"Misunderstood" Devil (cont'd) .... To Thine Own Self Be True

I just finished reading several old threads about the Devil card and found some intriguing and eye opening thoughts about this card.

I agree with Diana, as discussed in this thread: The Devil: Poor Misunderstood Fellow, that the Devil card is generally 'slapped' with nasty interpretations.

I, personally, do not believe in a Devil. I believe it is a concept that is equivalent to a mythical figure.... something that has met the needs of many.... it is far easier to blame a supernatural being than to look at one's own self abandonment......

What I would like to take a look at in this thread is the non steriotypical 'Christian' views of a "Devil" card.....

Is the Devil Pan? or the White Buffalo? or the Innate Faerie within ourselves?

If the Devil is NOT about evil and temptation and sin, is it about laughter and delight and being brave enough to be true to ourselves?

I look at society and I see many aspects of living that I don't want to be..... the rules and regulations, the fears and the norms seem more and more rediculous to me as I age physically and grow in awareness spiritually..... Children are more real to me than adults; animals are incredibly real. Truth, as defined by the various societies on this planet, is almost insulting to the spirit.... We are so restricted here!!

The older I get, the more the Devil card appears to be the exact opposite of what it has been dubbed!!!

Has the Devil become that part of society that is forbidden.... that part of society which is actually more Real, more True than we allow to exist? Is the forbidden aspect of the card actually telling us that we forbid our highest and best self!? Is the Devil not so much about true sin as it is about sin as defined by Earthlings, specifically, churchians? Could the Devil card being telling us that we are clinging to the rules and regulations of 'society' and, in so doing, are defying our Truth, our Spirit?

More importantly, is the Devil card actually about Freedom and Joy and not being afraid to be Who we ARE in all our wondrous glory?

skytwig


PS: I hope i am making sense here.... I do not want this to be a discussion about religion and I certainly do not want those who DO believe there is a Devil to feel insulted by my exploration here.... Thanx

PS II: I initially had the wrong link listed, sorry..... must be the 'devil' in me having fun .......

Like your post Skytwig!

If the Devil spelt backwards is Lived, mabee it is our own darkness that we are not living. It is our "own" issue that we like to blame on the Devil. He or she is probably a lot of fun but with all the negative attention we give him/her we have done this to ourselves.
The Devil has always taken the blame for what we haven't lived or what we have lived and what we think we shouldn't have.

It's funny because if we look on the "light" side of the issue "thank God for the Devil" because life would be dull now would it not. lol

Mabee also the Devil is a gift from God!

With every problem there is a gift ready to present itself.
Just some ideas.

Sorry, I just went through everything, I think I just made my reply religious & I didn't mean it.

The Devil made me do it.

Great thread, Skytwig!

When I see the Devil, I often find myself giggliing....

Have you ever read Jitterbug Perfume, one of my all time fave books. My husband thinks it was written for me, because everything that's in it, is everything I love (like beetroots...)

Sorry to run off track a bit there....Jitterbug Perfume and Pan...that's where I am heading.

Sometimes I hear myself say,"I've got the devil in me tonight", and it means I want to go dancing.

And I think now of Pan with his flute, which makes me think of music and dancing....

At first, the leer was all that he could see, but then he caught sight of a shaggy tail and realized that it was connected to the leer. (The tail bone frequently is connected to the leer bone, although today the connection is illegal in seventeen states and the District of Columbia.) In a moment, the bushes parted and into the pasture pranced an unbelievable creature, all woolly and goatlike from its waist down to its hooves; human and masculine above. Or to be precise, human above save for a pair of stubby horns thrusting like bronze-tipped beet-diggers in the bright morning air.
The first sighting of Pan in Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.

So Pan was a God, and the Devil a fallen angel, now as not to chat too much about Christianity, as I know that is not what this discussion is about....Pan was a God who loved good wine, good food and good woman. He liked music, and to have sex. My guess would be that the Christians needed to get rid of him for all the reasons stated and more....

To enjoy good food and wine, music, dancing and sex is not an evil thing, it is one of celebration.

From Merrium-Webster online: Celebration: 1. To perform a (sacrament or solemn ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites.
2. To honour (as a holiday) by solemn ceremonies or by refraing from ordinary business.

Refraining from ordinary business..., now that's an interesting thought, could the Devil be refraining from ordinary business...hhmmm...one wonders...

From The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology: A god of shepherds and flocks. He was depicted as half-man and half-animal, with a reed pipe, a shepher's crook and a branch of pine pine or a crown of pine leaves. e had a wrinkled face with a very prominent chin. On his forehead were two horns. His body was hairy; the lower parts were those of male goat. His feet had cloven hooves. He was a swift runner and climbed rocks with ease; he was adept at hiding in the bushes, where he crouched to watch the Nymphs or to sleep at midday. It was dangerous to disturb him at these times. He was fond of cool streams and woodland shade. Pan had considerable sexual energy; he pursued Nymphs and boys, but settled for solitary pleasures if his amorous ambitions were frustrated.

I look forward to more posts! XTAX
Edited to add my post is in no way meant to offend anyone with religious beliefs. Thanks.

Devil's all about materialism, or the material world. This includes the BODY, as divided and seen as discrete from the MIND. In not just the Christian religion but within the long development of Western discourse (Cartesian thinking), the material world and that of the body is devilish and irrational in direct opposition to the spiritual realm and one's mental faculties....

materialism denotes many 'Devil' associations:
bondage, lust, control, greed, rigidity, fear (of loss of material security)... but on a more positive note, accomplishment, structure, form, fertility, sensuality etc.

Sometimes it's good to be materialistic. Sometimes it's not.

This is just an idea,

What if the Devil was the other part of us, that we ourselves don't see or show. Like our inner child, inner innocence even our inner light, all that is in darkness. The Devil is not about the bad or evil it's about where our other self lives in darkness. Mabee the Fool is in the Devils heart.
Love was put in our heart but love isn't love til you give it away. The love that lives in darkness.

also # 15 = 1+5=6
is 6 not the number for love & harmony but it is associated with a dark card.

The concept of repression comes to mind..... I was certanly repressed by the cult beliefs of my family.... in the name of love!!! Whatever was natural to me had to be harnessed and 'tamed"

I find the taming and harnessing that goes on here on Earth absolutely sad at times..... It is no wonder that children skip and sing so naturally and adults don't!!

One of the things that has bothered me in Tarot is the dark interpretations of the Devil card... as if it warns us to beware of being too this or too that..... it is almost a giant finger wagging in space saying, "Now, now, settle down...... "

The idea of bondage, or getting 'carried' away, of being excessive and off balance........

I have trouble fitting that into the Major Arcana.... It looks too much like a reflection of 'world systems', of religious values. The Mystery of the Tarot, to me, is that is seems to reflect something, some one or many, that is of a Higher Order... But maybe that is my foolish imagination..... maybe I see what I want to see.... maybe the cards are merely a reflection of Earth ethics.

(But if I am illusional, so be it..... so onward I go to explore this idea of the Devil card...... )

Maybe the wag of the giant finger is, oh my goodness you are sacrificing too much of your wondrous self for the confines of this planet's rules and regulations..... maybe it isn't about being excessive materially, so much as reigning our beauty in...... maybe we are wearing our wings too tightly.... maybe we are forgetting who we are and need the Devil to shake it out of us..... maybe we need to let down, let loose and GET REAL.... be who we are, not what the world at large (Society) tells us to be.......

One more thing!

Mabee the Devil is the card of how other people have conditioned us to be who we are. We we act devilish we are being true to ourselves.

Interesting that you should use the word "conditions" because in the Osho Zen deck, the card in the "Devil" spot is "Conditioning" and the image is of a lion standing among a flock of sheep. He has a sheepskin tied on his back. On the Osho site, this commentary is part of what is said about the #15 card:

And every one of you is born a lion, but the society goes on conditioning you, programming your mind as a sheep. It gives you a personality, a cozy personality, nice, very convenient, very obedient. Society wants slaves, not people who are absolutely dedicated to freedom. Society wants slaves because all the vested interests want obedience.

isthmus nekoi said:

materialism denotes many 'Devil' associations:
bondage, lust, control, greed, rigidity, fear (of loss of material security)... but on a more positive note, accomplishment, structure, form, fertility, sensuality etc.

Click to expand...

I'm in agreement, isthmus!

Yes, Western Civilization from the Greeks on have deplored excess materialism and pushed abstanance and sacrifice as a way to gain spirituality. Christianity took this to an extreme, requiring that religious folk not only abstain from the pleasures of the flesh, but actively seek out pain in the form of hair shirts, cold, bare sleeping and self-flagallation. Food among religious orders was deliberately made bland, unappetizing, and doled out in starvation proportions because you weren't suppose to enjoy eating--all of which is a form of mind control, if you consider it. Cults use these same methods to keep their followers docile--deprevation from sleep, food, etc.

This was also Christanity's way of seperating it's religion from certain Pagan religions that focused on wine or sex--on bacchanalias--in order to achieve a spiritual connection. Stop the bacchanalia, and you've stopped the pagan worship. Turn the god of that bacchanalia into "the devil" and you create effective propaganda to keep the children of converts from ever going back to that pagan god.

On the other hand--and to be fair--such deprevation can lead to visions and otherworldly experiences and is/has been used to achieve enlightenment or spiritual connections by just about every religion on earth, from Native American to Tibetan Buddist. Deprevation can also enhance pleasure, as sex or chocolate is often more intense if one has abstained from them for a bit instead of over-indulging.

Which brings us back to what isthmus said. Which is, essentially, that we should take the Devil for what and who he is. Remove the "EVIL" label without swinging to the other side and replacing it with a "GOOD!" label. The Devil is both and neither. He is the taste, experience and enjoyment of the flesh, our natural lusts and desires for things, or need to be wild now and then. But he's also our addictions--our need to buy and buy and buy things in an often vain attempt to fill a void or find happiness in a new toy.

He is materialism--and all the good or bad it has to offer us.