The Devil
From SourceryForge
| The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, The Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement, The World. | |
| Wands | Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Page, Knight, Queen, King. |
| Cups | Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Page, Knight, Queen, King. |
| Swords | Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Page, Knight, Queen, King. |
| Pentacles | Ace 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Page, Knight, Queen, King. |
| Aces, Twos, Threes, Fours, Fives, Sixes, Sevens, Eights, Nines, Tens, Pages, Knights, Queens, Kings | |
A tarot card. Position 15 in the Major Arcana.
Contents |
Description
Rider Waite Deck
(From The Pictorial key to Tarot by A.E. Waite)
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.
Meanings
- bondage, materialism, mirth
- Deconstruction of the personality structure's intellectual limitations.
- Rejoice in worldly pleasure, good sex, orgies of all kinds
- living for the moment
- Liberty, especially in the sense of Thelema
Reversed Meaning
- taking worldly pleassures too important
- exaggerated materialism
- reckless mirth
- devil's circle
- addictions of all kinds
numerological musings
This is one card that is allowing for really interesting numerological games:
- 15 can be seen as a potentiated form of 5, The Hierophant
- 15 => 1 + 5 = 6 So The Lovers are the root of it
The Hierophant is a representative of the outer spiritual way. On the level of the Devil, there is no more need for the pretense of an "outer spiritual way". The Devil is living his joy in, and his entanglement with the world openly, without pretending or believing that he/she is serving some deeper purpose. When things go bad this can mean utter imbalance, materialism, capitalism, being egotistical and so on. But it also can mean another level of balance. Being able to drop all intelectual brain-chatter, living and enjoying the moment can be the most spiritual thing of all. Also there are many spiritual paths that acknoledge that the abillity to enjoy life and bodiely pleasures is a good and very necessary part of everyone's mental development.
This is where the story continus with the Lovers: One of their meanings is the awakening of the Sexuality, and the awakening of the abillity to reason and decide. The balanced (=upright) devil has developped these qualities to their fullest.
Correspondences
- Links Tiphareth to Hod as path number 26 of the Tree of Life
- Colour blue-violet
- Capricorn in the zodiac
- The direction West-below (from the Sepher Yetzirah)
- Yetziratic Intelligence - the Renewing intelligence
- Musical note A (Paul Case)
- Hebrew letter HEBREW:Ayin meaning Eye and also the number 70
- Organic Time - The Age of Reason In the light of the renaissance, civilizations got a kick start as people examined the mental limitations of the past and became increasingly dependent on the developments of the material world. This resulted in the wild extrapolations of science and technology, education, and the continued growth toward another collective face of the Earth. By the end of the Age of Reason, the people had generated the meme seeds for what would grow into Popular Culture(the Victorians).
