15. The Devil
i. The Nutshell
Upright
The Devil represents the part of you that chose survival and forgot to rethink your choices. It doesn’t aim to shame you, but rather to reveal your hidden truths. What once protected you may now be limiting you. Addictions, obsessions, codependency, and over-ambition are not just bad habits; they signal a need for awareness. This card highlights your bondage and the desire for freedom. The Devil also appears when the partnership symbolised by The Lovers goes wrong, losing sight of the reason for the connection. It's the darker side of relationships, where desire becomes dependency and comfort turns into control. Coping mechanisms can look like personality traits, trapping you in a cycle. However, the chains depicted are loose; you've simply grown accustomed to them.
This card doesn’t oppose pleasure but rather warns against possession. The material world isn’t the enemy; it’s the unchecked agreements you have with it that require scrutiny. The Devil prompts you to ask what you are giving your power to, and what is the cost of clinging to things that nurture your fears rather than your freedom? The belief that you aren’t good enough is often the true captor.
Keywords: Temptation, illusion, attachment, bondage, addictions, shadow work, power dynamics.
Translation: Just because it’s familiar doesn’t mean it’s freedom.
Reversed
The Devil reversed means you’re finally stopping the negative cycle in your life. It shows you’ve realised you’ve been giving away your power to something unworthy. This card invites you to break free from what’s holding you back, even if it feels tough. It can signal liberation, yes - but not the Instagrammable kind. You may be in a confusing phase of letting go of what you used to be. This includes unhealthy habits, negative people, ‘ugly-crying’ and harmful self-talk. Sometimes The Devil reversed appears when you’ve traded one restriction for another while thinking it’s healing. You have freedom, yet you fear what that really entails so swap it for another form of restriction.
Keywords: Release, awareness, detachment, toxicity, disruption, reclaiming self.
Translation: You’re not cursed, you’re clinging. Drop it like a hot potato.
ii. Illus-traits
A quick glance at The Devil’s symbolic traits in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. What’s seductive, shadowy, or silently running the show while you pretend everything’s fine?
Chains Around the Necks – Voluntary bondage. They’re loose enough to slip off, but comfort makes a convincing captor. What are you still wearing that you outgrew five versions of yourself ago?
Inverted Pentagram – Spirit overthrown by matter. This is imbalance over evil. When survival hijacks sovereignty, the soul gets sidelined. Where have your values been flipped without your consent?
The Devil’s Gaze – Unblinking and smug. This is the part of you that dares you to flinch. The shadow is trying to get your attention, not destroy you. Are you brave enough to look back?
The Torch Pointed Downward – Illumination aimed at basic instincts. This is about asking who’s holding the torch and what they’re burning for. Are you led by fear or fuelled by truth?
The Square Pedestal – A false foundation. All form, no freedom. You might be building your identity on something you don’t even believe in anymore. Time for a structural integrity check.
The Tails (Grapes and Flames) – Overindulgence and rage. One drinks, one burns, either way, it’s about feeding something insatiable. What are your habits really hungry for?
iii. Influences
Planetary:
The Devil is ruled by Saturn notoriously known as the planet of limits, rules, consequences, and ‘I told you so’s’. Saturn doesn’t do shortcuts. It's the club doorman checking if your coping strategies are allowed in again. Saturn’s influence here is sobering; where are you over-attached, and at what cost? This is about accountability, discipline and responsibility. The Devil asks if you’re still chained because it’s familiar, or because you’re afraid of what freedom would actually look like?
Natal House(s):
The Devil resonates with the Tenth House (MC) of career, status, public image, and what props up your identity. This is the ‘what are you known for?’ house, and when filtered through The Devil, it begs the question: have you become trapped in the version of yourself that works but doesn’t feel like you anymore? Its opposite, the Fourth House (IC), is the place that connects the reasons behind your ambition. Do your choices help you feel free, or do they just distract you from your problems?
Astrological Sign(s):
The Devil is often linked to Capricorn because it’s the ambitious climber, the long-haul strategist, and the terrified perfectionist, similar to Virgo. Capricorn builds empires… but it can also build prisons out of expectations. On the other side of the natal chart, Cancer holds the keys to vulnerability, nourishment, and emotional truth. If Capricorn wants to rise, The Devil card asks who's in control. It questions who’s in control because autonomous progress begins when you stop thinking of your limitations as part of your identity.
Numerologically:
The Devil is card 15, or reduced to 6; the number of choice, harmony, martyrdom, reciprocation and course correction. Fifteen brings a little razzle-dazzle with its temptation and charisma, whilst Six offers support when you need guidance to take responsibility for your actions whilst accepting all the imperfections that go with life.
Element:
The Devil is grounded in Earth, but this is Earth with a mortgage, a to-do list, and a wardrobe full of emotional debt. Earth symbolises our physical form, habits, and the things we hold onto when feeling lost. It offers a solution to connect with your body, breath, and awareness whilst encouraging you to think about what it means to reconnect with yourself.
iv. A Day in the Life of the Devil
Well That Escalated Quickly
You’ve outsourced your power to something that promised comfort but now feels like a trap. You’re numbing with Netflix and a family bag of Monster Munch. You say you’re ‘just being realistic’, but really you’re negotiating with your own inner saboteur. You flip between indulgence and shame like a possessed ceiling fan going nowhere fast. You mistake obsession for passion and control for safety, and somewhere along the line you forgot how to tell the difference between what you want and what you’ve been conditioned to crave.
Adjusting the Knobs
You’re starting to notice the bait. You catch yourself mid-compulsion; hovering over the ‘buy now’ button halfway through the third slice of resentment. You know the hit is temporary, but it’s something. You’re wrestling with the realisation that maybe it’s not the thing that has power, it’s the grip you give it. You’re starting to clock the contracts you’ve made, spoken and unspoken, and wondering which ones were yours to begin with. You’re aware you’re mentally shackled and that epiphany is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Unsubscribed from Self-Sabotage
You’re unplugging from the Matrix, one delusion at a time. The shadows still dance but now you see them as messengers. You recognise projection and know that temptation isn’t the enemy; it’s the unconscious why behind it that matters. You're starting to choose what feels true, not what feels habitual. You’re reclaiming autonomy like a badass with bolt cutters.
Writing the TED Talk
You step over the chains and move through life with full consent. You’ve befriended your inner trickster, stopped outsourcing your worth, and no longer need your demons to feel alive. You don’t fear the shadow, you converse with it. You enjoy pleasure without losing yourself. You’re not enslaved by desire because you’re in a conscious, balanced, human relationship with it.
v. Working with these Energies
Living The Devil with Integrity and a Bit of Liberation
This archetype reflects a choice to remain trapped. The Devil reveals unnoticed commitments, showing how comfort is mistaken for control and identity for safety. It obscures your power with desire and fear. Engaging with this card involves questioning where you invest your energy and why. It’s about embracing your darker side, understanding its needs, and deciding how to manage it. This card is here to help you notice - and that noticing is the beginning of unhooking.
Track the traps
– What do you say you’ve outgrown, but still reach for when you’re stressed, bored, or lonely?
– Who or what are you blaming for your stuckness, honestly, what’s the payoff?
– What ‘little habits’ feel comforting but corrode your freedom?Examine the contracts
– Where did you agree to be less than you are, just to belong or survive?
– What roles do you perform out of guilt, fear, or autopilot?
– Can you tell the difference between a desire that feeds you… and one that feeds on you?Reclaim your agency
– Where have you mistaken coping for identity?
– What would it mean to feel an emotion all the way through instead of sedating it?
– Where are you saying ‘I can’t’ when you really mean ‘I’m afraid to’?Choose conscious desire
– What pleasure nourishes you and what just knocks the edge off?
– Where are you still hustling for love, validation, or worthiness you already possess?
– How can you want something without needing it to own you?Redesign the cage
– Which of your limits are real and which are inherited, outdated, or optional?
– What might freedom look like if it wasn’t considered destructive?
– What small daily action could help you rise above feelings of shame and its effects?
vi. Building Skills
Undo the Devil’s Deal: A Reversal Ritual for Default Reactions
The Devil loves a familiar script. You get triggered, you react the same old way, and bang - clank - click - clunk - you’re back in that cage. This exercise interrupts the loop. It’s about doing the conscious opposite of your unconscious urge because breaking habits takes practice like building muscles, and self compassion is essential.
Step 1: Name the trap
Think of a recent moment that someone kicked your achilles heel. Maybe someone ignored your boundary, or a comment sent you spiraling. Write down what happened, and more importantly, how it felt. No need to be poetic; ‘Furious and five seconds of steam coming off your keyboard’ works just fine, like the concept of Julia Cameron’s ‘Morning Pages’.
Step 2: Spot the reflex
What did that moment make you want to do? Shut down? Ghost? Numb out? Get angry? Be honest, this is your ‘Devil’ in action.
Step 3: Flip the script
Now imagine doing the psychological equivalent of walking out the side door of Hell. What’s a small, self-honouring opposite action? Instead of shutting down, could you name the feeling? Instead of scrolling into oblivion, could you go for a walk, call a friend, or accept the discomfort?
Step 4: Make it awkward on purpose
Next time a similar moment arises, try something new. It may feel awkward, which is a sign you're stepping out of your comfort zone.
Step 5: Debrief with compassion
Record what happened. Did it change the outcome? How did it feel to make a conscious choice instead of a compulsive one? If it didn’t go well, congratulations, you’re work in progress. Keep noticing. Keep choosing according to what matters to you. Every time you pause instead of obey, you’re loosening the chain. The Devil loses its grip by daring to choose differently.
vii. Embodiment
Alchemy is an Exorcism in Slow Motion
The Devil seduces you with non subtle shortcuts and hits you with all-or-nothing urges, persuading you that comfort is control. So rebel by turning toward your compulsions with curiosity instead of shame. True alchemy under The Devil is about inhabiting your body so fully that the chains fall off on their own. Here’s how to start:
Smell:
What does freedom smell like? Smoke on denim? A rusty car bonnet that did Mater no harm? Something raw, unfiltered and ALIVE!
Body:
Where are you tensing, numbing, clenching to stay in control? Is your jaw locked from biting your tongue too often? Shoulders stiff from carrying what isn’t yours? Back curved from protecting what your heart aches for when it’s not busy meeting other’s needs? The Devil thrives in disconnection. Undo the spell: unclench your fists, stretch what’s tight, breathe into what’s braced. You’re not a machine. You’re a system of signals you need to listen to.
Soundtrack:
What song makes you feel like yourself? Pick something gritty and honest. Thrash metal. Something that lets you feel pleasure and pain without needing to sort either. Try a bit of Du Hast on full blast and add ‘mosh-neck’ to the Body section.
Action:
What’s one compulsion you can interrupt? That scroll, that snap, that snack… what’s underneath those? Can you pause before acting and ask what you need in that moment instead of the numbing action? The Devil thrives on automation and experiential avoidance so reclaim your intention.
Nature cue:
Find something that exists on its own terms. A weed growing through concrete. Ivy on the side of a house. A crow cawing from a power line. A twisted tree angled by the wind. The natural world adapts, survives, and stays connected to itself. Be like that.
Notice what breaks the spell:
The Devil wants you to forget you have a choice. Where are you stuck in ‘this is just how I am’? Who are you outsourcing your choices to? Alchemy here is self-intimacy - you don’t have to be perfect or in denial.
viii. Your Impressions
Take a good look at The Devil in your deck. This is the trickster in a tailored suit, the master illusionist seducing you with the sweet nothings you mistake for truths.
Where does your eye go first? The chains? The devilish grin? The upside-down pentagram? Maybe the lurking shadows or the way the figures seem willing in-mates? Notice what grabs you; the fear, the fascination, or maybe that guilty little recognition that some part of this setup feels too familiar.
Check in with your body. Is your chest tight? Your gut churning? Maybe there’s a prickly mix of thrill and resistance, like you’re both tempted and terrified to look closer. That tension is where the real story lives. If The Devil could speak, it would smirk and say, ‘You’re not really trapped, you’re just forgetful.’ It calls you to remember where you handed over your power, where you signed contracts you didn’t read, and that chains are meant to be broken.
If this card shows up near The Lovers, put your coffee down. It’s a reminder that desire and devotion aren’t opposites; they’re tangled. What bindings are you mistaking for love? What shadows are masquerading as safety? Notice how this card is a sly mixed-bag teacher that’s annoying and unsettling, but ultimately here to free you from the stories that no longer serve.
ix. Intuitive Meaning
Explore what The Devil means to you as a lived experience. Reflect on moments when you saw the mask slip, both your and someone else’s. This energy reveals what fear hides, the patterns you follow on autopilot, the pleasures that numb, and the illusions that pass for freedom. This is about naming your chains before you can choose to unfasten them.
When have you surprised yourself by noticing the trap before you walked into it?
Where are you still trying to control what you fear, instead of understanding it?
What would it be like to stop avoiding your desires and start embracing them in a balanced way?
Applied insight with a three-card reading using The Devil as your anchor:
Where am I still chained by fear or habit?
What illusions am I ready to see through?
What part of me is begging for liberation?
Pull or shuffle-fling your cards and note your feelings. Take your time and let the answers unfold. Write three ‘you’ words that relate to your current experience:
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x. Closing Reflection: Track Your Evolving Lens
Your relationship with each card will grow over time because it’s meant to shaped by your life. Consider the prompts below to revisit and reflect.
What I thought this card meant when I first pulled it: —————————————————
A recent experience that changed how I see it: —————————————————
How I feel about it now, in my body or life: —————————————————
What surprised me as this card kept showing up: —————————————————
One way this card is living in my life right now: —————————————————
If this card visited me today as a guide, what would it want me to remember? —————————————————
Revisit these after a week, a moon phase, or a meaningful moment. Let the card evolve as you do.
If you feel a quiet sense of recognition, curiosity and want to explore it, browse the sessions page for what feels right.