In this guide

A Marseille deck from 1760 shows The Devil bound to a block, his wings spread like a bat’s, his hand raised in a gesture that could be a blessing or a curse. The card next to it in a spread will decide which. The relationship between The Devil and other major arcana cards is not a fixed hierarchy but a living grammar of temptation, bondage, and liberation where every pairing redefines what the Devil means. The card does not stand alone. It only speaks when something stands beside it.

What The Devil Actually Represents in the Tarot

What The Devil Actually Represents in the Tarot

The Devil is major arcana card XV, numbered 15, which places it between Temperance (XIV) and The Tower (XVI). In the Rider-Waite-Smith system (published 1909), the card shows a goat-headed figure on a pedestal, two chained figures below, a torch held aloft. The chains around their necks are loose. They could step out of them. That detail is the card’s entire argument: the bondage is self-imposed.

Aleister Crowley’s Thoth deck (1944) renamed the card “The Lord of the Gates of Matter” and replaced the goat with a goat-headed figure fused with a pentagram, the whole thing surrounded by flames. Crowley wrote in The Book of Thoth that the card represents “the creative energy in its most material form.” The chains are not external. They are the limits we mistake for identity.

The card carries associations with Saturn (the planet of limitation, structure, karma) and the Hebrew letter Ayin, meaning “eye.” In the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, The Devil corresponds to the sephirah Hod (splendor) on the path connecting Tiphareth (beauty) and Netzach (victory). This is not a card of evil. It is a card of fixation.

History: How The Devil Entered the Tarot

History How The Devil Entered the Tarot

The earliest known tarot decks, the Visconti-Sforza cards from mid-15th century Milan, included a Devil card. The Visconti-Sforza Devil (c. 1450) shows a horned figure with a child on his back, a woman at his feet, his body covered in flames. The imagery drew directly from medieval Christian iconography of Satan as tempter and punisher. But the tarot’s Devil was never purely theological. It was also a carnival figure, a trickster, a reminder that the world’s pleasures come with costs.

The French occultist Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) reshaped the card’s meaning in his 1855 work Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. Levi identified the Devil with Baphomet, the alleged idol of the Knights Templar, and drew the famous “Sabbatic Goat” illustration that later influenced both the Rider-Waite and Thoth decks. For Levi, the figure was not Satan but the “Goat of Mendes,” a symbol of the generative forces of nature that Christianity had demonized.

A.E. Waite, writing in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), explicitly rejected Levi’s interpretation. Waite called the card “a monument of the old ignorance” but admitted its power. His version kept the goat-headed figure but added the loose chains, a detail he considered the very crux of the card’s meaning. The card, Waite wrote, shows “the bondage of the material world” from which the seeker must free themselves.

Pamela Colman Smith, who drew the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, gave the two chained figures the faces of a man and a woman, their tails ending in flames. The woman’s tail bears grapes, the man’s a star. They have not yet eaten the fruit. They have not yet reached for the light. They stand at the threshold of choice.

The Devil and The Magician: The Shadow of Will

The Magician (I) and The Devil share the same hand gesture. The Magician raises one hand to heaven, one to earth. The Devil raises one hand in a blessing, one hand in a curse. The Magician channels divine will. The Devil channels fixation. Together in a spread, they ask: what are you using your power to create, and what are you using it to hold in place?

When The Devil appears with The Magician, the querent’s will is strong but misdirected. The Magician’s tools are on the table. The Devil’s tools are the chains. The question becomes: are you building something real, or are you building a cage and calling it a temple?

In the Thoth deck, this pairing takes on an alchemical dimension. The Magician corresponds to Mercury, the fluid principle. The Devil corresponds to Saturn, the fixed principle. Mercury without Saturn is chaos. Saturn without Mercury is paralysis. The cards together describe the tension between movement and structure, between the will to change and the will to hold.

The Devil and The Hierophant: Two Kinds of Authority

The Hierophant (V) and The Devil both sit on thrones. Both wear crowns. Both raise a hand in a gesture of teaching or commanding. The Hierophant represents orthodox tradition, institutional knowledge, the transmission of wisdom through established channels. The Devil represents the shadow of that same structure: dogma that has become prison, authority that has become control.

When these cards appear together, the spread is asking about the nature of the authority the querent accepts. Is the teacher legitimate? Is the doctrine liberating or binding? The Hierophant’s keys unlock doors. The Devil’s keys lock them. The difference is not in the keys but in who holds them and why.

In Marseille decks, the visual echo is even stronger. The Hierophant sits between two pillars. The Devil stands on a block between two smaller pillars. Both cards use the same architectural frame. The content is what changes.

The Devil and The Lovers: The Choice That Binds

The Lovers (VI) and The Devil are the same story told twice. The Lovers shows a man and a woman before an angel, a choice between innocence and knowledge. The Devil shows a man and a woman chained to a block, having made the choice and discovered its cost. The Lovers is the question. The Devil is the answer that comes with consequences.

In the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, The Lovers corresponds to the path between Binah (understanding) and Tiphareth (beauty). The Devil corresponds to the path between Hod (splendor) and Tiphareth. Both paths lead to the same center. One moves through love. One moves through matter. The difference is the route, not the destination.

When these cards appear together in a reading, the question is almost always about a relationship that has become binding. The Lovers chose freely. The Devil shows what happens when the choice is not revisited. The chains are loose. The question is why the figures stay.

The Devil and The Tower: The Collapse That Frees

The Tower (XVI) follows The Devil in the major arcana sequence. The Tower shows a structure struck by lightning, two figures falling, flames consuming the crown. The Devil shows the structure before the lightning. The Tower is the consequence of the Devil’s fixation.

Together, these two cards describe the moment when a self-imposed prison breaks. The Devil holds the pattern. The Tower shatters it. The falling figures in The Tower are the chained figures from The Devil, now released. The fall is violent. The fall is also liberation.

In practical reading, this pairing appears when a situation has become unsustainable. The Devil shows what the querent is clinging to. The Tower shows what will happen if they do not let go. The cards do not offer a gentle exit. They offer a choice between voluntary release and forced collapse.

The Devil and The Star: The Light After the Bondage

The Star (XVII) follows The Tower in the sequence. The Star shows a naked woman pouring water from two jars, one into a pool, one onto the land. The Devil shows the same nakedness but in chains. The Star shows the same body but free.

The relationship between these two cards is one of healing. The Devil represents the wound. The Star represents the scar. The Devil shows what the querent has been fixated on. The Star shows what becomes possible when the fixation dissolves. The water in The Star is the same element that appears in The Devil’s torch flame. The fire becomes water. The heat becomes flow.

In the Thoth deck, this pairing is explicit. Crowley placed The Star directly after The Tower, with The Devil as the pivot. The sequence is: fixation, collapse, renewal. The Devil is not the end of the story. The Devil is the middle.

The Devil and The Moon: The Fear That Shapes

The Moon (XVIII) and The Devil both deal with the irrational. The Moon shows a path between two towers, a wolf and a dog howling, a crayfish emerging from water. The Devil shows a block between two pillars, two chained figures, a torch. Both cards describe what happens when the conscious mind loses control.

The Moon is the fear of the unknown. The Devil is the fear of the known. The Moon’s terror is formless. The Devil’s terror has a face. Together, they describe a state of deep psychological entanglement where the querent cannot distinguish between real threats and projected ones.

In Marseille decks, both cards use the same two-pillar structure. The Moon’s pillars are towers. The Devil’s pillars are smaller, attached to the block. The architecture is the same. The light is different. The Moon has no torch. The Devil holds one. The difference is illumination.

The Devil and Judgement: The Call to Wake

Judgement (XX) shows an angel blowing a trumpet, the dead rising from their tombs. The Devil shows the dead who have not yet heard the call. Judgement is the moment of reckoning. The Devil is the refusal to reckon.

When these cards appear together, the spread is asking the querent to face something they have been avoiding. The Devil shows what they are hiding from. Judgement shows what will happen when they stop hiding. The trumpet does not condemn. It calls. The chains do not hold. They are chosen.

In the Thoth deck, Judgement is renamed “The Aeon” and shows a child, a woman, and a man before a cosmic egg. The Devil is the shell. The Aeon is the breaking. The sequence is the same: the container, the contained, and the release.

FAQ

Does The Devil always mean something negative in a reading?
No. The card can indicate intense focus, material success, or a necessary confrontation with one’s shadow. The tone depends on the surrounding cards and the question asked.

Why is The Devil numbered 15 in the major arcana?
The number 15 reduces to 6 (1+5), which is the number of The Lovers. The Devil is the shadow of The Lovers, the choice made without awareness of its consequences.

Can The Devil represent a person in a reading?
Yes, but rarely a literal demon. The card more often represents a person who exerts control, an addiction, or a pattern of behavior the querent feels powerless to change.

The Devil in the Language of the Deck

The Devil card does not teach us about evil. It teaches us about attachment. Every major arcana card it touches reveals a different face of that attachment: the will that builds it (The Magician), the authority that enforces it (The Hierophant), the love that chooses it (The Lovers), the collapse that breaks it (The Tower), the healing that follows (The Star), the fear that sustains it (The Moon), and the call that ends it (Judgement).

The chains are loose. The torch is lit. The figure on the block is not a demon. It is a mirror.

For a deeper understanding of how the major arcana cards speak to each other, explore our complete guide to tarot and the glossary of tarot symbols. To see how The Devil functions in specific spreads, read our guide on major arcana pairings.