Aquarian: Devil

This is the weirdest Devil I have ever seen (and I've seen some weird ones.)

The card shows the Devil, which has a head made out of a skull (a buffalo skull, from what I have read somewhere.) The skull has small horns, red eyes and fangs. The reversed pentacle appears on the Devil's forehead (symbols of Satanism, the Horned God, and many other things.) The Devil's body is appears to be skin and bones. You can see his ribs sticking out. He has two legs that don't look like they can support him. The Devil has no hands at all, but he does have two giant bat-like wings that he holds up. He looks like he is trying to do a Dracula impersonation. A torch is floating in midair, but the Devil is not holding it (He can't-he has no hands.) Maybe the Devil is using telekenisis or something...

This Devil is standing in what appears to be abstracted fire. The Devil's two followers stand naked and facing away from each other. They both have what appears to be lion's tails. The man and women have no faces. This card has a night scene with a moon in the sky as a background.

It's as if this Devil is trying very hard to be scary, but he really isn't. He really can't hurt anyone, since he has no hands, yet he preys on the insecurities of his followers to make them stay with him. His followers are not chained up at all, yet they don't move. They have lost their identities and their humanity to whatever their addiction is or whatever the Devil is offering, and can't see that the Devil really has no control over them at all.

Thoughts?

I used these cards last night to ask about the difficult relationship between my brother and myself. The devil came up twice.

First time, between us, perfectly illustrating the problem...we are "chained together" by our family history, but looking in different directions. And second time, when I asked about what he and I would have to do to mend our problems, and about his situation...devil reversed for my brother. Upside-down head, stuck.

I have great reservations about this deck when I just look at the cards. It LOOKS like Palladini managed to miss EVERY SINGLE IMPORTANT ELEMENT for EVERY SINGLE CARD! For example, although this Devil is "headless" visually, it's also without any hint of sexual compulsion, ego, or evil. It's just ugly and dead. Similarly, the people are naked but they might as well be wax figures. The humans in this deck are all lifeless, to my eyes, except the Lovers, who look like they've entered into a suicide pact. It's as if Palladini deliberately left out anything that would have Tarot meaning and then suffocated everyone in an inch of white baby powder.

AND YET... last night the cards were perfectly descriptive of our troubles. I wonder if they will be any good for looking at the future.

Hi Debra! Nice to have you here! Check out the other threads if you want...

That is why we have the study group. This deck is weird looking and ugly, and you either love it or hate it. The standard RWS symbols have gone out the window. Yet it somehow works extremely well for me, and I am pleased to have got it.

Back to the Devil thread. You are right, the Devil looks dead, or a shriveled husk of a Devil. The situation these people have attached themselves to is dead. But they can't get up and walk away.

Queen of Disks said:

It's as if this Devil is trying very hard to be scary, but he really isn't.
Thoughts?

Click to expand...

I have to agree, he's not scary. His eyes appear sad or bored to me. And he looks very removed from the situation, as though he's watching what is going on from a distance, rather than lording over the inhabitants. I don't sense any interaction among the three figures or even acknowledgment by any that the others exist. Apathy, loneliness... that does sound like hell to me though.

Debra, I loved your description of the deck and the figures within it.

Hi Syrah, welcome to the study group!

Here's an image of him, I went to look for one after reading your wonderful description, Queen of Disks...
He is a very strange looking beast:
http://taroteca.multiply.com/photos/album/14/Aquarian#31.jpg

No arms either. Like the "devil" is simply the fact that these two people have turned their backs on each other.

Well, I saw this thread and dug out my Aquarian deck again. I haven't looked at it for ages, although it was one of the very first ones I owned. It took me forever to figure out Strength. Anyway...

The death mask in the Devil reminds me of some paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe.

Hi Brighteye!

I can see what you are saying with Georgia O'Keefe's paintings with the steer skulls in them.

I looked at Lee Bursten's review of the Aquarian on Tarot Passages and he says that it's a goat skull, which would make sense for a traditional Devil. (not sure where the buffalo idea came from...)

The book I have for the Aquarian Tarot is "Psychic Tarot: Illustrated with the Aquarian Tarot Deck" by Craig Junjulas. He also believes it's a goat head. Here is his take on some of the other symbolism in the card:

- The figures have been stripped of human form, suggesting a loss of identity and a spiritual regression to a prehuman state.

- The upside-down torch represents unrest, destruction and chaos, the opposite of a (right-side-up) torch that would light the way of spiritual growth.

Personally I prefer Queen of Disks description "The situation these people have attached themselves to is dead. But they can't get up and walk away." Not only can it apply to one's spiritual situation, but many others: work, relationships, etc.