“The most cursory look at cold-reading and suggestion tells us that Tarot cards are not evil; psychics do not ‘usher in’ the Devil or his minions; and even the creepy old Ouija board can be shown to operate via quite everyday, natural, physical forces.”

—  Derren Brown

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The most cursory look at cold-reading and suggestion tells us that Tarot cards are not evil; psychics do not ‘usher in’…" by Derren Brown?
Derren Brown photo
Derren Brown 136
British illusionist 1971

Related quotes

“Again, irrationality can hurt, and here we have evidence that a particular form of it is widespread. The people accused around hurt, and the clients—be they children or grown adults—are hurt. Irrationality is not simply an amusing diversion provided by tarot cards or Ouija boards.”

Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) American psychologist

Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 9, “Sexual Abuse Hysteria” (p. 179)

Zita Johann photo

“I have always been interested in the occult, but during the filming of The Mummy I had to keep such things private, especially in those days. I used the occult auto-suggestively…I mean, before I would play a scene I would get into the spirit, so to speak, with certain prayers. As a child my father gave me an Ouija board and soon I started to get messages, then I moved towards the Tarot. By the time I was in Basil Sidney’s company I was asked to read cards all the time for the other players, and Basil himself depended on what I saw in those cards.”

Zita Johann (1904–1993) actress

Camp David: Zita Johann http://filmsinreview.com/2007/02/01/camp-david-february-2007-zita-johann/3/ (1981)

Derren Brown photo

“The Ouija board is a really interesting phenomenon. It works by something called idiomotor suggestion. You do actually push the glass yourself you just have no awareness of doing it.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Derren Brown: Séance (2004)

Jane Roberts photo

“Suggestion can shape dreams, and the dreams themselves then operate as action. A strong dream can be a more significant psychic action than any physical experience, and it can change the course of the personality completely.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 28
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 1

“There’s a card in the Tarot pack called The Magus. The magician, conjuror. Two of his traditional symbols are the lily and the rose.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Introduction (1977 edition)
The Magus (1965)

“In 1423, the Franciscan friar St. Bernardino of Siena preached a celebrated sermon against cards (Contra Alcarum Ludos) at Bologna, attributing their invention to the devil. Despite such ecclesiastic interdiction, Johannes Gutenberg printed playing cards the same year as his famous Bible (1440). The cards from Gutenberg's press were Tarot cards, from which the modern deck is derived.”

Richard Arnold Epstein (1927) American physicist

Source: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977, Chapter Six, The Play Of The Cards, p. 158

Jan Hus photo

“Even a most evil man is better than the devil!”

Jan Hus (1369–1415) Czech linguist, religion writer, theologist, university educator and science writer

Source: A Companion to Jan Hus (2015), pp. 201-202; Jan Hus in Booklet against the Cook-priest in response to the rival priest who swore that Hus is worse than any devil.

José Rizal photo

“Necessity is the most powerful divinity the world knows--it is the result of physical forces set in operation by ethical forces.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

"The Philippines: A Century Hence"

Ayn Rand photo

“All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.”

Ayn Rand book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

“Cursory inspection of the world suggests it is a giant complex with dense connections between its parts. We cannot cope with it in that form and are forced to reduce it to some separate areas which we can examine separately.”

Peter Checkland (1930) British management scientist

..
Source: Systems thinking, systems practice: includes a 30-year retrospective, 1999, p. 60 cited in: Frederik Pretorius (2008) Project Finance for Constructions and Infrastructure. p. 36

Related topics