A querent once stared at a spread where The Star appeared beside The Forces of Evil and asked: “Does the universe hate me?” The cards had no malice in them. Comparing The Star (XVII) and The Forces of Evil (XV, often miscalled The Devil) in Tarot reveals two faces of the same human tension: the pull between liberation and bondage. One offers water poured into a dry world. The other shows chains that the wearer can slip at any moment.
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A comparative analysis of The Star and The Forces of Evil in Tarot: how these two cards define liberation, bondage, hope, and shadow in the Major Arcana.
Definition: What Each Card Actually Says
The Star is Major Arcana XVII. A naked woman kneels beside a pool, pouring water from two vessels. One stream falls onto earth. One falls back into the water. Above her, an eight-pointed star radiates light. The card means hope, clarity, calm after crisis, and a quiet trust in the universe’s order.
The Forces of Evil is Major Arcana XV. A horned figure with bat wings sits on a stone block. Two human figures are chained to the block. The chains are loose. The figures appear trapped. The card means addiction, materialism, ignorance, and the voluntary surrender of freedom. It is not the Christian devil. It is the shadow of attachment.
These are not opposites. They are the before and after of the same journey. The Forces of Evil shows the moment a person chooses to stay bound. The Star shows the moment that person chooses to pour.
Where These Cards Entered the Tarot Record
Playing cards reached Europe by the late 14th century. The first surviving Tarot decks date to the 1450s, painted for the Visconti-Sforza court in Milan. Neither The Star nor The Forces of Evil appeared in those early decks as we know them now.
The Star emerged from the 15th-century Italian tradition as “La Stella,” one of the four cardinal virtues in the celestial ladder. It had no fixed symbolism. In the Sola-Busca Tarot (1491), she holds a star in each hand and stands on a celestial globe. The forces of evil figure appeared as “Il Diavolo,” a composite of the goat-headed god Pan and the Christian tempter. The Visconti-Sforza Devil has a lion’s mane, bat wings, and a third face on its belly. The two human prisoners were not always present.
The breakthrough came in 1910. A.E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith published the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Waite was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a magical society that merged Christian mysticism, Kabbalah, and Egyptian symbolism. He assigned each card specific imagery drawn from his study of alchemy and astrology.
Smith gave The Star a naked woman pouring water from two urns. Waite called her “the hope of the future.” He gave The Forces of Evil a goat-headed figure on a cube, with two chained humans who could leave if they wanted. Waite wrote that the card represents “the obsession of the material world.”
That design became the standard. Before 1910, The Star was often a woman holding a single star or standing on a wheel. The Forces of Evil was a straightforward devil figure. Waite and Smith turned both cards into psychological states rather than external agents.
Symbolism: Water and Stone, Freedom and Chain
The two cards use the same symbolic language to say opposite things.
The Star runs on water imagery. Two vessels. Two streams. One pours onto earth, the living world. One pours back into the pool, the source. This is the circulation of life: receiving and giving, inspiration and expression. The water is clear. The pool is still. The woman is naked, which means no armor, no pretense, no protection. She stands fully exposed to the universe and trusts it.
The eight-pointed star above her combines the four elements (earth, air, fire, water) with the four directions. It is the star of Venus, the planet of love and art, and the star of Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of fertility. The single bird in the background is the ibis of Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom and writing.
The Forces of Evil runs on stone imagery. The central figure sits on a cube, which is the shape of the physical world. He has goat horns (Pan, nature), bat wings (darkness, blind flight), and a pentagram inverted on his forehead. The raised right hand with the palm down echoes the blessing gesture of the Hierophant (V), but reversed. This is the Hierophant of the material world: the teacher who tells you to stay small.
The two human figures have chains around their necks. The chains are loose. They could step off. They do not. Their bodies are the same size and shape as the central figure. Waite intended this: the chains are self-imposed. The prisoners are not victims of an external devil. They are victims of their own refusal to leave.
The Star has no chains. It does not need them. The water does not resist.
How These Cards Appear in Practice
Readers encounter these cards in very different contexts.
The Star tends to appear after a catastrophe. In a spread, it follows The Tower (XVI), the card of sudden collapse. The Star says: you are through the worst of it. The wound is clean. Rest now. Pour what you have. It is not a card of action. It is a card of convalescence.
The Forces of Evil appears when the querent repeats a pattern. Addiction. Toxic relationship. Financial trap. Job that eats the soul. The card says: you know what is wrong. You are choosing it. The chain is loose.
A standard Celtic Cross spread places The Star in Position 10 (outcome) when the querent has survived something. It promises that life will return to balance. The Forces of Evil in Position 6 (immediate future) warns that the querent is about to make a choice that binds them.
Some readers find The Star easier to interpret because its meaning is positive. The Forces of Evil requires a conversation about agency. The reader must say: “This card does not mean someone cursed you. It means you are holding onto something that hurts you.”
Both cards benefit from the same question: “What are you holding?”
The Alchemical Connection: Solve et Coagula
The two cards map onto the alchemical operations of dissolution and coagulation.
The Star is solve: dissolve. The water pours, the structure breaks, the individual returns to the source. In alchemy, dissolution is not destruction. It is reduction to the prima materia, the raw matter that can be reformed. The Star says: let it fall apart. Something cleaner will come.
The Forces of Evil is coagula: coagulate. The stone is fixed. The bodies are fixed. The chain is a solid object that holds the neck. The card says: you have made something solid that you cannot (or will not) unmake. This is the stage where the alchemist refuses to break the vessel.
In the traditional alchemical sequence, dissolution must precede coagulation. The Star must come before The Forces of Evil, or the coercion is permanent. The Tarot sequence places The Star (XVII) after The Tower (XVI) and before The Moon (XVIII). The Forces of Evil (XV) comes before The Tower. Chronologically, the chain breaks before the water flows.
But the sequence is not linear in practice. Querents cycle between these states. They bind, break, dissolve, and coagulate again.
Common Misconceptions About These Cards
Three misunderstandings persist.
First: that The Forces of Evil means literal demonic influence. It does not. No mainstream Tarot tradition reads it that way. The Golden Dawn, the Thoth deck, and the Marseilles deck all interpret XV as materialism, ignorance, or self-imposed limitation. The card has no horns in the Marseilles tradition. The figure is a satyr at worst. The “evil” in the card is the evil of staying small.
Second: that The Star promises unlimited abundance. It does not. The Star offers peace, not luxury. The water pours, but the woman is naked. She owns nothing. The card is about sufficiency, not excess.
Third: that the two cards are opposites that cancel each other. They are not. They are sequential states in the same trajectory. A spread that contains both cards is not confused. It is describing a person who has been bound and is now beginning to dissolve.
FAQ
Can The Forces of Evil ever be a positive card? Yes. In readings about material success, it can mean mastery of the physical world, wealth, or sexual liberation. But most readers treat it as a warning about attachment.
Which card is harder to interpret in a reading? The Forces of Evil requires more conversation. The Star is straightforward: rest, hope, recovery. The Forces of Evil demands that the reader ask what the querent is refusing to leave.
Does The Star always follow The Tower? Not in every spread. But the two cards are historically linked. In the Tarot sequence, The Tower (XVI) collapses the false structure, and The Star (XVII) offers the renewal.
Are these cards associated with specific zodiac signs? The Star corresponds to Aquarius (air, fixed, future-oriented). The Forces of Evil corresponds to Capricorn (earth, cardinal, ambition and limitation). Astrological associations vary by tradition.
Closing
The Star and The Forces of Evil share the same subject: the human will. One shows what happens when we give that will up. The other shows what happens when we pour it out. The chains are always loose. The water is always flowing. The question is which one you are holding. For deeper study, explore the full Major Arcana sequence, the glossary entry on alchemical symbolism, and our guide to reading shadow cards in Tarot.