The Devil card in
Tarot
Who or what is “The Devil” in Tarot? What does it represent?
Does this so-called entity actually exist? Some say is it a metaphor for man’s own struggle
with manmade evil and evil-doers. Is it a far-fetched imagined fantasy? Or is
this a way for someone to blame somebody else for one’s own wrong-doing; a
scapegoat?
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| Visconti Tarot Devil |
It’s obvious the concept of The Devil for the Tarot card began with biblical connotations. In
the Old Testament, the Hebrews, who were in captivity in Babylon (after 538
B.C.), wrote about a disobedient and rebellious angel of the Lord, sometimes
referred to as Lucifer, or as Satan, as later called by Christians. (The fallen angel, Lucifer, Isaiah 14:12-15) The early Hebrews viewed Satan
differently than the later Christians. In the Old testament, Satan was usually
referred to as Belial, or Beelzebub (the lord of the flies) and was more known as
the “accuser” or “adversary.” (See Zech. 3:1-2; 1Chron. 21:1; Num. 22:28-30.) In
the Hebrew Bible, a supernatural messenger was viewed as God’s obedient servant
who assumed the role of adversary in the story of Job. (See Job 1-2) The
underlying message was that God permitted him to test Job’s faith in God by
creating misfortune; as in those times it was thought that God created both
good and evil. He attempted to make Job disobey, to lose faith, and disavow
God. Job was a wealthy landowner with many children and large herds of
livestock and he was living an upright good life. Job is a long complicated
poem, which describes his tribulation as he experienced boils and evil plagues,
illness and family disasters, and loss of friends. The test was to take away
Job’s wealth and children and all his livestock to see if he still believed in
God after all these devastating catastrophes.
Later, in the Christian view, the story of evil (the Devil) was
amplified by a belief in the dualism of good versus evil, which began in Persia
with the notion of a diabolical ruler, “Ahriman,” an evil spirit with the
powers of good and evil, who was accompanied by gangs of evil demons. The Devil
in the New Testament appeared to be a similar evil spirit. Elaine Pagels, in
her book, The Origin of Satan, says
that in the earlier Biblical stories, it was God’s chosen people—the Hebrews —versus
their enemies in Egypt. And they were always fighting the Canaanites and
Amorites in “us versus them” conflicts. She claims that the figure of Satan and other
evil beings became a way for the Hebrews and later, the Christians, to
“demonize their religious and cultural opponents.” Even the monsters of
Canaanite mythology became their enemies: The Leviathan, the Serpent and the Dragon.
“…people dehumanize enemies especially in
war times.”
Elaine Pagels,
The Origin of Satan, Knoff
Later, in the New Testament, Satan was portrayed as a
supernatural evil being, the prince of demons, emanating from “the dark side,” so
to speak, who became the enemy of God and a force for human evil-doing. Christians
later identified Satan as the villain of the Old Testament, in the form of the talking Serpent who tempted Eve. He
told Eve to eat from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” (which God had
forbidden) and promised her she would become one of the gods if she did. Afterwards,
she knew the Serpent had beguiled her, and she admitted that, in her
disobedience, she had to face the temptation of doing evil and failed. (Genesis
3:13) Some think that, for the Biblical writers, Eve was a convenient
scapegoat.
“He made Eve feel guilty…if she had known who
she was and that she was already living in the Kingdom of Heaven, she wouldn’t
have fallen for that temptation. The Serpent implied she was not good enough.”
Walter Starke, The Gospel of Relativity, HarperCollins
In many Tarot decks, The Devil is pictured as half-man,
half-goat with bat wings, similar to the pagan image of Pan seen in early Greek
sculptures. This brings up the image of the scapegoat – and blaming others, “passing
the buck “— “the Devil made me do it!”
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| PAN Early Greek Sculpture |
“…men of the Middle Ages…held the belief that statues
of ancient gods were inhabited by dangerous demons who occasionally manifested
themselves in hideous forms; whoever adored them, worshipped Satan. Emile Male, Religious
Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century, Noonday Press
During the Middle Ages, it was thought that those who
strayed from the Christian teachings could fall prey to the beliefs in black
magic, Devil worship and demonology, which perverted and undermined Christian theology
and morals. This even applied to corruption by the clergy, some of whom fell
into fraud and underhanded financial dealings by inducing people to confess
their sins and “buy their way to heaven” with payment of “Indulgences” during
the 1500’s. This brought about the Christian Reformation in the 16th
century, beginning with Martin Luther, who was trying to expose and put an end
to such devious practices. It was a
belief in the 14th century that God threw the Devil and demons out
of heaven and created hell. Then in the 16th and 17th
centuries, certain religious practices got out of hand and the church accused
many people (mostly women) of practicing witchcraft and making deals with the
devil – which, unfortunately for them, cost them their lives. So-called witchcraft
may have just reflected the peasant’s pagan beliefs about nature. So-called
witches were burned at the stake in Europe, and then famously in America in the
Salem Witch Trials.
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| Goya: from The Disasters of War |
We can see several prominent influences for the image of The
Devil in Tarot in European art and literature: some drawn from early Greek
images of the pagan nature god, Pan, with goat horns, tail and hooves. Dante
Algieri (1265-1321) portrayed the devil in the Divine Comedy and popularized the concept that the Devil governs hell.
John Milton (1608-1674) gave a description of the Devil in Paradise Lost, and William Blake’s (1757-1827) illustrations of those
works gave us an artist’s image of the Devil. Most Tarot decks have used the
image of “Baphomet,” a horned hybrid man/animal with a goat’s face and hooves
and large hovering bat wings. Goya (1746-1828) in “The Disasters of War” series
of etchings, depicted a devil-like figure with horns, bat wings and sharp
talons, plotting something written in a book. Over the centuries, the Devil has
become the symbol for all sorts of debased acts: violence, addiction, sexual
promiscuity, abuse, slavery, manipulation and control over others. So-called “black magicians” were hoping to
invoke supernatural powers from this beastly monster to bring wealth, charm,
lovers, etc. into their realm, usually ending with disastrous results. (Read about Hitler and his Thule group in Germany who
practiced the black arts before WWII in The
Spear of Destiny by Trevor Ravenscroft, Putnam)
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| William Blake Satan |
“Man has come to be man’s worst enemy. It is a clash
between man and God, in which man’s Luciferian genius has produced in the
H-Bomb the power to destroy more effectively than any ancient god could.” “C.G.
Jung Speaking,” Bollingen Series
In the New Testament, there are many stories of Jesus’ casting
out demons, healing the sick, and possessed people, exorcising demons, and castigating
evil-doers, salvaging prostitutes, and throwing out the “money changers.”
Simply put, Jesus’ practice began in the desert where he was tempted by the Devil
to first turn a stone into bread. No! Ok, then bow down to me (the Devil) to gain unlimited power. No! Well then, throw yourself
down from the temple because angels would hold you up and you will come to no
harm. No! All of which, Jesus rejected. He saw the nothingness of the devil: “Get thee
behind me Satan.” At the end of the New Testament, Satan was thrown into the
“lake of fire and brimstone and tormented forever” (Rev. 20:1-10). Elaine
Pagels says that Mark’s gospel characterizes Jesus’ ministry as encompassing a
continual struggle between God’s spirit and the fictitious demons who
exemplified Satan’s supposed kingdom. In the purge of Roman beliefs in the old
gods, the early Christians were persecuted by Rome where they were beaten,
stoned, and Paul was executed.
Christians saw themselves…as combatants in
a cosmic struggle, God’s warriors against Satan.
Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan, Knoff
Today, after two world wars and other wars in which millions
of people were killed and subjected to all sorts of horrors, it’s obvious that
humans themselves are the perpetrators of evil deeds and murder. So, where’s the good in all this? What are we
to make of The Devil card when we
receive it in a Tarot card reading? It’s a sign that we need to come to grips
with dualistic thinking and deeply assess what we think about good and evil, right
and wrong. Ask, What is the truth here?
What are your morals? Plato emphasized
the Good as a cosmological model; as
the only reality, eternal and changeless, and indicated that evil is a
temporary misinterpretation, a destructive counterfeit of the Good. The Devil and demons are not real.
They are constructs of the human mind:
“created artificially by human communities
infatuated with the thrill of fear.”
Meditations on the Tarot, Anonymous, Putnam
Don’t fall into the trap of preoccupation with evil and the monkey-business
goings on of evil-doers. Don’t give evil any power. Yes, become aware of what
evil-doing and evil-thinking looks like, but it’s time to begin doing something
positive to overcome it and take action benefitting everyone by your good
works.
“…to occupy oneself [with evil] amounts to
contact with evil and a corresponding reduction of living and inspiring contact
with Good…Love is the vital element of profound knowledge.” Meditations
on the Tarot
