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Even the horns of the goat are spiral, to represent the movement of the all-pervading energy. Zoroaster defines God as “having a spiral force”. Compare the more recent, if less profound, writings of Einstein. [381]

Image : A Himalayan goat stood behind the Wand of the Chief Adept, atop two testicular roots of a phallic tree piercing the heavens. In the background are “exquisitely tenuous, and fantastic forms of madness” whilst within the transparent root-spheres are semi-formed white bodies. [382]

There is wonderful artistry in the depiction of correspondences in this card. The Devil card corresponds to Capricorn in the zodiac. The sign is ruled by Saturn in which Mars is exalted. Harris has painted the goat front-and-centre, with a Martian background and a golden phallus rising up into a ringed vault. I do wonder if she meant the rings to represent Uranus, mistakenly, although Crowley gives them as representing Nuith, the goddess. [383]

There are also two further sets of correspondence woven into the design and which add to our interpretation of the card. The first is based on the placement of cards on the Tree of Life.

Crowley notes that the Devil and Death cards are symmetrical on the Tree. They connect to Tiphareth, corresponding to consciousness and self-awareness. The Devil connects our self-awareness to bliss (Netzach) and Death connects it to thought (Hod). Between them, the Art card connects our awareness to the foundation (Yesod) which “formulates Existence”. [384] He sees this trinity as “a hieroglyph of the processes by which idea manifests as form”. [385] Of course, Yesod also corresponds to the genitals and the sexual instinct - Crowley is making a lower trinity of sex, intellect and emotion in these three cards.

The second set of correspondences is based upon the sacred name of God known as IAO. This is spelt in Hebrew as Aleph, Yod and Ayin. Through correspondence these letters relate to the tarot cards of the Fool, Hermit and Devil. Crowley sees this as a “threefold explanation of the male creative energy” and it is worth comparing the three cards as such. [386] The Fool is the pure male energy without form and free in potential, the Hermit is energy being transmitted and the Devil is that energy being made manifest. The appearance of these cards in a reading can indicate the stage of energy in a situation, or the necessary energy required to resolve or further a situation.

The Devil card is - at root - a card of Life. It is a card of creativity and the fundamental sexual act that creates all things – division and multiplication. It is ironic that this arises from coming together - attraction. The card is both high and low – the affairs of matter and the transcendence of all that is known.

This is the first part of a longer poetic sequence by Crowley, Liber Liberi vel Lapdis Lazuli , being the “birth words of a Master of the Temple”. This is a high grade in the Western Esoteric Initiatory System where the self is utterly destroyed, merged, transcended across the Abyss, the final separation between the mortal and the divine. Such a transcendence is hinted at by the ‘eye’ in the forehead of the goat, although this also – as everything on this card – carries a sexual allusion.

Over two decades ago, an excitable friend of mine came to what he imagined was a stunning realisation with regard to all of Crowley’s works. He approached my esoteric teacher of the time and announced, “It’s all a symbol of sex, isn’t it?!” My teacher sagely replied, “Ah, yes, that may be true, but what is sex a symbol of?” I think this sums up neatly the Devil card – we must face our own material nature, look straight through it, and see what is not only beyond it, but of what it is part.

When this card turns up in a reading, powerful urges may be at work, however we must look beyond them in order to mount those forces to higher planes. It is a card calling us to both embrace and release energy – make a climactic climb upwards to the pinnacles of experience.

In more mundane terms, it signifies attachment and its escape; Crowley quoted from the Book of the Law when referring to this aspect of the card, “thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect”. [388]

Through the correspondence of Capricorn to this card, Crowley derives much of its interpretation and design. The goat is specifically Himalayan, “the highest and most secret mountains of the earth”. [389] The sign of Capricorn is “rough, harsh, dark, even blind” and takes no account of “reason, custom or foresight”. [390] However, the goat is also the Greek god Pan, and through this divine creativity represents the “finding of ecstasy in every phenomenon”. [391] The formula of the card is “the complete appreciation of all existing things”. [392]

In a reading, particularly for oneself, this card presents the world for what it is – a material world. [393] A world to be enjoyed and experienced, without pause (in this one card, at least) for consideration of consequence or custom.

The wand of the Chief Adept is a Golden Dawn magical tool symbolising a particular balancing of forces upon the initiatory path. Crowley describes it as “crowned with the winged globe and the twin serpents of Horus and Osiris”. [394] He also – with unusual coyness – notes that the “creative energy” of the goat is “veiled” in the symbol; it is, in fact, placed as a symbolic and substitute penis.

The wand is called the 'Ur-Uatchti' wand which specifically refers to the winged globe borne up by twin serpents. These are not historically Horus and Osiris as Crowley as re-purposed them, but rather two goddesses:

Heru-Behut changed his form into that of the Winged Disk, [and took his place] above the bow of the Boat of Ra. And he made the goddess Nekhebit and the goddess Uatchit to be with him in the form of serpents. [395]

The golden phallic tree or column arising in the centre of the card depicts a connection between the earth and the heavens; Crowley indicates the sexual nature of this union when he also refers to the wand as a “shaft” sinking into the earth. Thus, the phallus and wand, the Tree and the goat, all represent the creative energy symbolised by sex, irrespective of “all limitations”. [396]

The two testicular globes at the base of the card are transparent to “show the innumerable leapings of the sap”. [397] This is a direct reference to semen, but as we have written, sex and physicality is also symbolic in itself – one of the great teachings of the Devil card. The symbol here shows all the possibilities beneath the skin of appearance; wild spiritual potential before it is made manifest by decision and physical action.

Interestingly, as with the spirals drawn on the Moon card and the reference in the Star card, Crowley makes mention again here the quote from Zoroaster, “God as ‘having a spiral force’”. [398] We have seen that this notion and design appears in these illustrations of the deck, many years prior to the discovery that DNA is a double helix – a very resonant reality for this card.

Key Phrase: Thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect. [399]

The Devil is a card of the utmost physicality and creativeness. It signifies brute force and a primal energy. It suggests that your physical needs are brought to attention. In an abstract manner, applied to a work situation, for example, it means we must take harsh action and punch through any obstacles to get our own satisfaction.