THE DEVIL

I love being an astrologer. I love my tarot cards. sometimes it odd that when the results of my prediction was right. hard to believe, but it's real. of all the people I've predicted, I was the first person to get a card "THE DEVIL". I am not too proud, too, though. haha .. I was shocked. but not too surprised, really. hahahaha .. compared with the "Death" card, "THE DEVIL" worse. there is no good side of this card .. So I do not have the good side, huh? well, let's look how COOL this card!


In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the Devil sits above two naked human demons—one male, one female, who are chained to his seat. The Tarot Devil card is derived in part from Eliphas Levi's famous illustration "Baphomet" in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855). Baphomet is winged and horned, combining human and bestial features. Many modern Tarot decks portray the Devil as a satyr-like creature. In the Tarot of Marseilles (illustration, below), the devil is portrayed with facial features in unusual places, such as a mouth on his stomach, eyes on his knees, and with female breasts and male genitalia.

According to Waite, the Devil is standing on an altar. His right hand is upraised, in direct contrast to The Hierophant raising his left hand in benediction. In his left hand, the Devil holds a great flaming torch inverted towards the earth. A reversed pentagram is on his forehead.

Eliphas Levi says in his book, Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual that:

"A reversed pentagram, with two points projecting upwards, is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates." In Native American tarot, the attribution is often more complex than this.

Definition

Some frequent keywords used by tarot readers are:

• Materialism ----- Ignorance ----- Stagnation ----- Self-bondage

• Lust ----- Egoism ----- Obsession ----- Anxiety ----- Anger

• Ganance ----- Hedonism ----- Passion ----- instincts

• Sexuality ------ Temptation ----- doubt ----- Vice

• Futility ----- Physical attraction ----- Pessimism ----- insight

You guys, that all Tarot decks used for divination are interpreted according to personal experience and standards.

Interpretation

The Devil is the card of self-bondage to an idea or belief which is preventing a person from growing or being healthy—an example might be a belief that getting drunk each night is good for you. On the other hand, however, it can also be a warning to someone who is too restrained and/or dispassionate and never allows him or herself to be rash or wild or ambitious, which is yet another form of enslavement.

The Devil is the 15th card of the Major Arcana, and is associated with earth and Capricorn. Though many decks portray a stereotypical Satan figure for this card, it is more accurately represented by our bondage to material things rather than by any evil persona. It also indicates an obsession or addiction to fulfilling our own earthly base desires. Should the Devil represent a person, it will most likely be one of money and power, one who is persuasive, aggressive, and controlling. In any case, it is most important that the querent understands that the ties that bind are freely worn.

Mythopoetic approach

The Devil is both the Ur-Adversary, and a tremendous source of strength. He represents nearly an inexhaustible source of energy. Battling him gives us strength. Submitting to him completely is ego-death.

As with The Magician (Tarot card), the iconography of most of the standard Tarot suits appear. His wings represent Air, the suit of Swords. The torch in his hands, and the flames in the tail of the male devil represent Fire, the suit of Wands. The grapes in the tail of the female devil invoke Earth; the same grapes appear in most of the cards in the suit of Disks. Only water, Cups are missing. On one level, this is curious; water is of the unconscious, and The Devil dwells in the subconscious.(fact|date=April 2009) On another level it is heartbreaking; what is missing from the Devil’s realm is The Grail, the kindly blessings of the Cup.

Perhaps to make up for the lack of water, the kindlier aspects of this card can be seen in the Two of Cups.

If the Major Arcana is analogized to the Sun’s circle across the sky, The Devil governs the Sun at midnight, when it is most vulnerable to the Old Night. The ancient Egyptians tell of the demon Apophis, Chaos, who would sometimes lay in wait for Ra as he piloted the boat of the Sun down the Nile to be born again in the morning. Sometimes, Apophis would swallow the sun. Mercifully, the reversals of the night brought Set to an unlikely rescue; he ripped Apophis open and let the Sun escape. Set, The Devil, is the adversary but sometimes, he is our best and only ally.

In Jungian terms, he is The Shadow: all the repressed, unmentioned or unmentionable desires that lurk beneath.

The Devil is related both through his cross sum (sum of the digits) and his iconography with Key VI, The Lovers. Both cards speak to our drives; the drives that take us out of the garden; the drives that make us hard, make us warm, make us live. The central character in each is winged; each lives in the archetypal ether. Each is crowned: the Angel in The Lovers with fire, The Devil by a Pentagram and ram’s horns. Above each rides a naked man and a naked woman. But in The Lovers, there is still some sense of newness, wholesomeness, and hope; in The Devil they are chained by the neck and partially transformed into creatures of the underworld; transformed by their taste of the darkness; by the fruit of the underworld.

The chains are loose. They can be slipped. The Devil’s own torch can light the way out and light the return, back to the surface.

so, yeah.. that's how "THE DEVIL" card is. however it is my favorite card. what your favorite card? maybe in my next post, i will discuss my other favorite card, "WHEEL OF FORTUNE". :P