HOW IT WORKS
On a set of blank index cards, the twelve questions (or indeed, any question you can think of which are answerable by a yes, no or maybe) and the twenty-eight answers are written down and separated into two piles on the table, with the questions in one pile and the answers in the other. The questions pack can be face-up if you wish, but the answers pack should be face down at all times.
Whoever is acting as the Diviner picks up the pack of questions and hands it to the Inquirer, or Querent. The Inquirer/Querent looks through the pack of questions, selects one to which they desire an answer, and hands the chosen card back to the Diviner, while the remainder of the pack is placed back on the table. The Diviner takes up the pack of answer cards and shuffles them face-down. Fanning-out the shuffled answer cards in their hand, the Diviner then directs the Inquirer/Querent to choose one. The chosen answer card is turned over and read.
The Author’s Proposed Variation:
For more amusement value, have a whole smattering of people choose answer cards at the same time, then the Diviner shuffles the deck and either proffers them face-down to each Inquirer/Querent in turn, directing them to choose one. OR, in a nice nod to chaos theory, the Diviner may deal out the answer cards at random to each Inquirer, as if the Diviner was a dealer in a card game. I presume the author proposed this method of using this divination tool for use in social situations, as a game.
My Proposed Variation:
You could do this deck much like the 52-card ‘Egyptian’ fortune cards at a party, as a ‘drop-by’ sort of activity. On a table, lay out the answer cards in neat, even rows face-down, and all the question cards in neat, even rows face-up. Each visitor could then look over the question cards, choose one, then select an answer at random from the answer-rows. Make sure to switch around the answer cards from time to time, so the randomness principle is maintained.