The 15th card of the Major Arcana is generally considered to be the most grotesque, aberrant and malevolent illustration contained within the entire Tarot deck. None of us find its monstrous presentation uplifting or even necessary to be included here as a tool of spirituality. In truth, it is personally and spiritually insulting, revolting and intimidating. So why would the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom include it... hardly as a joke and most certainly not as a tool of positive imagery. Right ? Well perhaps if we regress for a moment and reflect again on the messages of the previous few cards, such as THE HANGED MAN, DEATH and TEMPERANCE, we may find a clue or reason why the Ancients would even consider calling upon such a malignant visual energy.

It's important to remember that with each successive card, we are being shown how the duality of our human natures may best cope and evolve spiritually through the miasmas, deceptions and temptations of our 3rd dimensional reality. In The Hanged Man we voluntarily agreed to accept responsibility for the waywardness of our previous actions by enduring a Karmic penalty. We had decided that our repeated infractions of Divine Will and Law were leading us further into a negative lifestyle. A painful and most unrewarding fate, since with each infraction, we found greater misery and discontent. It had been made clear by The Justice Card that if we ever hoped to evolve spiritually, all previous acts prompted by our negative subconscious urges and actions must cease. As Karmic Lord and Judge, The Justice Card accepted our plea for release and allowed our advancement, with a short stopover to pay our debts as The Hanged Man. Following the completion of our sentence we became The Death Card... a skeleton stripped of all previous negative cellular mass and nullifying consciousness. As Death we set about to slay our negative subconscious mental/emotional dragons so that we might emerge as The Temperance Card, whole, reborn, regenerated and finally able to use our self-conscious/subconscious minds spiritually as one under the directives of Divine Law.

Well, as Fate and the enduring weakness of all human character would seem to have it, we somehow manage to fall from our victory steed of confident righteousness and once again become prey to the deceptions of some of our still surviving negative subconscious tapes. Hence, THE DEVIL card... it was included by our Teachers to illustrate the overwhelming gravity and seriousness of our fall from grace this time around. There is no Justice Card around now to pick us up to offer a penalty and second chance. The rhetoric of our admonition if voiced in the modern vernacular would be... "you're on your own now buddy".

So lets take a look at this living Horror Show... the first thing you notice are its bodily features. This misfit is a ram-horned, eagle-clawed, goat-headed, half-human, shaggy-legged aberration with the wings of a bat and the appetites of a ghoul. Not a representation of anything earthly, but rather the SHADOW IMAGE of the beast we all become when we fall prey to our negative subconscious appetites both physical and sexual. It's hard to conceive or even believe, but the Ancients tell us that the beast you are viewing is actually your Higher Self (in illusionary costume) appearing in exact replica to the shadow qualities you've allowed to come alive within your subconscious mind. Each time we succumb to the temptations that lure us back into our animal instincts, we move further and further away from our spiritual goal. If we would just begin to use our minds and intelligence and begin to resist the bodily, emotional, mental needs to satiate our destructive sexual passions or our hunger for food, drink or drugs, we could then begin to move away from the power of the beast. Release from the grasp of the beast is in your hands, not his. Notice the chains around the neck of the woman (your subconscious mind) and the man (your self-conscious mind). They are loosely placed and can be lifted if desired. It's not The Devil that holds you or brought you to this low condition, only you are to blame.

There are so many symbols inserted in this archetype that all tell the same story. Notice the torch in the beast's left hand... it’s igniting the acquisitive and destructive sexual passions of the man (your self-conscious) urging him to pander to his body and give in to lust, greed and perversion. Only the man can resist these urges and if he did, the fire would diminish and eventually die out. The woman is his subconscious mind and as such can escape her sorry situation only if he reforms. Our subconscious mind (the woman) can act only on the orders and choices of our self-conscious mind. So the ball is in his corner... only he can lift the chain from around her neck. Notice both the man and woman have horns, hooves and tails. This shows that each is living entirely within their animal natures. Above the beast's head is an inverted Pentagram which signifies total disregard for all spiritual/moral law.

The Arcane message from all of this is that each of us must acknowledge our shadow side and be willing to release our blocked repressed fears and feelings. We must accept that we have both a dark side and a radiant side and that each is a part of our nature. Only by right action, sacrifice, self-control and by achieving a balance between the two will we be released from our shadow side... The Devil.