The Devil
The Devil exposes bondage to appetite, fear, and illusion, showing the chains we accept and the freedom that begins with recognizing them.
Major Arcana XV
Upright keywords
- bondage
- attachment
- temptation
- materialism
- compulsion
- shadow self
Meaning when upright
The Devil shows two figures chained by loose collars to his pedestal, bound less by force than by their own acceptance. The card speaks of compulsion, unhealthy attachment, and the pull of material or sensual gratification. It can also highlight fear, shame, or the sense of being trapped in a situation you believe you cannot leave. Waite's meanings add ravage, violence, and extraordinary efforts, and he calls it a fatality that is predestined but not for that reason evil: a force to reckon with, not merely to condemn.
On the card
- horned, goat-headed figure with bat wings
- Waite's Horned Goat of Mendes: the bestial side of nature and the lower self.
- inverted pentagram above his brow
- Matter ruling spirit; the reversal of the natural order.
- right hand raised with open palm
- Waite calls it the reverse of the Hierophant's benediction: a parody of spiritual authority.
- flaming torch held downward in his left hand
- Waite's great torch inverted toward the earth: vital energy spent on purely material ends.
- naked man and woman chained to his pedestal
- Waite's Adam and Eve after the Fall; the loose chains show bondage that could be lifted off.
- small horns and tails on the couple, tipped with fruit and flame
- Waite says the tails signify the animal nature, though human intelligence remains in their faces.
- dark altar-like pedestal with an iron ring
- Waite's altar: the chain and fatality of the material life.
- black background
- Ignorance, fear, and the shadow; the absence of light.
In Waite’s words
The design is an accommodation, mean or harmony, between several motives mentioned in the first part. The Horned Goat of Mendes, with wings like those of a bat, is standing on an altar. At the pit of the stomach there is the sign of Mercury. The right hand is upraised and extended, being the reverse of that benediction which is given by the Hierophant in the fifth card. In the left hand there is a great flaming torch, inverted towards the earth. A reversed pentagram is on the forehead. There is a ring in front of the altar, from which two chains are carried to the necks of two figures, male and female. These are analogous with those of the fifth card, as if Adam and Eve after the Fall. Hereof is the chain and fatality of the material life.
The figures are tailed, to signify the animal nature, but there is human intelligence in the faces, and he who is exalted above them is not to be their master for ever. Even now, he is also a bondsman, sustained by the evil that is in him and blind to the liberty of service. With more than his usual derision for the arts which he pretended to respect and interpret as a master therein, Éliphas Lévi affirms that the Baphometic figure is occult science and magic. Another commentator says that in the Divine world it signifies predestination, but there is no correspondence in that world with the things which below are of the brute. What it does signify is the Dweller on the Threshold without the Mystical Garden when those are driven forth therefrom who have eaten the forbidden fruit.
- Divinatory meaning
Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil.
- Reversed
Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.
Correspondences
- Element
- Earth
- Astrology
- Capricorn
- Hebrew letter
- Ayin (ע)
- Path on the Tree of Life
- Path 26: Tiphareth – Hod
- Number
- Fifteen (1 + 5 = 6) is the Lovers' number turned into bondage: the same couple, now chained, shows harmony distorted by attachment.
To reflect on
- What am I attached to that no longer serves me?
- Which of my chains could I simply lift off?
- What part of my shadow am I avoiding?
In your readings
Hasn’t appeared in your readings yet.
Ask about this card
Marguerite, the traditionalist, answers from Waite’s text, what is drawn on the card and its correspondences. You can choose another reader in settings.