Creating a Tarot Deck is apparently quite easy judging by the avalanche of new decks out there. For years people have been askng me when I was going to create my own Tarot Deck, and my answer has always been that “I am happy with the Thoth Tarot deck (by Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris”.

What is Wrong with The Tarot?

However, now I see various “flaws”, design principles and other general irks that are applicable not just to Crowley’s Book of Thoth, but to the generally accepted fundamentals of what constitutes a Tarot deck. None of these idiosyncracies are enough to make me abandon my favourite deck.  I can happily carry on with The Book of Thoth to the end of my tarot reading days, and I would still be learning.

Creating a Tarot Deck my way

My approach to creating a tarot deck is to be as minimlist to start with. My artistic aspirations ended when I was fifteen, much to the disappointment of my art teacher, so don’t expect stunning visuals, Photoshop montages (can’t do graphics), or elegant sketches.

Obviously it will not be a Rider-Waite clone, nor will it resemble anything like Frieda Harris’ masterpiece. Golden Dawn decks are depressingly bland. The deck will not be “magical” in the sense that no rituals of any kind will be included in the design. I will not be including sigils of the Goetia or Liber 231 or from any other grimoire you might care to mention.

How many Cards in my Tarot deck?

Some years ago I did contemplate having one or two extra cards but for the life of me I cannot remember why! My deck will be extravagantly conventional – 22 Major, 40 Minor and 16 Court cards.

Kabbalistic Tarot anyone?

I will be including the Hebrew Letters for the Major Arcana, but the Minor Arcan will be sans Tree of Life references (this is one reason why I will not be doing a Book of Thoth version). Will there be anything more from the Sepher Yetsirah? I doubt it.

Numbering the Major Arcana

Apparently the proper numbering of the Major Arcana is IMPORTANT, but I don’t care if the Fool is zero or not, nor do I contemplate incorporating “blinds” so favoured by Tarot creators (does anybody do that now?). The Fool is Aleph, so it is the first of the Major Arcana. I have not decided on whether to include numbering or not, but it will start with 1 and use Arabic not Roman numerals.

Starting the Tarot Project

This morning I woke up with the thought that I should purchase a set of blank tarot cards, which I did online, and it arrives at the end of the week.