Tag: the major arcana

XV. The Devil

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Keywords for The Devil 

IGNORANCE HOPELESSNESS
OBSESSION DESPAIR
DARKNESS DOUBT
LIMITATION DEBAUCHERY
BONDAGE ADDICTION

In the image on this card, we see the Devil represented not as Lucifer, bringer of light, but instead as Baphomet, part man, part goat, with the wings of a bat and feet of a bird. In this form, he is representative of the forces of darkness. 

This is further reinforced by the dark mark, perhaps a stigmata, we see etched into the palm of his right hand. It is the glyph for Saturn, planet of limitation, restriction, and boundaries. Saturn also represents incorporation into physical form, along with all the physical limitations inherent in materiality. 

This symbol, like many other elements here, is as if to say, “This is it—the physical, material world you see before your eyes is all there is—nothing more is possible.” It asks us to forget the spiritual, to tie our hopes and desires to the physical only. It encourages blind consumption, sex without soul, obsession with form and ignorance of spirit.

This is further echoed by the appearance of the man and woman standing with chains around their necks by the feet of the Devil. They are parallel figures to the pair we saw earlier, blessed by Archangel Raphael, in the Lovers card. 

Here, they appear with a set of horns on their heads, indicating their animal-like nature. There are no trees as we saw earlier in the Garden of Eden. Instead, the woman herself bears the fruit, her tail extending behind her as a ripe bunch of grapes. 

The man’s tail is made entirely of fire, likely an allusion to the libido, or sexual life force energy. He holds his right hand with palm facing up, touching the clawed feet of the Devil. 

It is interesting to note that the Devil himself lights his torch from the flames produced by the fiery energy of the man in this image. It is as if to say that the ideas represented by the Devil (bondage, ignorance, focus on the physical instead of the spiritual) springs from the sexual impulses of man when uncontrolled or unskillfully expressed.

NOTE: The Tarot card meaning description is based on the Rider Waite cards.

The Devil Interpretation

When the Devil comes up in a tarot reading, it can refer to the feeling of being trapped, despondent, or hopeless. We may despair of ever finding a way out of our difficult and limiting circumstances. 

This card can also speak to themes around captivity, bondage or enslavement. We may feel like we are in chains, bound to a destructive force that is much greater than ourselves. This often takes the form of overindulgence in or addiction to various substances such as drugs and alcohol, as well as process addictions like shopping or gambling.

It also speaks to obsessions, especially those of a romantic or sexual nature, where we may feel compelled by physical drives to engage in relationships or other forms of social interaction which we know on some level are ultimately unhealthy for us.

A central theme of this card revolves around what value we attribute to the physical & material elements of our world. The upside down pentagram which we see suspended at the crown of the Devil’s head provides a key to understanding these themes more deeply. 

The pentagram, right side up, is a five pointed star meant to represent the human body and our relationship to the five elements. The top point of the star represents the head, the two sides the arms, and the lower points the legs and feet. 

Right side up, the pentagram has the head over the heart and body, in a relationship of “mind over matter,” where our desires are informed and directed by our reason and higher mind.

Inverted, the Devil’s pentagram signifies desire over reason, and matter over spirit. In this case, we let our lower animal passions drive our conscious mind. Instead of utilizing our consciousness constructively, reason is instead used solely for the purpose of rationalization, to justify wrongs done in the name of passion. 

When we allow our “lower” (or our unexamined or unmediated) desires to rule our lives, we find that our entire system can be thrown off balance. 

It often expresses itself in what we might call the “sins” of materialism. Materialism is not simply an obsession with money and the physical objects it can buy, but also a more philosophical orientation towards the world that holds that nothing exists beyond the world of the senses. This is especially common in the modern scientific outlook which holds that if it cannot be measured, then it must not exist.

Remember that the word “sin” originated as a latin term from archery meaning “to miss the mark.” With this in mind, we see how this obsession with form is not necessarily “evil” per se, but simply misses the mark. It is incomplete, and as such, fails to draw a complete picture of our reality. 

Unfortunately, this failure of perception results in grave errors that undermine our experience and even our capacity for continued existence on this living planet Earth. We can see this today, for example, in overconsumption, the drive for endless economic growth, and its relationship to climate change and environmental destruction.

This is the bad news. The good news is that we are not condemned to continue the errors of the past. Look at the chains which hold the woman and man on this card. They hang loose around their necks. It would be so easy to remove them and become free. 

First, they would need to become aware of their bondage, and recognize the falsehood of the lies which have held them chained. Liberation would then become inevitable. For those who have developed the eyes to see, it would then be a simple task to lift the chains from off one’s neck, drop the lies, and step into the future free from the limitations of ignorance.

VIII. Strength

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Keywords for Strength 

SELF-CONTROLFORTITUDE
INNER RESOURCESSOFT POWER
DISCIPLINECOURAGE
RESILIENCEVITALITY
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCEKUNDALINI

It is late afternoon, and a warm and vibrantly energizing yellow sunlight permeates the air, illuminating the landscape we see all around us. On our left, we can see the high peak of a distant gray mountaintop in shadow, the very same mountain which we first saw earlier in the Lovers card.

There is a certain peace and serenity which permeates the atmosphere. There is still much energy left of the day, but we are now at a point when the power of the Sun is under control. We are no longer burned by its heat, but gently warmed by the life energy calmly exuded by this center of solar energy.

Directly in front of us stands a woman in white, wearing a crown of flowers on her head. She also wears a garland of roses, one which ties her, in an elegant figure 8, to the lion at her feet.

Gently, tenderly, with an attitude of the utmost care, she holds the open jaws of this king of the animal kingdom, the lion. In return, he looks up at her with an attitude of loving submission. For the woman has learned how to tame the wildest and most powerful of beasts: with attention and respect, with care and with love. 

A lesser person would have responded to the ferocious strength and power of the lion with fear, with fury, with a violence meant to destroy. But the woman, who bears much in common with the Empress, knows better—she knows that strength and power is nothing to be feared. Treated with respect and love, the raw, primal energies of this red lion are instead a force to be tamed, to be controlled with disciplined attention and careful responsiveness. 

To try to suppress or kill this energy would be a tragedy; to misunderstand the lion as a threat is a grave error, for he represents a force which is ours to be harnessed. It is one which, with the right attitude, can ultimately show us greater power than we could have ever imagined possible. 

The key lies in the garland of roses which tie the woman and the lion together. Roses represent our desire nature, the forces of love and attraction which propel us forward into the future, which draw our destiny towards us. The lion represents the raw power of our uncultivated emotions, our primal, animal level of the subconscious. When we can direct the raw energy of these emotions and direct our own difficult feelings with compassion and care, we often find that we have access to a kind of power previously impossible to imagine. 

NOTE: The Tarot card meaning description is based on the Rider Waite cards.

Strength Interpretation

When Strength comes up in a tarot reading, we are often being asked to act in a way that demonstrates true inner strength and courage. 

The quality of strength as demonstrated in this card has little to do with the common cultural conceptions many of us hold around this idea. Strength here is in fact the opposite of the show of force that our cultures so values. True strength is the antithesis of the violent expression of personal will that we mistakenly often take to be true power. 

Instead of dominance and coercion, we see a strength whose expression is truly much more powerful. This kind of strength relies on inner resources, and is dependent upon our cultivation of discipline and genuine self-control. 

On a more esoteric level, the lion is a representation of our primal (some would say “lower”) animal nature. It symbolizes the raw energy of kundalini that comes from our deepest inner sources. 

It is the “libido” that Carl Jung speaks of, which, in contrast to Freud, is not simply a shameful sexual impulse, but rather the vital life force energy that animates all which moves and breathes and has its being in the world. 

Our desires, our feelings, our emotions are nothing to be feared. They must not be repressed or denied through oppressive tactics.

They are instead a force to be respected, a force to be honored, a force to be gently and lovingly guided in the direction of our highest vision and most elevated ideals. 

XIII. Death

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Keywords for Death 

TRANSFORMATIONMETAMORPHOSIS
CHANGERELEASE
EVOLUTIONTRANSMUTATION
LETTING GOREBIRTH
RELEASING THE PASTNEW POTENTIAL

In the image on the card, we enter upon a gray, gloomy morning scene. Although we can see the sun rising in the east between two towers, it still remains an overcast, cloudy, and desolate looking day.

Upon a snow white horse with blood red eyes, Death comes riding in. In contrast, this skeletal figure wears a suit of armor colored entirely black. In his dry, bony left hand, he bears his standard: a black flag with one single, white five-petaled rose printed upon it. 

He is not the only figure on the scene, however. There are four others who share the stage with him.

First, there is the king, the first victim to be taken by death’s hand. He lies face up on his back, completely vanquished by the incontestable power of death’s command. He symbolizes the conscious mind, as well as the ego. His total surrender unto death speaks of how the ego fares when coming up against change. It tends to interpret any challenge to its stability, any potential for evolution, as a death sentence for the power and control it is so focused on maintaining. 

Next, we can look to the figure of the maiden. She is on her knees, kneeling slumped over, as if asleep. Like many female figures in the tarot, she represents the subconscious mind, as well as our emotions. It is interesting to note that she appears to be the same woman depicted on an earlier card, Strength. This would refer more specifically to the life-force energy, the desire nature as expressed in the force of kundalini which courses through our bodies. 

Between the king and the maiden, we see a young boy. He does not fear, and neither does he surrender. Instead, he holds a small bouquet of flowers up towards Death in both hands. He knows not, and so fears not, the tremendous power of death to put an end to all. 

And so he greets him with a sincere expression of acceptance and welcome. Unlike the two people before him, his ego has not had a chance to fully develop; he has not yet developed the rigid defenses, habit patterns, and attachments that his counterparts have in some measure fallen victim to. 

By far, the strangest figure is the last one: it is clearly none other than the pope, “father” and head of the Roman Catholic Church. He is draped in an extravagant golden robe, one made of the most extravagant and costly fabric, and embroidered with various symbols of his faith.

Beneath his equally costly gold mitre, we can see his visibly red cheeks blushing, indicating an extreme state of excitement—or is it fear? We see him hold his hands up in prayer, and he stares directly into the hollow eye sockets of the black horseman in front of him, all with a seeming attitude of intense supplication.

Perhaps it is simply that he anxiously awaits the promised land of heaven he has so adamantly assured us all is our reward for compliance to earthly authority. However, it seems quite possible that there are more complex meanings regarding religious authority, power, transformation and death that A. E. Waite sought to provoke in the unusual depiction of the pontiff seen here.

NOTE: The Tarot card meaning description is based on the Rider Waite cards.

Interpretation of Death in a Reading

When the Death card comes up in a reading, it most often indicates an experience of transformation and change. 

Among it’s positive significations, this card can mean getting rid of old possessions, clearing away old habits, and discarding what no longer serves us. It can signal a willingness to step into new ways of being in the world that are more truly aligned with who we are.

However, although there are surprisingly many positive applications of the Death card in a reading, the truth is that many still fear it. And it is not without good reason: this card can also mean loss, disappointment, and letting go of what we once held dear. In certain contexts, it can mean the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, or disconnection from friends we once cared deeply for. 

Most often, we find that these are situations that have long since outlived their usefulness. The Death card signals a natural end to an existence which has run its course. 

It marks the dissolution of a system which is no longer useful or adequately functional. The energy thus liberated from the strictures of old forms can then be harnessed and utilized in service of what is to take shape next.

We tend to experience this process as painful because of our attachment to the past. However, we can choose instead to have faith in the natural order of things, and to trust that we must die to the past if we are to be born to the new.