The Devil

The Devil (XV) is the sixteenth card of the Major Arcana in Tarot, representing bondage, materialism, and the shadow self. In a reading, it signals patterns of attachment or temptation that hold power only as long as they remain unexamined.

The chains are loose enough to remove.

That is the detail that changes everything about this card. Look closely at the two figures at the Devil's feet. They wear chains around their necks, yes. But the chains are loose. They could lift them off at any moment. They could walk away. They choose not to. Perhaps they do not realise the chains are loose. Perhaps they have grown comfortable. Perhaps the bondage has become so familiar it feels like home.

That is the Devil's real power: not force, but forgetting.

At a Glance

Visual Traditions: Three Decks

The Major Arcana's imagery varies significantly across the three major traditions. Understanding these differences deepens your reading of any deck.

Rider-Waite-Smith (1909) · The image shown above.

Tarot de Marseille (17th-18th century) · The Marseille Diable is a more chaotic, folk-art figure: a winged demon with an ambiguously gendered body, clawed feet, and an extra face on the belly. Two small demons are chained at the base. The image is more carnivalesque than sinister, closer to a medieval morality play than the RWS version's Hermetic symbolism.

Thoth Tarot (1943) · Crowley's Devil features a powerful goat figure with a third eye, set against a background of twisted, phallic forms. The imagery is overtly sexual and unapologetically dark. Crowley saw the Devil as creative energy in its rawest form: the force that drives both creation and destruction.

Key Imagery and Symbolism

A great, dark, winged figure (Baphomet: part goat, part human, part bat) sits on a dark pedestal. The right hand is raised in an inverted Hierophant's blessing (the dark teaching). An inverted pentagram (spirit subordinated to matter) sits on the forehead. A flaming torch held downward (light inverted, enlightenment perverted).

Two small naked figures, a man and a woman reminiscent of the Lovers card, stand chained to the pedestal by loose chains around their necks. They have small horns and tails, suggesting they are becoming like the Devil through their attachment. The chains are loose enough to remove; the bondage is voluntary, though the captives may not realise it.

What The Devil Means

Upright

Bondage, addiction, materialism, shadow, temptation, obsession, attachment, co-dependency, ignorance, illusion of entrapment. The chains that bind you are of your own making. Confrontation with what controls you.

The Devil upright appears when you need to face what has power over you. Addiction, obsession, toxic relationships, compulsive behaviour, materialism, or any pattern that keeps you stuck in a loop of short-term pleasure and long-term suffering. The Devil says: look at what controls you. The first step to freedom is seeing the chains.

Reversed

Release, breaking free, reclaiming power, overcoming addiction, facing the shadow, freedom from illusion, detachment. The chains fall away.

Reversed, the Devil is a powerful liberation card. You are breaking free from a pattern of bondage, seeing through an illusion that has held you, or finally acknowledging and releasing an addiction or compulsion. The reversed Devil says: the chains are coming off. The shadow is being seen, and seeing it is the first step to freedom.

How Position and Surrounding Cards Shift the Meaning

Next to the Lovers, the Devil reveals the shadow of love: obsession instead of devotion, bondage instead of union. Next to the Tower, the Devil's illusions are about to be shattered. Next to Strength, the question is whether instinct is being befriended or enslaved.

The Devil in a relationship spread calls for honest examination of power dynamics, codependency, and whether the attraction is love or addiction.

The Archetype: A Jungian Perspective

The Shadow: specifically the collective or archetypal shadow, the dark aspect of the Self. The Devil represents everything the conscious ego has denied, repressed, and projected: lust, greed, rage, cruelty, selfishness, power-hunger. In Jungian terms, the Devil is not an external evil but an internal reality: the shadow side of every virtue, the darkness that accompanies every light.

The loose chains indicate that shadow-bondage is maintained by unconsciousness, not by actual imprisonment. The moment one recognises the shadow, one can choose to remove the chains. The Devil is the 'dark aspect of the Self': the totality of the psyche includes darkness, and wholeness requires acknowledging it.

The Fool's Journey: The Devil's Place in the Story

The Fool enters the darkest territory. After the careful integration of Temperance, the Fool must now confront the shadow: everything that has been denied, repressed, and projected. The Devil teaches: 'Look at what controls you. Your addictions, your compulsions, your unconscious patterns: they are chains you have placed on yourself. Recognise them, and you can remove them.'

Previous: Temperance · Next: The Tower

The Devil in Love, Work, and Health

Love and Relationships

Upright in love, the Devil points to passion that has a shadow side: obsession, codependency, power games, or a relationship where one partner controls the other. It can also indicate powerful physical attraction that overrides good judgement. The Devil in love says: examine the power dynamics. Is this love or addiction?

Reversed in love, the Devil signals breaking free from a toxic relationship, releasing an unhealthy attachment, or finally seeing through the illusion that has kept you bound to the wrong person.

Career and Finances

In career readings, the Devil points to feeling trapped: golden handcuffs, toxic work environments, or professional ambition that has become obsession. It can indicate workaholic patterns, unethical business practices, or the sense that you have sold your soul for material success.

Reversed in career, the Devil suggests liberation: leaving a toxic job, breaking free from professional patterns that no longer serve you, or refusing to compromise your values for financial gain.

For students exploring the Major Arcana in depth, Evelynne Joffe's course The Devil: Scapegoat and Lightbringer explores the Devil card's dual nature as both scapegoat and lightbringer through Kabbalistic and Jungian lenses.

Health and Wellbeing

The Devil connects to addiction, compulsive behaviour, and the physical consequences of excess. Upright, it may indicate substance abuse, eating disorders, or any health pattern driven by compulsion rather than choice.

Reversed, it suggests recovery from addiction, the beginning of a healthier relationship with the body, and the courage to face health-related shadow material.

Esoteric Correspondences

Kabbalah

The Devil corresponds to Ayin, the eye: the organ of perception, but also the evil eye. Seeing, but seeing without spiritual insight. On the Tree of Life, the Devil walks Path 26, connecting Tiferet (Beauty/Heart) to Hod (Splendour/Intellect). This is the path from the heart to the intellect: when the mind operates without the heart, it produces the Devil's cold rationality.

For more on the paths of the Tree of Life and their Tarot correspondences, see the complete Kabbalah paths guide.

Astrology

Capricorn: ambition, material mastery, authority, the goat, the mountain climber, structure, the shadow side of achievement. Capricorn's energy builds empires but can also become the prison of material success. The Devil's Capricornian nature is the ambition that forgets why it was climbing.

Numerology

Fifteen: 1+5=6, linking the Devil directly to the Lovers. The Devil is the shadow of love: obsession instead of devotion, bondage instead of union, addiction instead of attraction. The Lovers reversed, darkened, chained. This numerological link is one of the deepest in the entire deck.

Element

Earth (via Capricorn): material entrapment, the heaviness of unspiritualized matter, the gravity of attachment. The Devil's earth is not the Empress's fertile garden but the mine: underground, dark, and valuable only to those willing to descend into it.

Card Pairings and Relationships

Every Major Arcana card takes on different dimensions depending on its neighbours. These pairings are not fixed rules but starting points for interpretation.

• The Devil + The Lovers (love and its shadow): The deepest mirror in the deck. 6 and 15 (1+5=6). Union and bondage. Choice and compulsion. The Lovers choose with open eyes; the Devil's captives choose with eyes closed.

• The Devil + The Tower (bondage and liberation): The Devil binds; the Tower frees. The lightning bolt shatters the Devil's illusions. This is often the most transformative two-card sequence in a reading.

• The Devil + Strength (tamed vs enslaved): The Magician column: 1, 8, 15. The Magician creates; Strength befriends; the Devil binds. Three expressions of the same personal power.

• The Devil + Temperance (balance and excess): Temperance's careful moderation tested by the Devil's temptation to excess. Can you maintain balance in the face of compulsion?

• The Devil + The Star (bondage and freedom): After the Devil's darkness, the Star's light. The soul stripped bare (Devil) heals under starlight (Star). Two cards apart, worlds apart.

• The Devil + The Moon (unconscious compulsion): The Devil's bondage deepened by the Moon's illusions. The most disorienting pairing: shadows upon shadows, illusions reinforcing compulsions.

• The Devil + The Magician (creation and manipulation): The same skill used for different purposes. The Magician creates; the Devil manipulates. Brilliance with ethics versus brilliance without.

• The Devil + Death (the shadow dies): When the Devil's patterns are finally released (Death), genuine transformation becomes possible. The death of addiction. The death of bondage.

Related Cards

Row 3: Superconscious / Cosmic Forces · cards in the Devil's realm of cosmic confrontation:
- The Tower · XVI · The shattering that follows the Devil's revelation
- Temperance · XIV · The balance that the Devil disrupts

Numerological column (1-8-15) · cards sharing the Devil's vertical correspondence:
- The Magician · I · Personal power in its creative form
- Strength · VIII · Personal power expressed through compassionate mastery

Cards of shadow and bondage · cards sharing the Devil's quality of confrontation with darkness:
- The Moon · XVIII · The deep unconscious: the Devil's territory expanded
- Death · XIII · The transformation that breaks the Devil's chains

Explore the Major Arcana Further

The Devil is one of 22 archetypal encounters in the Major Arcana · and its meaning deepens when read alongside the cards that surround it. If you are drawn to the Tarot's psychological and spiritual dimensions, these courses offer a guided path from first reading to archetypal mastery.

Recommended courses:

• A Jungian Approach to the Tarot · Archetypal analysis and psychological depth through the Tarot · Taught by Mary K. Greer
• Major Arcana Only Readings · Reading techniques using only the 22 Trumps · Taught by Rachel Pollack
• Tarot on the Tree of Life · Major Arcana as paths on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life · Taught by Evelynne Joffe

For the complete guide to all 22 Major Arcana cards, visit The Major Arcana: Complete Guide to the 22 Trumps.

For a comprehensive introduction to reading all 78 Tarot cards, see How to Read Tarot Cards: A Complete Guide.

← Temperance · XIV | The Tower · XVI →