15: The Devil

The fifteenth card in the major arcana is the Devil card. While this card can first bring on a feeling of fear or fright, it’s important to recognize that there’s nothing scary about the devil, because the Christian myth of the devil is wildly inaccurate. That being said, the metaphoric symbolism of the devil has to do with power imbalances. Let’s see how those qualities manifest in the Devil card…


Looking at the Devil card we see a winged and horned satyr crouching on a raised stone platform of which the man and women are chained to. The man is standing in such a way that he seems to be lecturing the woman with an exasperated or demeaning look his face. The man’s tail is made of fire and it’s touching the downturned torch the devil holds, which still burns upward as if it was being held upright, almost as if the devil is ighting his behavior or attitude tempting him to treat her as if she should be submissive to him. The woman has grapes on the end of her tail from which she seems to be grabbing fruit, possibly the fruit of temptation, which may have tempted the man to do what she wants, or tempted her to give the man a chance when she knew he was going to manipulate and abuse her. In both cases, the man and woman are chained to their unconscious drives and as a result they have imprisoned themselves to their shadow, their ego, their destructive self, but if you look closely, you see their chains are very loose on their necks, so much so they could easily slip them off and leave the situation at anytime. The devils hands gesture in the “as above so below” sign, the left hand holding the torch upside down towards the couple and the right hand upwards with the palm open, signifying that which you try to suppress or hide from, must be faced and that any addictions only have the power over you that you allow them to have. The upside down pentagram symbolizes chaos, order turned upside down, and for the sakes of this card it shows us how easily we can fall into chaos when we continually go against our own best interest.

The Devil card pulled in a tarot reading, can symbolize someone who is a Capricorn as the card is associated with Saturn and Capricorn, the goat. Additionally it could be a warning of temptation or an addiction that you need to pull the reigns in on or just work to avoid the temptation because it will grab hold of you, even if for a temporary amount of time. It can be a symbol of a destructive and harmful relationship or person in your life or of destructive behavior or internal dialogue/pattern. While the Devil card can serve as a warning, it can also be a tool used to awaken you to the things that need to be released from your experience and where you can gain some strength in supporting yourself. If the couple in the card are a type of twisted Adam and Eve, which is who they supposedly represent, then we could see it as an opportunity to break free from patriarchal societal norms that keep women submissive to men, and men abusive and violent towards women as a way to be “macho”. The collective beliefs around chaos and lust are much more dark than they need to be and I often see this card as a way to break free from outdated and outmoded ways of thinking, being, and acting.


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