Tarot Quotes

“Nothing is more whole than a broken heart.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“So we should not try to grasp all the signs at once. Instead, we should strive to open ourselves to the signs, take note of them when they appear, and search our imagination for their possible meaning. This is more an intuitive than a rational process.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“The words spread is based on an original idea by the Israeli poet David Avidan. It is suitable for focused questions that can be formulated as a short and clear sentence.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“The Bourbon shield itself appears again in the 4 of Coins. There may be a connection between these heraldic emblems and the fact that cards were printed in France under strict royal supervision at that time. Still, in a reading everything is a sign, and we can interpret these details in a different context.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“There are different opinions as to which suit corresponds to which element, but most tarot readers accept the Golden Dawn scheme: the coin is earth, the wand is fire, the cup is water, and the sword is air.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“In ordinary playing cards the symbols of the soft suits (diamonds and hearts) are red, while the symbols of the hard suits (clubs and spades) are black.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“Even a superficial look at the illustrations of the minor suit cards shows that they are divided into two groups. One group we can call the “soft” suits: the coins and the cups. The other group is the “hard” suits: the wands and the swords.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“In the English-school decks the suit of coins is sometimes called “pentacles,” with the illustrated coins inscribed with a five-pointed star, or pentagram. But this is a new addition meant to emphasize the connection between the coins and a specific kind of magical amulet.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“In fact, the common (“international”) playing card suits are simplified versions of the tarot suits, whereby the coin has become a diamond, the wand a club, the cup a heart, and the sword a spade.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“Despising accepted norms, Diogenes chose to detach himself from respectable society and live in absolute poverty, sleeping in an old barrel. Once he was seen in the busy Athens marketplace, walking in broad daylight with a lit candle in his hand. When asked why, he said that he was looking for a human.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“In the Golden Dawn deck the illustration was replaced by an image of the hero Perseus saving the princess Andromeda from a sea monster, and the card was named “the Lovers” in plural. Waite, who didn’t like pagan references, redesigned the card with the biblical figures of Adam and Eve.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“The Protestant members of the Order of the Golden Dawn, who wanted to eliminate the Catholic reference, called the card “the Hierophant.” Hierophant is a combination of Greek words meaning “showing sacred things.” In ancient Greece it was the title of the high priest in secret rituals known as the Eleusinian Mysteries. There are also some new decks in which the card is named “the High Priest,” but its basic meaning remains the same.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“If we wish to use a Hebrew letter correspondence, which system should we adopt? A reasonable choice would be to go by the deck we are using. With the Tarot de Marseille and other French-school decks, we may use Eliphas Lévi’s system of correspondences. With decks from the English school, such as Waite’s, we may use the Golden Dawn system. If you don’t know to which school your deck belongs, it’s a good idea to check the numbers of Justice and Force. In the French school Justice is 8 and Force is 11, and in the English school it’s the other way around.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“Scientists today speak of the phenomenon of life as emerging “on the edge of chaos,” a sort of intermediate region between chaos and order. The perfect order is expressed by a solid crystal, where everything is well-ordered and fixed. It has no potential for movement, and thus no place for life. The total chaos is expressed by smoke, which has no stable shape. Here, too, there can be no life because every structure would quickly dissipate. Biological and social life processes take place somewhere in between the crystal and the smoke.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“… tarot cards can be arranged and read in any order. This means that there is an element of chaos inherent to the tarot cards by the fact that they exist as a set of separate images that can be freely arranged.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“Relying on traditional associations of male and female may seem outdated in our day. But an important point to remember is that a figure of a woman in the cards does not necessarily represent a woman in reality. Today we are aware that in each of us, regardless of our biological gender, there is both a masculine and a feminine side. Therefore, a woman figure in the card can represent a feminine aspect, or a behavior traditionally considered as feminine, in a man. And, of course, a man in the card can represent a woman in reality who acts in a way traditionally associated with masculinity. We can thus rely on the traditional symbolism of male and female without assuming anything about the actual status that men and women should have in society.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“An important point to remember is that straight and inverse are only a matter of perspective.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“Fortunetelling methods sometimes adopt the opposite approach and regard the inversion of a card as an inversion of its meaning. For example, if it’s a card whose straight meaning is deprivation or failure, then inverse it will signify abundance or success. This approach is problematic if we consider the visual aspect of the card. For example, a card with heavy atmosphere and dark colors does not become happy and bright when inverted.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“Thus, the criterion for a successful and productive reading is not whether the querent comes away from it with an immediate feeling of satisfaction. Rather, it is whether in retrospect they consider it as having been a positive and helpful experience”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“Conventional tarot textbooks often present the reading as going from the details to the whole — that is, from the single cards to their combination in the spread. According to this approach, we first interpret each card separately, taking into account its customary interpretation and the predefined role of its position in the spread. Only then do we combine the interpretations of the different cards into a complete answer. In contrast, the open reading advances from the whole to the details. First we try to grasp the full picture formed by the combination of cards. Only then do we proceed to analyze the role of each figure or image detail and its contribution to the whole picture.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“The two functions of the shuffling express two key principles that can guide us regardless of the precise way in which we choose to shuffle. The first principle is that our actions and decisions (that is, the querent’s, the reader’s, or both) should determine the choice of cards. The second principle is that the choice should be free of our deliberate control. In other words, in our conscious experience it should appear as effectively random.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading

“The interpretations in the book are possible hints and suggestions that you can follow. But they should serve only as a starting point, and not block you from finding your own way.”
― Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading