The Devil (Tarot card)

The Devil (XV).

The Devil (XV) is the fifteenth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. It is used in game playing as well as in divination.

Symbolism

In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the Devil sits above two naked human demons—one male, one female, who are chained to his seat. The Tarot Devil card is derived in part from Eliphas Levi's famous illustration "Baphomet" in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855). Baphomet is winged and horned, combining human and bestial features. Many modern Tarot decks portray the Devil as a satyr-like creature. In the Tarot of Marseilles, the devil is portrayed with facial features in unusual places, such as a mouth on his stomach, eyes on his knees, and with female breasts and male genitalia.

According to Waite, the Devil is standing on an altar. In his left hand, the Devil holds a great flaming torch inverted towards the earth. A reversed pentagram is on his forehead.

Eliphas Levi says in his book, Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual that:

"A reversed pentagram, with two points projecting upwards, is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates." In Native American tarot, the attribution is often more complex than this.

Divination usage

The Devil of the Tarot is a fairly standard European depiction of Satan. Here the Devil appears before Pope Sylvester II in a British manuscript.

Some frequent keywords used by tarot readers are:^{[citation needed]}

• Materialism ----- Ignorance ----- Stagnation ----- Self-bondage

• Lust ----- Egoism ----- Obsession ----- Anxiety ----- Anger

• Hedonism ----- Passion ----- Instincts

• Sexuality ------ Temptation ----- Doubt ----- Vice

• Futility ----- Physical attraction ----- Pessimism ----- Insight

Please remember that all Tarot decks used for divination are interpreted according to personal experience and standards.

Interpretation

The Devil is the card of self-bondage to an idea or belief which is preventing a person from growing or being healthy—an example might be a belief that getting drunk each night is good for you. On the other hand, however, it can also be a warning to someone who is too restrained and/or dispassionate and never allows him or herself to be rash or wild or ambitious, which is yet another form of enslavement.

The Devil is the 15th card of the Major Arcana, and is associated with earth and Capricorn. Though many decks portray a stereotypical Satan figure for this card, it is more accurately represented by our bondage to material things rather than by any evil persona. It also indicates an obsession or addiction to fulfilling our own earthly base desires. Should the Devil represent a person, it will most likely be one of money and power, one who is persuasive, aggressive, and controlling. In any case, it is most important that the querent understands that the ties that bind are freely worn.

Mythopoetic approach

The Devil is both the Ur-Adversary, and a tremendous source of strength. He represents nearly an inexhaustible source of energy. Battling him gives us strength. Submitting to him completely is ego-death.

As with The Magician, the iconography of most of the standard Tarot suits appear. His wings represent Air, the suit of Swords. The torch in his hands, and the flames in the tail of the male devil represent Fire, the suit of Wands. The grapes in the tail of the female devil invoke Earth; the same grapes appear in most of the cards in the suit of Disks. Only water, Cups are missing. On one level, this is curious; water is of the unconscious, and The Devil dwells in the subconscious. On another level it is heartbreaking; what is missing from the Devil’s realm is The Grail, the kindly blessings of the Cup.

Perhaps to make up for the lack of water, the kindlier aspects of this card can be seen in the Two of Cups.

If the Major Arcana is analogized to the Sun’s circle across the sky, The Devil governs the Sun at midnight, when it is most vulnerable to the Old Night. The ancient Egyptians tell of the serpent demon Apophis, Chaos, who would sometimes lay in wait for Ra as he piloted the boat of the Sun down the Nile to be born again in the morning. Sometimes, Apophis would swallow the sun. Mercifully, the reversals of the night brought Set to an unlikely rescue; he ripped Apophis open and let the Sun escape. Set, The Devil, is the adversary but sometimes, he is our best and only ally.

In Jungian terms, he is The Shadow: all the repressed, unmentioned or unmentionable desires that lurk beneath.

The Devil is related both through his cross sum (sum of the digits) and his iconography with Key VI, The Lovers. Both cards speak to our drives; the drives that take us out of the garden. The central character in each is winged; each lives in the archetypal ether. Each is crowned: the Angel in The Lovers with fire, The Devil by a Pentagram and ram’s horns. Above each rides a naked man and a naked woman. But in The Lovers, there is still some sense of newness, wholesomeness, and hope; in The Devil they are chained by the neck and partially transformed into creatures of the underworld; transformed by their taste of the darkness; by the fruit of the underworld.

The chains are loose. They can be slipped. The Devil’s own torch can light the way out and light the return, back to the surface.

Popular culture

• In the video game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, the Devil Arcana is associated with an effeminate and greedy business man known as Tanaka. In Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, the Nurse Sayoko you meet in the optional hospital janitor job is represented by the Devil. The arcana features demons who are well known for their immense power, such as Beelzebub, Abbadon and Lilith.
• TV series Reaper has an escaped soul working as a fortune-teller who discovers the identity of Sam the Reaper by turning over several devil tarot cards.
• The band Tenacious D refers to this card on the cover of their self-titled album, Tenacious D. They also refer to it in their movie Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, and their short lived HBO series, Tenacious D (TV series)
• Marilyn Manson's fourth album, Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death), features all the tarot cards on the booklet up to the Devil.
• In Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Ebony Devil is used by enemy Devo the Cursed.
• In the anime Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, the villain Sartorious, who used tarot cards frequently, used The Devil in a flashback to predict his descent into evil.
• In The Hunger episode "The Seductress," the image of The Devil can be seen as a poster in Alexander's room.
• In the manga series X/1999 and it's anime counterpart X, the Devil is Yuuto Kigai.
• In the Shakespeare Tarot deck, the Devil is depicted by Iago.
• In the Mythic Tarot deck, the Devil is depicted by Pan.
• In the popular video game series, Tekken, The Devil can be seen as an antagonist throughout the series. Four people in the series have been controlled by the Devil: Kazuya Mishima, Jin Kazama, Jinpachi Mishima, and Azazel.
• In the Virtua Fighter series, The Devil is the name of one of the six branches of Judgement Six, the antagonistic organization behind the series' tournaments. This branch funds military strife and terrorist activity.
• In the series Death Note, Near is seen holding The Devil tarot card when he deduces that there is a shinigami in the midst of the Japanese Task Force.
• In the extremely popular Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (from the Kingdom Hearts series) the Devil is one of Luxord's cards that he uses as weapons.
• In the SNES video game Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, the Devil is portrayed as a one-eyed nearly-nude demon with a big horn on his forehead like a unicorn, holding a blue flame on his right hand and taking control of a woman with his left hand. On drawing the Tarot card after liberation of one of the towns, it lowers the Reputation Meter by 1 or 2 points, and summons the demon Asmodeus to use a strong black magic attack on the enemy units when used in battle.
• In the popular Indie Game The Binding of Isaac , Major Arcana cards can be found and used during gameplay. The Devil, when used, increases the player's damage until it leaves the room.

References & notes

• A. E. Waite's 1910 Pictorial Key to the Tarot
• Hajo Banzhaf, Tarot and the Journey of the Hero (2000)
• Juliette Wood, Folklore 109 (1998):15-24, The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Tradition: A Study in Modern Legend Making (1998)
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, where the character Devo the Cursed's Stand is called Ebony Devil, and is represented by this tarot card.

External links

• "Devil" cards from many decks and articles to "Devil" iconography
• Explains that the Devil card represents the gods Pan and Dionysis and symbolizes pleasure, abandon and excess.
• The Devil from Learning the Tarot: A Tarot Book for Beginners - Joan Bunning