T he Fool continues their journey along the major arcana full of joy and tempered alchemical love only to encounter the deep, dark shadows of the Devil. Entering into the final set of seven cards begins the Fool’s journey into the elevated levels of super consciousness. These cards each include a oracle vision or direct voice experience from the card’s view. After creating foundation ceremonies in the first set of seven and working the cards with layouts in the second set of seven, we now move into receiving the wisdom of the higher consciousness of the last cycle. I recommend having someone read this aloud to you or recording the vision and listening while also looking at the associated card. You may also wish to explore this for yourself, writing your own oracle vision for these cards as well as others.
The Devil is an appropriate entrance point into the final cycles of human evolution as it represents all that is dark, mysterious, fearsome, and misunderstood within ourselves and in our culture. Here our inner demons rise to the surface to meet outer societal demons that may be crushing us. This card’s number is fifteen, which includes the one, (the energy of the Magician) with the five (the Hierophant), the latter of whom upholds societal structures, dogmatic beliefs, and conditioned patterns. Added together, they equal six, associating the Devil with the Lovers and all that is passionate, wild, and sexually embodied but with the associated problems of trauma, oppression, and pain that yearns to be healed. In many ways the Devil is the literal opposite of the Hierophant who often was classically called “the Pope.” Being a religious figure, everything the Hierophant embodies—including rules, systems, beliefs, light, outward expression, masks, conditions, religious codes, family patterns, and societal conduct—is turned completely on its head when the Devil appears.
Culturally, the Devil is the most unpopular, misunderstood, and hated figure of the recent past centuries. He is associated with Lucifer, whose name means “lightbringer,” and is the one who refused to follow God’s orders, later called Satan, “the accuser” or “adversary.” The archetype of the Devil is the one who is against all dogma, never caring for rules, completely free and independent. In the true essence of the Devil, there are no restrictions, no limitations, and nothing is forbidden. His true origin as Satan may lie in the connection to Pan, the ancient Greek goat-footed god of the wild who had a lusty, regenerative, and joyous nature associated with growth and fertility. As it gained prominence, authority, and influence, the Christian church likely stamped him out and relegated him to what we now know as the Devil.
Since that time, anything deviating from the white, heteronormative, patriarchal Christian culture is considered devilish and even demonic. All that is dark, feminine, queer, indigenous, and of the earth has been associated deeply with the Devil, and thousands of humans have been tortured, slain, and cultures decimated in the name of a superior god that is fighting the so-called Devil. The tarot cards themselves have been and are often still viewed to be the “work of the devil,” as they offer insight into the mysterious and unknowable realms. This exacerbated judgment has caused immense, unnecessary suffering for people and deeply conditioned many of us to judge what is outside the normal culture. The Devil asks us to dismantle conditioning and repression so that healing of ancestral trauma in these realms can occur. This dismantling can be an immensely painful process; however, we must recognize our internalized racism, sexism, homophobia, and judgments—they must be unpacked and processed. Equally oppressive is society’s views of us and the ways in which we are boxed in based on the color of our skin, sexual orientation, gender, age, and so on.
On the personal level, we have all danced with the Devil, so to speak, when we dove into the dark holes of addiction, perhaps as excess drinking or smoking, an unhealthy relationship to sex, or eating without mindfulness. Our competitive culture itself is fueled upon the mass consumption of toxic food, excessive products, mass media, and overindulgence. We see the poisonous effects of our cultural behaviors laying waste across the earth’s oceans, forests, rivers, lakes, and mountains.
And yet, the Devil is also simply our shadow, the reminder of the powerful light that shines behind the darkness. He arrives to show us our repressions, fears, secrets, and what holds us in bondage so that we may recognize how free we actually are. Without the Devil’s wild, dark, disruptive dance, we would never turn to face our shadow self and thereby never bring it to the light. Staying in denial causes dis-ease; wreaks emotional havoc; and brings turmoil in the guise of obstacles, misfortune, and unhappy twists and turns.
The Devil is also a doorway into the depths of our own internal wildness and perhaps all that is truly good, not evil at all. The Devil is the wild feminine, the dark mystery, the rebel within who invites us to discover the process through change, vulnerability, and creativity. Welcoming the essence of this energy allows us to grow and expand ecstatically into parts of ourselves that we may have suppressed. The Devil can assist us in charging up mountains, doing wild creative dances, opening up to our sexual selves, and finding ourselves in a powerful place of pleasure and discovery.
In the Waite-Smith imagery, the horned figure of the Devil looks fiercely outward, gazing penetratingly at the reader. The right hand is raised upwards toward the sky and the left is holding a fire stick pointing downward, symbolizing the balance between heaven and earth. Perched on a doorway with gray batlike wings, the figure invokes the sense of wildness, strength, and creatures of the night. The two figures below the Devil are akin to the Lovers who, exalted in Temperance, have fallen from grace. Yet, the chains that bind them can easily be slipped off as soon as they remember that their own judgments and projections are the only thing inhibiting them.
In Crowley’s imagery, we see the Devil as a goat with full, twisting horns reaching high up into the sky. The goat has three eyes, symbolizing the Devil’s psychic and magical associations. He stands on two possibly egg- or testicle-shaped forms with the thrust of a phallic shaped imagery behind him that represents the sexual masculine energy of potent action and change. Within the eggs are figures waiting to be freed and reborn. Behind the Devil are smears of lines symbolizing chaos and creative expression. In front of the Devilish goat is a caduceus, a staff of creative life force.
In a reading, the Devil signifies the arrival of something wild, dark, passionate, and disruptive. This may come in the form of a new lover or unexpected crush, obsession, or enchantment. Traditionally, this card may represent betrayal, lies, addictions, and negative emotions. Like the wild pigs that plow up the earth, this is not a welcome energy but it brings air and light into the soil which betters it for planting.
The Devil may show up as an unwelcome guest, coworker, or family member who is disruptive, chaotic, or unwieldy. Their arrival offers you a chance to reflect on your own judgments, stagnation, and repressions. The Devil may also indicate something painful such as discovering that someone has cheated on you, your boss has been lying, or other disappointing news. It can also indicate a recognition of long unaddressed addictions, gossip, disease, or other negative energies that are affecting your daily life and the havoc they wreak on your life that allow you to finally make needed changes.
The Devil can also indicate a time to welcome and embrace something wild such as a new adventure, lover, or form of creative expression. The energy of the Devil may actually be a breath of fresh air after the suppression of certain dynamic, creative, or sexual aspects of ourselves. It is a “coming out” energy and may signify coming out in terms of one’s gender, sexual orientation, a new healing channel, following a different career, and all the ways our lives may show us it is crucial for our soul to come out rather than stay hidden. At the marking point of our evolutionary spiritual journey, the Devil invites us to reassess our own judgments and relinquish our personal demons to the fires of transformation.
Essential Qualities: wild, dark, energetic, suppression, bondage, forest, secrets, disruption, chaos, explosion, sexual, addiction, freedom
Suggestions: Notice your addictions and give some space around them. Do something a bit wild and different! Try out something new. Acquaint yourself with the energy of Pan. Create an interpretive dance that embodies a time when you “came out” in your life, when you had to be vulnerable and share something uncomfortable to someone or a group of people. Allow yourself to explore a secret fantasy.
Oracle Vision
I am the Devil. I romp into your life to awaken you from your slumbering and festering way. I disturb your false sense of security and ruffle your sedate feathers. I create chaos and wild disturbance so that you may see where you have begun to atrophy and stagnate.
I am the Wild Pan of the forest and carry with me the wisdom of the dark, mysterious, untouchable wilderness. I am the remote reaches of land where no human has stepped foot, developing or domesticating me. I am your ancestral remembrance that you too are part of this Wilderness, waiting to awaken and play and celebrate your own delicious body and nature once again.
I am the one who brings light to the darkness, who plows the fields preparing for new seeds of life and renewal. I am the one who dances all night long, bringing down the wisdom of the stars to the welcoming arms of the earth, who makes love with the soil and the water, with the wind and roots of trees. I scream in wild pleasure and howl at the full moon crying out to be heard and lived and embodied on earth once again.