About Fool’s Key

The Creator

Fool’s Key was created and is maintained by Ben, a student of Tarot for nearly a decade. His first career was as a research scientist, working primarily in physics and later branching into neuroscience. This background on the inner workings of the world and the mind has shaped his understanding of the Tarot archetypes and how they show up in our lives. His other interests include game design, math, music, vegetarian cooking, and uncovering hidden patterns, puzzles, and mysteries of all kinds.

Blending intuition with reason, Ben built Fool’s Key as a bridge between the logical and the esoteric — a place where ancient wisdom is explored through modern tools and with a holistic perspective.

The Cards

The Fool’s Key Card system treats Tarot Cards and other objects of esoteric study and lore, such as Zodiac signs, Planets, Numbers, and the Elements, on equal footing. Just like Tarot cards, these other objects can be assigned keywords and phrases that help define them, and the related imagery can help put the viewer in the right mindset to let the energy of that card or object enter their life and mind.

How do the Keywords and Phrases Work?

Each Tarot card, Zodiac sign, Planet, etc, has a pool of keywords and phrases pulled from extensive notes kept by the creator of Fool’s Key over almost a decade of study. Each time a card appears, you will see several words or short phrases drawn at random from this pool. Each of these objects is far too complex to be summarized in just a few words, but over time you will draw the same card multiple times, each time seeing different words that together will cover the whole spectrum of that card’s meaning. In the same way that we can assign significance to the random chance of which Tarot card appears to you at what point in time, at Fool’s Key you can let the random occurrence of keywords guide your thoughts and inspire your reading. This adds a second layer of chance to the divination process, giving synchronicity and fate an additional channel through which to speak to you.

What about the Correspondences?

Below the keywords on each card, you will see a box with that card’s correspondences – other esoteric objects that share similar associations and meanings with the original card. You can click on the correspondence symbols to view the card for that symbol – since they are closely related to the original, you can think of the additional keywords as a clarification or hint about how to interpret the original card. Some associations, such as between the Zodiac signs and the Four Elements, are well known and universally accepted, but many have been carefully chosen based on the creator’s knowledge and feeling for each of these objects, built over years of working with them. There are many patterns and themes embedded within this web of interconnectivity waiting to be discovered!