TAROTThe Devil
Upright
Self-sabotage, giving in to the darker aspects of your nature.
Materialistic and selfish behavior.
Self-centered actions, falling for earthly desires.
Intuition
Seeing this card upright is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather a tap on your shoulder to consider what you are currently doing (or considering doing) and the path it will lead to; the process of descent may not yet have started.
Only ignoring its advice makes it a bad card!
Reversed
Recovery.
Recovering from a previously constraining situation or emotional state.
Note that this card does not necessarily mean you have been bad and are now making amends; it may be about escaping someone else’s mistakes.
Astrologia
Ambitious and disciplined with a strong practical perspective. Strong on values and loyalty. A hard worker. Can become pessimistic or self-centred, as all the energy is focused on the material world.
The Devil
The previous card, Temperance, was about finding equilibrium and peace. If you’ve had peace for a long time, things may start to get too easy, and then temptation appears…
With the Devil, temperance gives in to temptation, and the lure of the material world pulls you in.
Everyone wants but not everyone takes for many good reasons. The Devil is about passions overriding all of the good reasons because your wants are out of control. You want and take, irrespective of the repercussions on you and others.
Such action also creates a need to avoid those repercussions by shifting blame, manipulation, deceit and self-justification, or even violence.
And of course, at the end of it all, it’s not really your fault at all; the Devil made you do it. But that’s not exactly how the ancients saw it.
Although there were good and bad gods, they were not evil in the way we understand evil, they just acted like their domains. So a god of the dead could kidnap innocent young maidens, because death did whisk away young people before their time (and unfortunately still does today). And sometimes the sun was hidden during the day, or the sea would wash away a coastal city, so a fearsome monster might need to exist to explain it away. The monster is not so much evil as an explanation of something that happened that can act as a warning against a natural cause that we have not learned about yet.
Which brings us to the strange story of Phosphorus, and how he disappeared and returned evil…
Phosphorus and the Lotus Eaters
Phosphorus
There are a few different types of ancient god. Many represent a domain or position, such as retribution or the sea or being the all-father. They have stories that anthropomorphize their domain and make the unpredictable ancient world at least have a reason.
Then there are gods that are the personification of something. They are not the god of something, they are that something. So Phosphorus was the God of the Morning star, and Aphrodite is associated with Venus and love, and Selene is the moon.
And then there’s the other matter of Venus not been seen to move as high in the heavens as other planets. Almost as if it was constrained to earth or barred from heaven.
Eventually, the ancients invented better instruments and measurement and realized that Venus, the Morning Star and the Evening Star were one and the same. That makes Phosphorus the personification of nothing, and therefore the God of nothing.
Except that a reference to the planet Morning Star was mistranslated as the name Phosphorus. Phosphorus means ‘light bringer’ and in Latin, it reads Lucifer. And remembering that Venus can’t make it back to heaven, we have a slight issue.
So the card shows Phosphorus sat on a rock, with an empty altar below him. The scene is an empty area. Nobody would come here to worship this god, unless they were looking for something else such as a scapegoat.
The Lotus Eaters
The lotus eaters are mythological race of people that appear in Homer’s Odyssey. They lived on an island with a single large lotus tree growing on it, and this provided their food. The fruit of this lotus tree was narcotic, making the lotus eaters forget reality and enjoy the effects of the lotus. Worse, ships visiting the island (such as Odysseus on his return journey from Troy) would risk losing their crew to the island.
The phrase Lotus Eaters refers to people who have fallen to pleasure and indulgence, at the expense of reality. The man and woman on either side of Phosphorus are two such lotus eaters.
Description and Symbology
We see the God Phosphorus sat on a rock formation that resembles a very crude throne. At the base of the rock, there is a cloth laid denoting an alter space. There is nothing on the cloth as befits a God of Nothing.
Behind and to the right of Phosphorus is Venus in its appearance during the morning (aka the Morning Star).
A woman is chained to the rock via a padlocked collar, yet she has the key that would allow her to escape in her hand. A man is similarly tied to the rock, this time with a hangman’s noose that he has placed on his own neck.
Perhaps the man and woman will try to blame some evil for this situation, but as we now know, there is nothing in the image that is evil. The man and woman are constraining themselves through their own actions.
Card Symbol
The card symbol is the upside down star, often used to signify Baphomet. The earliest visual representation of Baphomet as the ‘Sabbatical Goat’ (and often used as the source of The Devil card in many Tarot decks) was by Éliphas Lévi in the 19th Century, although the name Baphomet appeared earlier in the 10th Century. Based on esoteric writings (especially the Kabbalah tree of life), Lévi drew the image himself. The image appeared nowhere previously so is assumed to be a personal creation. It is not used in this deck as it was created far too recently to be a strong archetype.
Phosphorus Morning Star
Phosphorus is seen with the Morning Star behind him and sitting on a rock that resembles a crude throne. As the Morning Star is actually Venus and the Morning Star does not exist as anything physical, Phosphorus does not have much to do. He appears as an archetype of the ‘null God’ or ‘God of nothing’. In Latin, Phosphorus translates to 'Lucifer', hence Lucifer Morning Star.
The empty altar
Below Phosphorus, we see an empty altar, as befits a God of nothing.
Chained woman
The woman to the left of the card is chained to the rock via a padlocked neck collar. She holds the key to this padlock in her hand, so can escape at any time should she choose to, but as a Lotus Eater, her addictions prevent this.
Tied man
The man to the right of the card is tied to the rock via a length of rope that ends with a hangman’s noose around his neck. Again, he can choose to remove the noose he has placed around his neck any time of his choosing, but as a Lotus eater, his addictions prevent this.
Red skies and beach
The beach and sky are empty but colored in reds. This represents strong but undirected emotion. If the emotion was directed, it might be constructive.
Tips for Readings
The following table shows the upright and reverse meanings for general questions. The last row ('Yes/No') is useful when you are picking a single card to decide a yes or no decision.
Upright
Reversed
You may be exhibiting selfishness or lack of care for others.
Be wary of falling for earthly desires and wants vs doing the right thing.
There may also be issues with trust, deceit or controlling behavior.
The fix for all the above is to control your passions and direct them to more constructive areas.
You will be coming out of a poor (or even toxic) situation.
For those outside a relationship, this may be a period of breaking free from bad emotional patterns of behavior.
You will experience feelings of being trapped via lack of opportunities or feeling unfulfilled.
Previous poor behavior may be holding you back. Consider holding your emotions/temper in check in the future, as this will rarely ever work out in your favor!
This card signifies you are on the road to taking control back from a bad situation. There may be new opportunities to escape from a stifling job.
You may also be part way through the process of making amends regarding actions you may have taken in the past, or you need to be made aware that this is necessary.
Be wary of compulsive behavior, such as lack of sleep or poor diet. These are caused by short term thinking and immediate needs with no thought for the future.
These may be caused by addiction, stress, fear or other imbalance in life, but you need a longer term outlook that includes where you want to be in the future.
You will be successful in making progress on returning back to good health from a previously poor situation. If you haven’t already, now is the time to make plans. They will be successful if carried out.
Personal development is in serious danger of being halted or in reverse because of a current behavior or situation.
Be careful of the direction you are taking.
Beginning of rehabilitation regarding a previous bad behavior, addiction or self-defeating way of thinking. The worst is over.
Falling for the darker side of human nature (greed, materialism, envy, and laziness) will cause issues with money.
Debt or frivolously spending money may occur.
You will enter a phase of turning around previous money problems and/or a new sense of independence.
This may be part of a process of breaking away from previous issues or lifestyle.
No, darker side of human nature
Yes, recovery and taking back control of your life.
Reading the Card
The upright card
The upright Devil card is about passions out of control. The best fix is to harness that passion positively, turning it into a constructive force. Without this fix, the passions will lead to negative behaviors and self-sabotage.
The upright Devil card is about passions out of control. The best fix is to harness that passion positively, turning it into a constructive force.
The card represents a mind succumbing to temptation, bondage to the pleasures of the material world at the expense of spiritual or moral concerns, and addictions.
The chained woman and tied man represent people being trapped by their own desires and limitations. Unlike other decks, they are not chained to the Devil but a powerless god of nothing; they have trapped themselves by their own actions.
In the end, we can decide that the Devil does or does not exist, but that is irrelevant because we will always be judged by our own actions not those of the Devil.
This can be a difficult card to take in, as it assigns responsibilities that the recipient may not welcome. Instead, see this card as a warning rather than an accusation. There is time to fix things, or simply move to another path that avoids any situations. Look but do not touch, want but do not use; both make you a better person and will avoid entrapping yourself to the rock of the god of nothing. More so because this is a very large rock to carry, as it is as heavy as all our future misgivings.
The reversal
The reversed Devil card represents recovery. You have been involved in a bad situation and the worst may be in the past as long as you carry on with recovery.
You may be on the verge of crossing a barrier from an old self that dwelled on unhealthy habits and kept poor company, was deceitful or controlling to others, or had questionable life goals that put material gains over everything else.
The reversal is the woman finding her key and unlocking her shackles. It is the man realizing the dangers of holding a noose to his neck and removing it. Neither action seems hard, but there is often a deeper reason for being bonded to the rock:
- Addiction is often not used as a source of pleasure but to alleviate something else.
- Self-abuse is often not a disease but a symptom of a poor sense of self.
Facing this deeper reason is harder than unlocking a padlock or removing a noose, but perhaps doing so is the first step in admitting the problem is within your grasp to control.
Card Design Process
The whole process for this card was based on the knowledge that many ancient religions do not have an evil deity similar to the Devil. Most gods are neither good nor bad, but simply reflect a natural domain; death, the sea, the weather or chance.
All were sometimes seen to be cruel and unfathomable but could also be a help. Those that did not have a domain but were characters in a moral tale acted much like humans; amoral, and driven by agendas rather than to do good or bad.
Thus, the plan was to have no Sacrificial Goat or The Devil on the Devil Card. There is only our hopes and fears, and the actions we take because of them.
The use of a God that was created to represent something that was later seen not to exist was the ideal solution; a God of Nothing. Even better that his name translates from Greek to Latin as the loaded name Lucifer Morning Star.
Final Words
The Devil card tells you The Devil is inside you, but you can always beat it by first acknowledging the Devil is you.
The devil may be seen as a bad card but it always brings good advice. It only becomes a bad card if you ignore it.
