Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo

Number: 15
Card Title: The Devil
Esoteric Title: Lord of the Gates of Matter
Child of the Forces of Time
Astrological Atttribution: Capricorn
Elemental Attribution: Earth (cold, dry)
Dates & Timing: December 22 to January 19
Hebrew Letter: Ayin Eye 70
Color: Blue-Violet, Indigo
Intelligence: Renewing Intelligence
Esoteric Function: Laughter & Mirth
Qabalistic Path: Path 26: 6 Tipareth to 8 Hod
Translation of Path: The Beauty of Splendor

Keywords: Materiality, Material Force, Temptation, Mirth, Bondage, Entrapment, Seduction, Monkey Cuffs, Golden Handcuffs, Ignorance, Hopelessness, Indulgence, Greed, Fear, Arrogance, Financial Difficulties, Fear, Confusion, Obsession, Doubt, Fixation, Limitation.

Ill-Dignified:Fed up, Overcome Temptations, See’s Trap.

Interpretation:
Intention dictates positive/negative. All events & choices are an opportunity. Descent into addiction or alcoholism. Bondage to food drugs, alcohol. Family change to loved one’s problems. Adverse or negative cycle where problems multiply and nothing goes right. Can’t see whole picture. Have you become a slave to your work? May have troubles sleeping. Cardinal excess. Fearing what we don’t understand.

Reversed Interpretation: Ready to see though temptation. Ready to leave seductiveness. Tired of temptation. Now you recognize what has been making you miserable, you can free yourself from old habits. Now is the time for action. Take the bull by its horns. Make amends. Liberation and healing. Confronting and accepting faults. Removal of chains. Release from evil forces.

 

Rider-Waite Imagery

The devil sits on a black double cube. He has rams horns, bat wings, bird feet and is covered in hair. He makes a sign of benediction with one hand while he lights the tail of a bound, naked man. There are two humanoid figures with horns, a man and a woman. The woman has a grape tail and the man has a fiery tail. They are chained to the devil’s throne.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)

Part I: The Veil and its Symbols

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. 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.

Part II: The Doctrine Behind the Veil

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. 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.

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. 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.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]

Chapter X. The Symbolical Tarot

15. 15th Hebrew letter (Samech).

ORIGIN OF THE SYMBOLISM OF THE FIFTEENTH CARD OF THE TAROT.

The Samech expresses the same hieroglyphic sign as the Zain (7th arcanum), that is to say, an arrow; a weapon of any kind; but to this idea is here added that of the arrow making a circular movement, of any circle defining and delimiting a circumscription.

This idea of an impassable circle has given birth to that of Destiny, of Fatality, circumscribing the limits of the circle in which the human will can act freely; so that the Serpent forming a circle of his own body, biting his own tail, has always been the symbol of this Fatality, of this Destiny, encircling the world in its embrace. It is the image of the year (the ring), and of the fatal and settled revolutions of time.

As a letter, the Samech is the link (Zain) reinforced and turned back upon itself. As a simple letter, it corresponds with the zodiacal sign of Sagittarius.

FIFTEENTH CARD OF THE TAROT. The Devil.

In every cosmogony the Devil represents the mysterious astral force, the origin of which is revealed to us by the hieroglyphic of Samech.

But a little attentive consideration of the symbol will show us that it contains several of the details which we have already seen in other figures of the Tarot, but under a different aspect.

If we place the Juggler by the side of the Devil we shall see that the arms of the two personages are using the same gesture, but in an inverse sense. The Juggler points his right hand towards the Universe, his left hand towards God; on the other hand the Devil raises his right band into the air, whilst his left points to the earth. Instead of the magic initiating wand of the Juggler, the Demon holds the lighted torch, the symbol of black magic and of Destruction.

By the side of the Devil, and balanced by him, are two personages reproducing the same symbolism that we find in the two women of the Lovers (6), and in the two supports of the gibbet of the Hanged Man (12).

The universal vivifying force represented by the 3rd arcanum, has here become the universal destroying force. The sceptre of Venus-Urania has become the Demon’s torch, the Angel’s wings have changed into the hideous pinions of the God of Evil.

The 3rd arcanum symbolizes the Holy Spirit, or the Providence of Fabre d’Olivet.

The 15th arcanum symbolizes the False Spirit, or the Destiny of Fabre d’Olivet.

15+3 = 18/2 = 9.

The 9th arcanum, which fills the centre between the two figures, symbolizes Prudence, or the Human Will of Fabre d’Olivet.

The Devil has materialized upon his head the universal fluid which surrounded the head of the Juggler; this is indicated by the two six-pointed horns which adorn him.

He stands upon a cube placed upon a sphere, to indicate the domination of Matter (the cube) over the Spirit (the Sphere).

The fifteenth card of the Tarot derives its signification from its own symbolism–

DESTINY (chance).

FATALITY, the result of the fall of Adam-Eve.

The astral fluid, which individualizes. NARASH, the Dragon of the Threshold.

15. The Devil.

Affinities

• Primitive Hieroglyphic: Serpent
• Astronomy: Sagittarius
• Month: November
• Hebrew letter: Samech (simple)

Significations

• DESTINY Chance
• FATALITY Result of the fall of Adam-Eve
• NAHASH The Dragon of the Threshold
• Major Arcana Signification from the Divining Point of View

15. The Devil signifies IMMENSE FORCE. ILLNESS.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]

Symbolism of Each Key

15. The Devil. A horned and winged demon with eagle’s claws (standing on an altar to which two smaller devils are bound by a collar and cord). In his left hand he bears a flame-headed sceptre. He is the image of Fate or Fatality, good or evil.

Meanings of the Cards

15. The Devil.–Fatality for Good; R. Fatality for Evil.

Occult Significance of the Tarot Cards

12. The Devil.–Throned on a cube above the Universe is a goat-headed, satyr-like figure, bearing on its brow the pentagram, apex upward, so as to make it a symbol of Light. With one hand it points upwards to the symbol of the Moon in increase, with the other downwards to that of the Moon in decrease, thus symbolizing the eternal equilibrium of Mercy and Justice; the first two fingers and thumb of each hand are extended as in giving the sign of benediction. One arm is feminine, the other masculine. The torch of intelligence is placed between its horns, as the Magical Light of the Universal Equilibrium. The caduceus which holds the place of the generative organs signifies the eternity of life; the belly is covered with scales to represent Water; the circle above it is the atmosphere; the Wings are the emblem of the Volatile; and the deformed and goat-like feet rest upon the earth.

The Symbolism of the Tarot by P. D. Ouspensky [1913]

What is the Tarot? Card XV.–”The Devil”.

“Man”. Weakness. Falsehood. The Fall of man into separateness, into hatred and into finiteness.

CARD XV. THE DEVIL.

Black, awful night enveloped the earth. An ominous, red flame burned in the distance. I was approaching a fantastic figure which outlined itself before me as I came nearer to it. High above the earth appeared the repulsive red face of the Devil, with large, hairy ears, pointed beard and curved goats’ horns. A pentagram, pointing downwards, shone in phosphoric light between the horns on his forehead. Two large, grey, bat-like wings were spread behind him. He held up one arm, spreading out his bare, fat hand. In the palm I saw the sign of black magic. A burning torch held down-end in his other hand emitted black, stifling smoke. He sat on a large, black cube, gripping it with the claws of his beast-like, shaggy legs.

A man and woman were chained to the cube–the same Man and Woman I saw in the garden, but now they had horns and tails tipped with flame. And they were evidently dissatisfied in spirit, and were filled with protest and repulsion.

“This is a picture of weakness”, said the voice, “a picture of falsehood and evil. They are the same man and woman you saw in the garden, but their love ceasing to be a sacrifice, became an illusion. This man and woman forgot that their love is a link in the chain that unites them with eternity, that their love is a symbol of equilibrium and a road to Infinity.

“They forgot that It is a key to the gate of the magic world, the torch which lights the higher Path. They forgot that Love is real and immortal and they subjugated it to the unreal and temporary. And they each made love a tool for submitting the other to himself.

“Then love became dissension and fettered them with iron chains to the black cube of matter, on which sits deceit”.

And I heard the voice of the Devil: “I am Evil”, he said, “at least so far as Evil can exist in this best of worlds. In order to see me, one must be able to see unfairly, incorrectly and narrowly. I close the triangle, the other two sides of which are Death and Time. In order to quit this triangle it is necessary to see that it does not exist.

“But how to do this is not for me to tell. For I am the Evil which men say is the cause of all evil and which they invented as an excuse for all the evil that they do.

“They call me the Prince of Falsehood, and truly I am the prince of lies, because I am the most monstrous production of human lies”.

The Tarot Trumps by G. H. Soror, Q.L.

XV. THE DEVIL

This card should be studied in conjunction with No. 13. They are the two great controlling forces of the Universe, the centrifugal and the centripetal, destructive and reproductive, dynamic and static. The lower nature of man fears and hates the transmuting process; hence the chains binding the lesser figures and the bestial forms of their lower limbs. Yet this very fear of change and disintegration is necessary to stabilize the life-force and preserve continuity. The colors are indigo, livid brown, golden brown and gray.

Book “T” The Tarot

Brief Meanings of Twenty-Two Keys

15. Combination of forces, realization, action (material effect, good or evil).