78 Weeks: Devil

To find out what these threads refer to, please seeThe link above provides suggested dates and links to all threads for this study.

Some amongst us may be working through the deck in a different order, and using different decks.

For more general comments or questions about the 78 weeks, please post in the thread linked above.

Enjoy!

I haven't done my meditation or begun my study of this card yet, but I know as time goes on it will become more and more apparent to me why I began with Temperance. Perhaps I am 'tempering' with my life to create a 'true flow.'

But the Devil seems so fitting this time of year (to me, that is). You see I think of the Devil as 'the confrontational card', it is confronting to have this card in a spread and I do believe it often wants you to ask yourself, "What do you need to confront about yourself, your life, what do you need to let go of that is no longer healthy for you?" Quite often a difficult thing to do

I have never meditated with this card and will do so very soon, I look forward to the challenge and results. Next year is a very busy, major year of my life and at this time of the year I am finding it perfect timing for confrontation.

XTAX

Five regular minutes is great, but I think it really only gives you an overview:
RWS - Confrontational card. Bad habits to break and a New Year, illusion, confusion. I like to approach this card with a sense of humour (not always this way with clients), which was not possible for me to do in the past. The two figures (Lovers) chained together represent a choice that at first looks difficult, but really isn't that hard to free oneself from.

HERBAL - Pan - Lobelia (Pan reminds me of the novel Jitterbug Perfume)
The figure being the God, Pan, half man, half goat, looks more innocent than RWS and connected to the Earth.
Lobelia - anitspasmodic, a stimulant, an expectorant and a nauseant. It's used for asthma and lung probs., relieving spasms, nervous tension and cramps and to induce vomiting. Capricorn, ruled by Saturn.

RUSSIAN TAROT of ST. PETERSBURG - In this card the Devil holds the chain of the two figures, binding them to him. The Devil himself is a muscley man with tatoos and I can't help but think of a sailor or gay man. It amuses me.

To connect the three of them together we see both human and animal, but still a connection with nature, even if it is somewhat misguided. Confused, lost or on the wrong path maybe? Or connected or binded to much to the material, so much in fact, that the connection to the Earth has been lost? The connection to oneself: body, mind and spirit, an illusion, confused and disconnected?

XTAX

It's interesting you say the Devil in that deck reminds you of a gay man, TemperanceAngel. To me, the Devil card has connections to homosexuality...or much rather, homophobia (and all other forms of hate). The Devil, unlike the wise, all-accepting, all-loving Priestess and Emperor, who sit on cube-thrones, squats on a half-cube. This denotes to me that the Devil is about narrow-mindedness, unacceptence, and half-assed perceptions. Thus to me, not only does the Devil represent a situation where a person is the victim of homophobia, it can also be any form of unacceptence--racism and sexism, for example.
He raises his hand in a corrupt imitation of the Hierophant. The Heirophant represents conformity and orthodox belief systems in society, the Devil represents the evils of wrongful ideas being the norm in society. Perhaps the people in the Rider-Waite deck want to keep themselves chained (in the closet, if you will) for they are afraid of what society will make of them. And indeed, with all the unacceptence and narrow-mindedness in today's society, you can't blame them.

Very interesting horoskope88!
The gay man image came from the Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg deck, have you seen it?
I hope I am not going to offend again? I have many close gay male (and female) friends!
XTAX

Number XV

According to 'Mysteries and Secrets of Magic' by CJS Thompson, another 'old source' (he doesn't mention which, only 16th century, I have traced most of his sources to Agrippa or the Magus by Barret, which is the same thing, but can't find this):

"No XV was regarded as evil in magic, and was associated with the witches sabbath which was sometimes held on the 15th day of the month".

This is interesting in that one of the TdM decks has an extra [witches] teat on one of the two characters, which with the Devil one may associate with medieval concepts of the Sabbath. If one said 15th day of the moon, rather than the month, then this would bring you into the period of the full moon at which the sabbath was supposedly held. Thus we have a correspondence between card number and image.

Kwaw

I have struggled with this card this week, as I guess I don't believe in the Devil per se, being of non-christian beliefs and associate him with this.

However upon contemplating the Devil card this week I feel he is more to do with our base desires, lusts, weaknesses that can overcome us, make us addicted or obsessed in an unbalanced or unhealthy way - physically, mentally and spiritually.

In the Universal Waite Devil card, he is this creature that is a cross between a goat, a man, and a bat perched like a bird on a stone block. The nakedness of the man and women in the image makes me think of stripping away to base desires - deep within us that we can either control / balance or rule our lives.

I have often associated the Devil with unhealthy relationships - being tied to something, someone or a relational situation that is degrading or demoralising for the spirit. Possibly only fuelled by sexual, physical or material desires - this comes to mind as the Devil is "lighting" the man's tail - firing his desires and passions. With the chains around their necks that look if they can be easily self-removed, but the man and woman look somewhat mesmorised or frozen - not able to use their better judgement in an obviously restrictive situation.

It does sound odd, but the man and woman chained remind me of pets in a way - particulary like a caged bird - where they may seem happy enough in their cage with fresh food and water provided daily - but are they content only because they have forgotten what it is like to be free.

CreativeFire

Well, one of the “insights” I had while studying the cards showed me that I should understand the Devil as opposed to the Emperor… This probably doesn’t say much to others, but I am trying to figure out what it means.

I believe (so far…) that no card is really a “bad” one, so there must be something fundamentally good about the devil’s representation. Maybe he is pointing a way – whether saying “go that way”, or the opposite “don’t go”. He is more likely showing us something about ourselves, acting as a mirror, giving us valuable information about our inner structure, our boundaries, our possibilities. Some esoteric interpretation of the devil’s role towards Humanity says that he sacrificed himself (like Christ?) for us, because in the world of Incarnation “someone” had to play his part… you must have darkness in order to see the light. In fact, “Light” is the key word for Lucifer (his name means “Light Bearer”). Note that the Bible also refers to Christ in this way… and to both as “Morning Star”!

Here we are again,

D Domination
E Excess
V Vice
I Indulgence
L Lust

CRYSTAL

This is an exceptionally brilliant card! It contains a baldheaded person, her (I say 'her' because to me, she looks female, but I am not certain) body becomes snake like, it weaves and winds around itself and is difficult to see where her body ends and the snake begins, a message that we all have a bit of the devil in us! She has no eyes, which gives the card an almost hypnotic effect. The control is of the mind as she wills us to do as she demands. Some snakes have the abilility to constrict and squeeze the life out of us and perhaps this is an aspect of this card. She is exerting her power by squeezing, by tying us up in knots and influencing our lives - Domination! Her body glows orangy/gold in amongst all the darkness of this card, a reminder that we can break free of those constraints and fears. There is a beautiful person trying to get out! Snakes shed their skins too.

HADAR

This Devil has many faces. We dont like to look at something hideous, we tend to avert our gaze. This Devil is dressed the part for effect. The many faces are there to scare us, to make us think that this weird looking person is something to be afraid of. The Devil will feed from a reaction like that, we have to stare it right in the eye and say 'I'm not scared of you, you don't intimidate me!'. 'You cant make me, you have no power' and then we wave back and smile. This card speaks to me of submissiveness, domination, being controlled, bondage. An excellent depiction really.

HAINDL

The emphasis in this card is to explore your darker side with a view to transforming it to the light. There is a black hole at the bottom of this card which is supposedly where your journey starts. You then travel throught the snake (unconcious), through the goat (physical) and through the light of the crystal at the top of the goats head. I look at this goat and think of scape-goat.

From the English dictionary :
1.One that is made to bear the blame of others. or
2.A goat upon whose head were symbolically placed the sins of the people, after which he was suffered to escape into the wilderness

I think of the crystal as releasing the energy of these hidden desires and darker aspects.

J

Hadar Marseilles

The Devil is beconning us to come and join him. The historical reasoning of why he looks the way the does aside, we could say he looks comical and silly - like it might be fun to join him. But he reminds us that he is in control (the chained people).

The yellow (Devine) barrier behind him reminds him and us that he doesn't have an easy job of persuading us, he will first have to cross that barrier. He has oddities about his appearance which I know are discussed in the History & Iconography forum, so I won't go into them here. To me the Devil has always represented inner turmoil and temptation. Perhaps this is the reason the face appears on his stomach.

He looks part animal (or beast) and part human. His two 'followers/slaves' are also part animal and part human. This reminds me of the Pinnochio story about the 'naughty' children who, because of temptation, start to turn into donkeys and are then shipped away from their families to work as donkeys/slaves.