XV The Devil (Rider Waite Tarot)
First Impressions
Funny that the Devil should follow hot on the heels of Temperance. Because they seem to be just polar opposites. Temperance's motto seems to be "not too much"; the Devil's is about excess. It embraces "too much" wholeheartedly.
He's not really evil, malicious, puckish as I'd assumed. But he's trying to be. He makes me think of that photo of Aleister Crowley; the one of him in some sort of ceremonial or theatrical garb with the big pyramid on his head and his face propped up by awkwardly post fists with weirdly bent thumbs. The maniacally staring eyes. That's what this Devil makes me think of. That sort of campy, ludicrous, eviler-than-thou persona. Interesting point, that; I'm writing this by hand, away from the computer. I must try to check for dates, to see if this
was any sort of a back-handed jab at Crowley on Waite's part.
So yes, the Devil has the comically serious, trying-to-make-you-squirm expression. But it's not in a bald-headed man this time (ooh ... interesting idea for a Devil card!). It's in a squat, hairy, bestial figure. From the knees down his legs look sort of like chicken drumsticks and end in talons. Knees to waist are covered in shaggy brown hair like that of a Highland cow. A particularly dense and elaborate swirl of hair at his unseen genitals looks significantly snakelike. His torso is more human looking and is either dark-skinned or covered with a fine brown fur. He has widespread gray bat wings, curling horns like a ram's, a reddish face with blond goatee and side whiskers, hairy ears like a fox or a lynx, and those theatrically staring eyes and downturned mouth.
One hand is raised in an almost Spock-like gesture; I think we can assume it is meant to be a dark or Satanic sort of benediction. There are interesting lines inscribed in the palm of his hand; like a newly stitched scar or bizarre palm lines. Life lines? I never learned about palmistry. His other hand points earthward, reminiscent of the Magician and his "as above, so below" riff. The lower hand holds a blazing torch, flames downward like using a birthday candle to light the rest of the candles on the cake. He wears a white inverted star or pentagram above his brow so that the bottommost point covers his forehead and the side points are supported by his horns. He squats on an upright oblong pillar, black even against the black background of the card, his talons gripping the edges. An iron ring is driven or bolted into the front of it, which holds the ends of two chains that secure a man and a woman.
It's a sense of deja vu, this couple. Like those in the sixth arcanum, the people are both naked. The woman is on the left, the man on the right. Apart, on opposite ends of the image, yet somehow together, paired in their gaze. Both have horns that protrude slightly from their curly hair, and both have prehensile monkeylike tails. The woman's tail ends in a bunch of purple grapes and the man's in flames, lit from the devil's torch. Again, it recalls the Lovers for me. The female lover stands in front of the fruitful Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the male lover stands in front of the flaming Tree of Life. These correspond to the grapes and fire of
this couple's tails. The woman looks straight ahead in this card while the man looks at her, one hand slightly extended as if to say "now what?"; the male lover looks at the woman while she looks up, away from him.
Now look at their chains. It's interesting how loosely they are attached around their necks. If a dog was chained this loosely, it'd be gone like a shot. Suggests to me that they're not actually prisoners, that they could escape if they really wanted to get away. And the way they're avoiding the Devil, evading eye contact. The phrase "the elephant in the room" springs to mind when I see this. It's obvious that his presence makes them uncomfortable. It makes me think of vices, of addictions, of darker appetites, of sexual issues, of yea many other issues that come between couples but that they don't talk about. This is what the card means to me, in part. But it's not just couples; it's about addictions and vices, temptation, lack of restraint and discipline.
Almost a year ago now, I wrote the following about le Diable from the Tarot de Marseille, which brings up another possible meaning for this card:
me said:
Looking at the strange central figure of le Diable, and the Krampus, I think the Tarot de Marseille has another applicable definition. I think it is also related to nightmares, to one’s worst and unreasoning fears. This card, le Diable, is the boogeyman in the closet, the monster under the bed. We may be aware on a cerebral level that there’s no such thing, that there is nothing in the closet, but our emotional response is the same.
Creators' Notes
Waite says:
Waite said:
15. The Devil. In the eighteenth century this card seems to have been rather a symbol of merely animal impudicity. Except for a fantastic head-dress, the chief figure is entirely naked; it has bat-like wings, and the hands and feet are represented by the claws of a bird. In the right hand there is a sceptre terminating in a sign which has been thought to represent fire. The figure as a whole is not particularly evil; it has no tail, and the commentators who have said that the claws are those of a harpy have spoken at random. There is no better ground for the alternative suggestion that they are eagle's claws. Attached, by a cord depending from their collars, to the pedestal on which the figure is mounted, are two small demons, presumably male and female. These are tailed, but not winged.
It is true that the Marseille version and similar do not seem especially evil. Cheerfully, gleefully malicious, impudent, even, yes. But evil? Not really.
Waite said:
Since 1856 the influence of Éliphas Lévi and his doctrine of occultism has changed the face of this card, and it now appears as a pseudo-Baphometic figure with the head of a goat and a great torch between the horns; it is seated instead of erect, and in place of the generative organs there is the Hermetic caduceus. In Le Tarot Divinatoire of Papus the small demons are replaced by naked human beings, male and female, who are yoked only to each other. The author may be felicitated on this improved symbolism.
didn't think there was anything "semi" Baphometic about it at all. But how nice to know Waite approves of Papus' new symbolism, in his own patronizing way.
He goes on to say:
Waite said:
The design is an accommodation, mean or harmony, between several motives mentioned in the first part. The Horned Goat of Mendes, with wings like those of a bat, is standing on an altar. At the pit of the stomach there is the sign of Mercury.
I guess that is the serpentine coily bits of hair there; maybe it's just not too clear in my pocket Rider Waite, or maybe I just haven't the eyesight or subtlety
Waite said:
The right hand is upraised and extended, being the reverse of that benediction which is given by the Hierophant in the fifth card. In the left hand there is a great flaming torch, inverted towards the earth. A reversed pentagram is on the forehead. There is a ring in front of the altar, from which two chains are carried to the necks of two figures, male and female. These are analogous with those of the fifth card, as if Adam and Eve after the Fall. Hereof is the chain and fatality of the material life.
"Fifth" card? But I like that, about the chain and fatality of the material life. Like the Robin Wood variant, wherein the couple is held back by a heavy chained chest of treasure. Things always weigh you down, hold you back.
Waite said:
The figures are tailed, to signify the animal nature, but there is human intelligence in the faces, and he who is exalted above them is not to be their master for ever. Even now, he is also a bondsman, sustained by the evil that is in him and blind to the liberty of service.
To my way of thinking, he will be their master until they learn to cast off the chains themselves.
Waite said:
With more than his usual derision for the arts which he pretended to respect and interpret as a master therein, Éliphas Lévi affirms that the Baphometic figure is occult science and magic. Another commentator says that in the Divine world it signifies predestination, but there is no correspondence in that world with the things which below are of the brute. What it does signify is the Dweller on the Threshold without the Mystical Garden when those are driven forth therefrom who have eaten the forbidden fruit.
So ... the Lovers represent Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the Devil represents them after the Fall? Interesting thought.
Others' Interpretations
Waite interprets this card as follows:
Waite said:
15. THE DEVIL.--Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil. Reversed: Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.
Symbols and Attributes
Embodying Capricorn the Goat, this explains the faunlike build (in part) of the Devil. Capricorn rules over Yule, the longest night of the year, the turning point of the year. An Earth sign ruled by constrictive Saturn, Capricorn is as far as I have always thought, the most practical and pragmatic (and unexciting) sign in the Zodiac. Capricorn people tend to be hardworking, reliable, stodgy, dull. At least in my experience! The Devil works with the tools he has at hand. The people before him are greedy, bound by material desires? The Earth element at its worst and most superficial? Fine. He can use that to his advantage. And Saturn's influence reinforces the ties that bind them to him. He's not called the Lord of the Gates of Matter for nothing.
The Devil here is heavily influenced by Eliphas Levi, with the illustration of Baphomet. Originally a sort of pagan deity or imagining of a pagan deity, a Panlike figure, Baphomet figured prominently in the arrest, trial and dissolution of the Knights Templar, and has since become a sort of so-called "Sabbatic goat" due to Levi's illustration. The goatlike figure of Baphomet (also a symbol of Capricorn, that goat) is winged with legs crossed, gesturing with one hand up and one down, and showing the pentagram over his brow. However, there is no sign of a torch in Levi's version.
The pentagram refers to the power one obtains by harnessing the five senses, the five elements. Inverted, it represents misuse of power. Or, others have likened the pentagram to the human body. Inverted, with sexual organs higher than the head, it represents baser desire overcoming reason. Thinking with your penis?
The positioning of his arms is a perversion of the Magician's "as above, so below" gesture. The uppermost hand makes a gesture that was apparently first used in Jerusalem by the High Priest to bring down the spirit force. It is still a Jewish blessing, for all that it looks like the Vulcan "live long and prosper". Inscribed on the palm of this upper hand, lines form the sigil or glyph of Saturn, underlining Capricorn's planetary influence. Now, I don't know much about palmistry at all, but people who do say that it is formed by the heart line and the life line. The life line seems to choke off the heart line, suggesting how life's excesses can choke off spiritual growth. Or, an interesting point Abrac has made:
I would like to suggest that the meaning is a bit more complex and mysterious, yet also simple. In the book, Hands -A Complete Guide to Palmistry; Whitford Press; 1983; Page 188, Enid Hoffman talks about "ambition lines." These are lines that extend from, but never cross, the "life" line. They indicate the presence of ambition in whatever direction they point to. In the earliest US Games RWS decks and the "Pam A," [...] what we see are ambition lines extending from the life line and wrapping around the "head" line. The way I interpret this is it is illustrating that a good portion of The Devil's life energy is being channeled into intellectual activity, even to the point of bondage.
Trapped in his own head, then?
The lower left hand holds the torch, the destruction. It may refer to the subjugation of energy, of illumination, of power. Perhaps of misusing one's energy or one's power. Or, in Mithraic rituals, a torch held downward like this was a symbol of spiritual death.
The bat wings, paired with the black background, remind me of bats, which are blind but are able to detect much that is hidden in the darkness. Maybe hidden knowledge, darker secrets. The darker side of human nature.
He squats or crouches on an oblong or half-cubic block, representing an imperfect view. He sees the dark but not the light, the physical but not the spiritual. Attached to it are the chains of earthly or material bondage, that which ties the couple to their captor. The looseness of these bonds - they could lift them over their heads if they so chose - is a true indicator of our blindness in the face of our material bonds. Can't quit smoking, or drinking, or gambling, or spending money you don't have, or can't dump that cheating spouse, or
won't? Many of us don't see the distinction. But it's there. The couple themselves are definite throwbacks to the Lovers in the Garden of Eden. Once naked to show their innocence, their nudity now illustrates how they have been stripped down to the basest of physical desires. Having succumbed to the temptation of the Devil in the form of the snake, they have been banished from the Garden of Eden and now stand chained in the darkness outside the gates. Rather than standing before the vibrant trees, the fruitful Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the flaming Tree of Life, they now carry the merest mocking reminders of what they have lost on the ends of their new tails - the single bunch of grapes and the small flame. A perversion of the powerful, fruitful blessings they have lost. The tails and the horns they now wear show what happens when they succumb to base desires of the material world, how far they fall.
My Interpretation
This is an unhealthy card. Unhealthy habits, unhealthy desires, unhealthy relationships. It's not just the eating food that's bad for you, or smoking and drinking and taking drugs, but the staying in the thrall of a relationship that is bad for you too. The unfaithful, abusive or purely physical one that threatens to dominate all else. Or even more literally, it can refer to the kinkier or wilder side of physical relationships.
The specifics aren't the important bit, though. The important part is
how they deal with it all. It's about succumbing to temptation, to giving oneself over - wholeheartedly or reluctantly - to the desires that tempt you. How you cross over to the dark side. It's always possible to free yourself, you just need to see it. I mean, a little is good. A few drinks with friends, a mild binge on a decadent dessert, a splurge on that new pair of shoes or Tarot deck you've been longing for, a little sexual adventure. But the Devil's influence is about when it's been carried too far. As advice, it warns us to be wary of excess, to know when to rein it in, to know when is "too much".
I knew very little about this particular species but this is a very brief description 
, a lot more becomes clear – I had no idea that was a winged SUN, but if tit is, that makes sense of things I was previously missing ! Just saying…) The goat himself also has an open third eye on his forehead. Snuffin says this also represents the head of a phallus.