The 78 Cards
The Devil
Major Arcana, card 15. Astrology: Capricorn.
The chain you agreed to wear. A mirror held up to what has a hold on you.
The picture
A horned figure with great bat wings squats on a dark block, his feet ending in bird claws. An upside down pentagram hangs above his head, between his horns. One hand is raised with the palm open, and the other holds a lit torch pointing down to the ground. Chained to a ring on the block below him stand a naked man and woman, each with small horns and a tail. The woman's tail ends in a bunch of grapes and the man's in a flame. The chains around their necks hang loose. The background is black.
Upright
The Devil is a mirror. He shows you where you have handed your power to something: a habit, a person, a job, a fear, the devil you know.
Look at those chains again. They are loose enough to lift over a head. Nobody in this picture is locked in. The man and woman could walk away, and they have stopped noticing that they could.
When this card turns up, I read it as an invitation to look at what has a hold on you and to be clear about how much of that hold you are supplying yourself. Capricorn is the sign of structure and duty, and the Devil is what happens when the structure becomes the cage. Seeing the chain is the first step to lifting it off. The card asks you to see it.
Reversed
Reversed, the Devil is still a mirror. Turning him over does not make him go away, and it does not set anyone free on its own. I read him most often as turned inward: the chain has moved inside, into the thinking. The voice that says you cannot change, that you do not deserve better, that this is just how it is. The second way that fits is too much or too little, the pull of something you enjoy tipping over into something you cannot put down.
To tell which it is, look at where the pressure is coming from. If there is no outside hold left and you still feel stuck, it has turned inward. If the thing itself is fine in small doses and the trouble is the amount, it is too much. Either way the chains are still loose.
When it turns up
What are you holding onto that you could lift off today?
If you would like the cards read against your own chart, my readings are here.
Related pages
The Devil as a Birth Card · The Twenty Two Paths
The 78 Cards
Every card in the deck, upright and reversed.
See every page and post in the Contents.
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