MAJOR ARCANA
The Devil Tarot Meanings
The Devil, the card of Capricorn and one of the famously ‘scary cards’ of the Tarot. The Devil is the 15th card in the major arcana and symbolises our self-enforced limitations, obsessions, addictions, and lack of control. It’s the card that shows we are overindulging in the rich pleasures of life and losing ourselves in the process. There is definitely a feeling of being lost within yourself with The Devil as if you’re no longer in control of your impulses and are being driven by some uncontrollable animalistic urge.
In the flow of the major arcana, The Devil follows Temperance, the card of moderation and willpower, showing us that this is what happens when we can’t sustain or achieve that balance. It also comes right before The Tower and that energy of destruction and a need to rebuild from the ground up. It’s a card that can teach us a lot about ourselves, especially our personality and our authentic selves. But it’s not always a pretty or comfortable journey with The Devil, so strap in!
The Devil Upright Meanings
In the upright position, The Devil represents all the vices we struggle with over our lifetime, the impulses and weaknesses that threaten to consume us. We all have them and they are unique to us, they can stem from our conditioning, cultural expectations, societal norms, and even genetic inheritance. The main upright meanings of The Devil are:
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Temptation
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Seduction
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Manipulation
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Materialism
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Addiction
In the upright position, The Devil is like looking in a mirror at all the parts of ourselves that we fight with on a daily occurrence. It isn’t something that is happening to us from an external source, it is self-created and that is what makes it such a hard card to work through. The Devil is us.
The Devil Reversed Meanings
In the reversed position, The Devil can symbolise our rebellion against the upright meanings of The Devil card. We are not allowing these vices to take control, we are actively fighting against them and taking control of our own wellbeing. Some of the reversed meanings of The Devil are:
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Freedom
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Independence
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Self-love
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Release
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Mental strength
Like any tarot card, The Devil has its good points. Although the reversed meanings of the cards are often the negative ones, the opposite is true for The Devil. I like to think of this card as the upright position being us facing off against our own devils and the reversed as us beating our personal demons and coming out the other side stronger.
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Reading The Devil in a Tarot Spread
As The Devil is one of the ‘scary cards’ of the tarot, it’s important not to panic when it pops up. It’s not a bad omen, it’s an acknowledgement that things are tough and that your recent or current struggles are valid and something that requires an amazing amount of resilience and inner strength.
Often when The Devil shows up, we have to accept our personal vices and accept that they are a part of who we are, just like the good parts of ourselves. It’s only through acceptance and acknowledgement that we can start to fight back, focus our energy into the right areas and draw from our strengths to overcome our weaknesses.
The Devil as An Invitation
When The Devil shows up as an invitation it is often a temptation in some form. It can be an invitation to try and look past the facade of something to see the true intention behind it, whether that’s a desire, temptation or an offer from an external source. It’s an invitation to tread carefully.
For The Devil, this invitation could be the following:
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An invitation to open your eyes to temptations with ill intent
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An invitation to assess your vices and see how they are impacting a situation
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An invitation to show yourself some self-love in order to overcome negative thinking
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An invitation to break free from something that is holding you back and causing toxic thoughts or behaviours
The Devil as Sage Advice
As advice, The Devil is a card that shows that there are things at play that don’t have your best interests at heart. Its advice is often centred around finding clarity, breaking the spell you’re under and being able to break free from a self-created prison.
Some advice The Devil may offer is:
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To resist temptation, no matter what form it is taking
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Don’t be seduced by something that looks good on the surface, read the t&c’s and figure out if it’s really as good as it looks
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Stop fighting against natural instincts and start to work to embrace and accept them as part of who you are and work out how to live with them
The Devil as a Lesson
The Devil as a lesson teaches us how to reconcile the opposing parts of our personality. It’s a lesson in weakness and what it means to be weak and how that can enhance our strengths.
Some lessons that The Devil may offer you are:
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To learn to bring together both your vices and your virtues to become a more whole person
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To learn when to say no and walk away from something you thought you wanted or you thought you deserved, but actually wasn’t good for you
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To learn what it means to be free and what you need personally to live a more free life
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To learn how to identify temptation and when something is too good to be true
The Devil as a Redirection
The Devil can be a big wake up call, it’s like seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses and then finally taking them off to see the reality of the situation. The Devil card as redirection is the moment we take off those rose-tinted glasses, it’s how we can get to the point where we realise that maybe things are not as they seem.
As a redirection, The Devil could symbolise a need to:
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Assess a situation and see all the facts before settling down and allowing yourself to relax into it
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Identify toxic behaviours, both in yourself and in others and take steps to distance yourself from them
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Find the root of your obsessions or addictions to try and pinpoint where this energy comes from and how you can start to work through it
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Find the mental strength to work towards what you truly deserve and not just taking what is given to you, take back your power
The Devil - Number 15
Something I find interesting about The Devil and the number of 15 is that on the Rider Waite-Smith Tarot card, The Devil is the flip side of The Lovers, which is card six in the Major Arcana. The Devil is 15 (1+5=6) it can be reduced down to that base number of six, giving us the same foundations as that of The Lovers card.
There is a huge amount of love and success in The Devil, it is simply that it has had a detrimental affect on us instead of a positive one. We have been consumed by the love, whether it be a love for others or even just worldly possessions.
The Devil - Capricorn
With The Devil card you might think that its astrological sign would be a fiery one. However, the astrological sign for The Devil is Capricorn, a grounded earth sign.
Capricorns are very ambitious and are determined to make whatever they desire happen. This can cause them to be too involved and often resistant to emotions and frivolity. Again this may seem to contradict all the ideas we have of The Devil, but it’s this blind devotion and ambition that can easily derail us and send us down a less positive path in life.
The Devil - Jester
Again, it seems like another contradiction but The Devil falls into the archetype of the Jester in my mind. It is a card that puts pleasure above all things.
If you are someone that gets a huge amount of satisfaction from one particular area of life, you may be more likely to give that area your full undivided attention. This can lead to the neglect of all the other areas of your life. This is usually why The Devil is often linked to meanings of addiction, because addiction and obsession blind us to what is happening outside our little bubble of pleasure.
