mrpants
How are the cards numbered exactly ?... I know that the numbers 1-78 refer to individual cards, but which card is which ? Knowing that could make the cards themselves almost irrelevant.
Well as we can see from this thread alone, there are several ways to go about numbering each individual card. Etteila and other Occult tarot creators have actually printed numbers (1-78) right on their cards. I think the important thing is that if you are going to employ this method, pick one system and stick with it. Do whatever feels correct to you and be consistent.
As far as the cards themselves are concerned, I disagree that any numbering system would ever make a deck irrelevant. The artwork, at least for me, is the key to the reading. I rely less on what is considered the "correct" meaning for any given card, and also to a similar degree the meaning of the individual spread position (e.g., this position is what other people think about you, etc), and more on the image itself, and how the images interact in a spread. Even among certain tarot "schools," the imagery from one deck to the next can vary widely, thus altering meanings subtly, so assigning a hard and fast meaning to a particular card name is as fruitless as assigning a particular 1-78 number, outside of creating a system to aid in long distance readings for the purpose of selecting the cards.