The Devil – Addiction – 15th Tarot Card
The Devil. A figure with wings like a bat, with the The Horned Goat of Mendes as his head, and with feet like the claws of a bird. His left hand is holding a flaming torch pointed toward the earth and his right hand extended upward showing opposite of that of the benediction as given by the Hierophant. Chained to the pedestal on which the winged figure is perched is a male and female. They correspond to those in the fifth card, the Hierophant, as if Adam and Eve after their fall. The results of a material life. Although the two are currently bound, the figure at the alter is only a bondsman, and chains can be broken.
You need to break free to move on. Look for your own devils, materialism, addictions, etc. You may be bound by obligations to others or by your own thoughts.
Prior to the influence of Eliphas Levi in 1856 this figure was standing, wearing a head-dress, and held a scepter in his right hand terminating with a sign that is thought to represent fire. In the Le Tarot Divinatoire of Papus version the two demons are humans, male and female, and are chained together.
Upright: Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil.
Reversed: Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.
May 26 2008 12:34 am | Meaning of each Tarot Card -Major Arcana