Tarot Study: The Devil

 Meet the Card:

Initial Impressions:

An intense looking half man half beast sits perched on a box. He's horned and has wings. He clutches a torch and above his brow a pentagram. Below him two naked people seemingly also horned: Lady Grapes and Captain Flametail, are chained to the box. WHAT'S IN THE BOX? Is he setting Captain Flametail on fire? Is Mr. Goatbat waving us over or telling us to stand back and that there's nothing to see here?  I personally feel like I walked in on something I shouldn't have.
 
I'm curious. You walk up to a door you've never seen before, haul it open and you and your eyeballs are met with this scene. Do you quickly slam the door and go, "oh shit, my bad - you clearly have a book club I wasn't invited to", or are you intrigued and like - "umm...what's in the box, giggity?"

Keywords and Phrases:

• Bondage to the material world
• Temptation
• Obsessions
• Attachments
• Addictions
• Restrictions
• Shadow self
• Sexuality

Archetypes and Associations:

• The Wicked Witch of the West's flying monkeys
• Jabba the Hut
• Mick Jagger
• Those who seek to control you
• Satan
• Prometheus
• Capricorn
• Baphomet

The Devil in Reverse:

• Letting go of obsession
• Letting go of fear of the dark side
• Freeing yourself from addiction
• Release the chains of bondage
• Freedom to go into the future with no chains, with nothing holding you back
• A message that you keep your deepest darkest self from others, a secret
• Detachment

Let's talk...

This card. Oh man! In my opinion, after having worked with tarot a few years, I feel like is one of the "Scary" cards to new people. I know it was to me, but more on that later.

 It's the card that when you tell your childhood friend who went to Bible camp with you that "Tarot isn't something to be afraid of - it just gives you insight into your subconscious and a framework for self-reflection" and you finally convince them to draw a card, this will be the one they draw, just because that's how it works. Tarot is a mystical bitch sometimes and her sense of humor is boundless.

When I first decided I wanted to learn more about tarot I was about a decade out of the high-control fundamentalist Christian church I grew up in. I had shed the shackles of traditional Christianity at this point, like, if the Monkees had a song that was, "I'm not a believer" it would have been my theme song at this point in my life. Now one of the things my former faith was deathly afraid of was tarot and divination because those things are "FROM THE DEVIL!" Smurfs too, but we'll save that for another day. That's probably why it took me a decade to work up the courage to walk into my local metaphysical shop and buy my first deck. 

And because I'm a classic Libra who needs to research shit to death from every angle, I already knew a little about tarot. Thanks internet! I knew of the major arcana and that one of them was this DEVIL card. I'm not gonna lie. I didn't like it. I'm done with Christianity at this point. I don't believe in the devil, man! I actually specifically chose the first deck I did because I liked that it DIDN'T have a devil card. Meanwhile, if the shop clerk had asked me, "What brings you in today?" I could have said, "Well, my childhood faith told me these were naughty, and I feel like rebelling in my 30's! WOOO!" I probably would have unironically flashed some devil horns too. Reflecting now, the irony is not lost on me that I was like, "But ew, devil card, no thanks!" Now...now it's still a card I use in my judgement of if I am going to like a deck or not.

The imagery in card is just so charged. I MEAN NUDITY! *pearl clutch* Even people without a Christian background on some level understand the concept of a devil because we watched Bugs Bunny who had an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. We get the concept of temptation, so what's really going on in this card?

From the Complete Idiot's Guide to Tarot and Fortune Telling:

The devil sits on a half cube which signifies the half-knowledge we have if we look only at the material side of life. There's nothing wrong with having a little fun, but this devil wants to keep the couple we saw before in The Lovers card chained to something such as fear or ignorance. The Devil's bat wings, and the inverted pentagram represent the sensory side of life.

From Biddy Tarot:

The Devil card represents your shadow (or darker) side and the negative forces that constrain you and hold you back from being the best version of yourself. You may be at the effect of negative habits, dependencies, behaviors, thought patterns, relationships, and addictions. You have found yourself trapped between the short-term pleasure you receive and the longer-term pain you experience. Just as the Lovers card speaks to duality and choice, so too does The Devil; however, with The Devil, you are choosing the path of instant gratification, even if it is at the expense of your long-term well-being. In effect, you have sold your soul to the devil!

From Modern Tarot by Michelle Tea:

This card signals that you are under the spell of a lie, and its consequences for you will be real. The hardest part of the Devil is how likely it is that you have no idea that what you are believing in so fervently and spending so much of your energy on is a dangerous falsehood...it is asking you to do the heavy-duty soul-searching required for the difficult work of cracking the belief system or denial that is protecting the problem. What are you doing or believing that is causing harm to yourself and others? Belief systems that demonize others or encourage you to be self-loathing are the work of the Devil.

For me this is a card about addictions primarily. Anything that you obsess over. Anything that chains you. To me it is a heavy card. My knee jerk reaction is still here. To me this card is a smack on the keister that says, "Hey - is this, what you're doing here, is this working for you?" The good news, those chains aren't that tight. In fact, they don't even look like they mind? No kink shame. That's probably the real message here. If you feel trapped, like you can't break away? You can. That's part of the illusion of this card. That you think there is no way out, but that is a lie. You have a choice. Your negative thought process or something in your subconscious is making you think you have no control, but that's an illusion.

Continuing deeper...about getting over that knee-jerk Christian based reaction to the DEVIL!

Let's talk about this.

The imagery is reflective of the lovers. That is a classic tarot call-back. The LOVERS look an awful lot like Adam and Eve. We know how that Devil worked into that story. There was fruit, Eve was like "Snake said it was cool!" and Adam was all, "k" and then BOOM! EVICTION, and Eve gets painful childbirth. That seems really unfair, especially since Adam was older and wiser than her and let's not even get into the misogyny this sets up in our society that those crazy bitches gonna seduce you with snake fruit and RUIN YOUR DAMN LIFE!

I have a different view on this story now. 

That's why I love tarot! Your first reaction, the first symbolism you recognize in these pretty pictures isn't wrong. These cards were designed to get you to react. What you take from it is largely pulled from your associations with that symbolism, thus why tarot is often telling you more about your subconscious than you realize.

I don't think the Devil is the bad guy anymore. Obviously, I walked away from the church and into a metaphysical shop so my Christian family has some opinions on the Devil too.

Let's go with that Christian story first. God made a tree with fruit. Fruit that could give people the knowledge of GOOD and EVIL. If you ask me, that sounds like good knowledge to have. Keeps you from getting sucked into an MLM or cult, so maybe we should give this knowledge to people? Seems like it might prevent some painful lessons.

That torch in his hand got me thinking though. About Prometheus. He is a Titan god of Fire, and he steals the fire from the other gods, defying them and bringing it to humanity. Fire is what provides light in the darkness, cooks our food, brings us warmth. Why do gods want to prevent us from having that? Anyway, they get pissed too. Prometheus is punished for the rest of eternity to be chained to a rock and an eagle comes and eats his liver every day, but because he's a god, that shit just grows back and those eagles are hungry every day, so the cycle continues. Why the liver? I thought it was a metaphor for alcoholism, but that's my modern brain, turns out to Greeks the liver was thought to be the "seat of human emotions." Huh. Ok Greeks. They didn't have web md yet. Either way - god brings fire for benefit of man, other gods get huffy and like, "not cool bro, EAGELS ATTACK his thing where all his emotions live FOREVER!" I think it's interesting that in the Romantic era, people really love the Prometheus story. He's a hero. He embodies the best of science and reason to improve human existence, but at what cost? Mary Shelley subtitled Frankenstein "Modern Prometheus"

Also, when I was researching this card some more, I saw that some people say this card is specifically depicting Baphomet. I can see a resemblance:

Now I don't know much about them, we've never met, but the internet tells me that some people think they were worshipped by the Knights Templar in the 1300's. They show up in popular usage in the 19th century, so they were on the DL for a while. It's in 1856 that this drawing shows up. Now the artist who drew it says Baphomet symbolizes the equilibrium of opposites. The half-human, half-animal, male and female, good and evil. On the arms in Latin are written dissolve and coagulate. Baphomet to the artist who drew them represents a tradition that should result in a perfect social order. I can get behind that honestly.

Breaking News: Baphomet might be pinging on some of your radars now too. Baphomet often gets used in iconography of the Satanic Temple. Now, I have kind of a soft spot for these folks in my heart. You see, they are mostly a group of activists who fight for the separation of church and state by taking all their plays from the Fundamentalist Christians. Like requesting that a giant statue of Baphomet be displayed next to the 10 commandments. Freedom of religion, right? All equal under the eyes of the half-human, half-animal male/female god right? Anyway - if you want to know more about the Satanic Temple I highly recommend the documentary Hail Satan. For instance, they are also the ones taking Texas to task on their abortion ban saying, NOT being able to get an abortion is a violation of their religious beliefs. 

I want to end by going back to Michelle Tea's Modern Tarot, because I think this is where I am at now with this card.

Are you chained to a negative force that is bigger than you are? To remain there is to settle for no freedom, for no movement, for a life that becomes ever smaller and devoid of joy...being slaves to our own painful brain chemistry is the Devil's work too. Low self-esteem, self-hate, all philosophies that see humanity as cold and hopeless, and all punishment-based religious beliefs. Any spiritual tradition that does not prize individual autonomy and unconditional love is the Devil's Work.

Rember, those chains aren't too tight. You've known the safe word all along. Whatever is holding you back, even if it's your own dumb brain, you can make a different choice. Also, who is to say what's good and what's bad? Depends on who is telling the story it turns out, and who is benefiting from those chains? If it's not you, you can change it. 

I put together a video of some of my favorite Devil cards from my decks. You can check it out here.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Devil! Hero or Anti-Christ? What's all the symbolism mean to you?