The Numerical Tarot that is being offered on this site is a work in progress. I hope to make more decks in the future that use The Numerical Tarot' as a template. It would be great to collaborate with another artist on such a project, to create the perfect deck! The Isomorphic Tarot, also on this site, was a good attempt, but fell short in many ways. In designing The Numerical Tarot, I re-examined some of the names/titles that were used in the Isomorphic Tarot deck and came to the conclusion that some of them were not quite adequate for a "perfect" tarot deck that is based on the All Things Are Numbers approach.

A "perfect" deck, for me, would be one that not only avoids cultural, ethnic, racial, and religious bias in its underlying structure, but also in its subjective portrayal of that relatively abstract foundation. This ideal, of course, becomes harder and harder to maintain, the closer you get to an actual illustration on a card. At that point, you must eventually make a biased decision about which way to go with things like; gender, race, costumes, geographical references, and cultural, mythological and religious references. And while you may be able to keep one or more of these to a minimum, it's pretty impossible to not impose some kind of bias into the final illustrations of each card.

In drawing a "perfect" deck, I thought it would be an improvement to create names/titles that are as free from cultural, ethnic, racial, religious and gender bias as possible. Toward this end, I decided that certain names being used in the The Isomorphic Tarot needed to be changed. For example: Hero - too male, Angel, Demon and Minister - to Christian. Guru - too Hindu. In creating more unbiased names for these positions, I eventually felt a need for equal abstraction to be imposed on several other titles - for the sake of consistency in design. The charts in this section are the result of my effort.

One last problem that the Isomorphic Tarot had, that I didn't bother to resolve when designing this deck years ago, is its mixture of icons that represent both victim and victimizer, or beneficiary vs. benefactor, or the influenced vs. the influencer. A "perfect" deck would either stick to one (for the sake of consistency) or use both throughout. To jump back and forth is inconsistent. So below, I have invented some culture-free, racial-free, gender-free and whatever else-free names/titles that could be used in the creation of a deck of cards, based on the All Things Are Numbers approach to tarot.

NOTE: The names being used on the Isomorphic Tarot are not "wrong" or "bad." They simply are not as abstract as I would have liked. If you examine the following charts, you will see that the names and titles on The Isomorphic Tarot are saying the same thing as these new iconic names shown below, but with their individual bias. In redrawing this deck, I allowed myself the option to still use a male Mighty Hero as a 4, and a female Beautiful Goddess as a 3, or a Blessed Guru as a 7. That remains my subjective outer layer. If you want to draw a deck, you can design one with a different subjective outer layer. A female Mighty Hero perhaps. And a male Beautiful Adonis. Or, Elijah going up to heaven in his chariot, as a symbol of spirituality. With this underlying grid of gender-free names and titles, our decks will be seen as compatible reflections of the same fundamental, abstract patterns.

ALSO NOTE: This is a work in progress. Coming up with words that fit my intended meaning is not easy. I keep changing things as I think up something better. So if you come back tomorrow, you may see different words! Some day this will end and everything will be final. You can help with suggestions if you want.