wealthy inside, full of rich resources within?

At the most ancient of oracles in the ancient world, the Temple of Delphi in the Greek mountains, it is inscribed on the main entrance, "Know Thyself." Indeed, the great majority of tarot cards are about the inner self. The four suits of cards represent what's going on mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. The Major cards represent the 22 archetypal sub-personalities within us.

The ultimate question of question centers around a person's level of self-confidence and self-esteem. "How do you feel about yourself," I ask. How a person views oneself is key to how a person will do in the world. It's quite possible to see somebody's self-worth by how they talk and act, but to ask them the question directly and explain why you asked that is most educative. Readers are teachers, mentors, coaches in disguise.

In a reading therefore, we are still not at the point of asking about the future. Before we ever get to that question, another better question is the "how" question. About a person's love life, the question is really about what they can do to sow the field for love to bloom. How can they do this? About money, the real issue is what that person can do to create the best opportunity to make money. How to do this?

Even the offerings by the Delphic seers of the future were cryptic and necessitated interpretation and action by the clients. There is the well-chronicled story of what the Priestesses told the Greeks for how to deal with King Xerxes of Asia Minor who was about to invade Greece. They were told that a "wooden wall" would save them. But there is little wood in Greece, and to surround Athens with a wall was not an option. They had to figure it out, and they did, eventually coming up with the answer to build a fleet of wooden boats and blockade the harbor of the King before he could invade. The Athenians prevailed because they participated in the prophecy and took action to bring all of their resources to bear.

The wise way of consulting the cards is to probe the qualities and attributes of a person, and to lay out some kind of a plan for creating the future they desire. Thus, appropriate questions are, "Who are you? What can you do? Do you believe in yourself?"

Then and only then do I take a look at what the future holds in store, and only if they follow the prescribed plan. And the question for the future is not what will happen but what could happen or might happen? The future is not written in stone. The cards are only paper. The future is made by plans, passion, positivity and proaction.

But, "When will it happen?" cries the client. When, when, when? I confess that I don't know. It's really up to the client, for it's when they take action and act often. Even then, no mortal knows with any surety.

The final question to the client is, "Will you do it?" A positive card indicates probably. A negative card suggests a block that could prevent the positive action and result, but only "could" block. Once seen, it can be prevented. Once previewed, it can be preempted. Readings are about information. It's what we do with the information that determines outcomes.

The truth is that you can do a Reading for yourself. You can ask of yourself all the questions I have asked. The problem is that we are often stuck in old, habitual answers to these questions, or that we are in denial and don't answer them honestly. We are trapped by our past self-beliefs and self-images and we are deluded by projections of what we'd like to see. That's why picking cards and trusting them at face value is so vital for breaking free of our skewed self-perceptions. It takes openness to new possibilities about yourself and truthfulness about disserving habits. To be your own oracle demands that you explore yourself and your potential with a ferocious curiosity that frees you from attachment to a habitual social role that you have played.