Wow I really liked this deck as soon as I opened it, but what is really neat is that the more I look at it the more I get out of it.  This is a very esoteric deck, and not an easy one to learn the ins and outs of.  Ironically you don't need a *lot* of tarot experience to really begin to see that there is so much more to this "perfected" tarot, which sets out to rectify the symbolism and meaning of the tarot.
 
The back of the book which goes with this deck reads as follows: "Elksinger's Perfected Tarot is like no other.  It is centered in metaphysics and teaches by osmosis through meditations and reflections."  This statement is certainly true.  I find that the meditations which accompany each card greatly increase one's knowledge and understanding of the tarot in general, and each card in particular.
 
The entire system has been reworked, changing titles, order, and meanings even so that the flow of energy through the deck is correct.  Each card is white with the image area focused mainly in the center of the card.  The title appears in large black print at the top of the card, and there is a bar across the card underneath the title which contains the Arabic numeral for the card, the name of its Hebrew letter (spelled out), the Hebrew letter itself, elemental symbols, a second number, and on some cards, the symbol of the natural metal or material that corresponds to the cards.  There is an alchemical process in place through the Major Arcana cards which begins with Lead and transmutes to Gold through the cards in ascending order.
 
The Major Arcana use all new titles but if you think about the *meaning* of each of the cards you can see a correlation with traditional tarot in some aspects.  The meanings presented here are very powerful.  The titles are as follows:
 
0 - Pilgrim
1 - Virgin
2 - Discriminator
3 - Creatrix
4 - Doorkeeper
5 - Fountainhead
6 - Dancers
7 - Champion
8 - Evaluator
9 - Pathfinder
10 - Cyclic Force
11 - Chrysallys
12 - Millstone
13 - Metamorphosis
14 - Equilibrium
15 - Spellbinder
16 - Lighthouse
17 - Pleiades
18 - Law
19 - Truth
20 - Rebirth
21 - Triple Magus
 
Come to think of it, I can see that the meanings and systems from which this deck was derived stem from both Crowley and Waite.  I don't see any correlation to the Marseille deck except where Waite originally had some resemblance to it.
 
The artwork on some of the cards is better than others but even on the less attractive ones it's always good enough not to detract from the card any.  Many of these cards are *really* attractive.
 
In the Minor Arcana, the suits have also been "perfected."  Instead of using suit icons like Wands, Swords, Cups and Pentacles, these suits use kingdoms of living beings.  There is a suit of birds, referred to as Avians; a suit of animals, referred to as Terrestrials; a suit of fish and whales, referred to as Mariners; and a suit of trees and plants, referred to as the Salamanders.  This is the only one that really bugs me.  I know these are named for elemental beings (Salamanders are the elemental being for Fire) but I can't possibly figure out any way to connect cool green living plants with fire.  They grow from the earth, soak up the water, breathe in the air, but I can't figure out how fire comes into it.  All of the other suits work out for me (fish and whales in Water, yeah that works; earth for animals, ok; birds in the air, yeah) but this one seems to have been stuck with fire because nothing else would work without changing the rest of the system.  The court titles have been done away with entirely.  Instead the cards in each suit are numbered 1 through 14.  There are no Aces either, just a 1.  These numbered cards are all somewhere in between pips and scenes; each one is a plain solid color (goldenrod for Salamanders, pale yellow for Avians, light blue for Mariners and mint green for Terrestrials) and have a white cameo in the center featuring a drawing of the featured being.  The title is in black at the top center, and the numbers appear around the cameo.  The correspondence bar has the scientific name (genus and species) for each being.  The Salamanders suit has the additional bonus of following the Celtic Tree Calendar so the Celtic names for the trees appears in that bar also.
 
The cards themselves are quite large, and the cardstock is fairly stiff and tends to warp somewhat, so that the entire deck is bowed in from the sides towards the center.  The edges are cut fairly evenly but have not been polished or sanded smooth, and the corners are cut to be rounded.  I found this deck difficult to shuffle and handle.   There is no back design; the backs are plain white.  This is obviously reversible.  The deck comes with a folded paper as a little white booklet and there was also a book available for it.  It appears they were sold separately since they have two different copyright dates.  The book is, in and of itself, a real gem since it offers comprehensive (and good!) meditations for each card, as well as divinatory meanings, sections on the Tree of Life and the differences between the Hermetic Tree and the Qabalistic Tree, numerological associations, the list goes on and on.  It's chock-filled with great information.

I recommend this deck very highly for esoteric meditations but it is not a very easy deck to learn how to read with.  I would say it is not for the beginner.  Collectors will definitely want to get their hands on a copy if possible; however this deck has been very hard to find for a long time now since it was a limited publishing run and it was printed over 15 years ago.  If you find a copy for sale online or on eBay definitely grab it up!
 
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Review Copyright 2000 by Gina M. Pace

Elksinger's Perfected Tarot by H. M. Nelson, 1983
Elksinger's Perfected Tarot -- The Book by H. M. Nelson, 1985
published by Children of the Water
5712 Manor Road, Box 3
Austin Texas