The Devil
Song Pairing
“Alive Again” by Lights
This song pulses with the same raw, addictive energy as The Devil. It’s about craving intensity, riding the edge, and choosing desire with open eyes. It’s a celebration of surrender, shadow, and the thrill of feeling intensely.
Astrology
Capricorn / Saturn.
The Devil is ruled by Capricorn, a sign often misunderstood as cold or rigid, but in truth, Capricorn knows all about ambition, control, and delayed gratification. It’s the sign that builds empires...and sometimes prisons. Saturn, its ruling planet, governs boundaries, structure, and discipline, but when distorted, it becomes restriction, guilt, and fear of freedom. The Devil speaks to what happens when those systems become chains, and what it takes to break free without burning everything down.
Historic Interest
In early tarot decks like the 15th-century Visconti-Sforza, The Devil often appeared as a grotesque creature: horned, winged, and monstrous, reflecting medieval fears of temptation, sin, and heresy. By the time of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck in 1909, A.E. Waite reimagined The Devil to resemble Baphomet, the goat-headed figure rooted in occult symbolism. Rather than pure evil, Baphomet represents the union of opposites—spirit and flesh, light and dark—suggesting that temptation is not punishment, but a mirror of our own duality.
The Devil tarot card explores temptation, desire, addiction, and the illusion of being trapped. It invites honest reflection about power, pleasure, and self-imposed limitations. This card challenges you to face your shadow, reclaim your agency, and choose consciously instead of compulsively.
Vibe
Shadow play and sensual power
Affirmation
"I name my desires without shame and choose what serves me."
Card Pairing
Eight of Swords + The Devil. Such similar vibes. Mental cages meet voluntary ones. Both cards deal with illusion, restriction, and self-imposed traps. This pairing asks: what keeps you bound, and do you secretly like it there?
Kindred Spirit
Two of Cups (Shadow Side). Two of Cups is The Devil’s passionate counterpart: intimacy laced with obsession, chemistry so potent it borders on worship. This is the kind of love that burns fast, hits deep, and leaves a mark. Sacred, carnal, and hard to quit.
Esoteric Connection
Patchouli essential oil.
Earthy, musky, and deeply grounding, patchouli is associated with sex, shadow work, and breaking through repression. Use it when you want to smell like temptation itself, or anchor yourself during intense emotional exploration.
Element
It may seem like the ultimate Fire card, but The Devil is actually rooted in Earth, the element of the material world. This is the realm of the body, the senses, and everything tangible: money, sex, pleasure, and power. Earth gives form to desire, but it can also harden into attachment. The Devil challenges you to engage with the physical without becoming a prisoner to it.
Misconception
The Devil card doesn’t mean you’re doomed, damned, or doing something morally wrong. It’s not about sin or evil, it’s about attachment. This card doesn’t judge your desires. It asks whether you own them or whether they own you. Tarot isn’t here to shame your shadow. It’s here to help you face it with honesty.
Full Interpretation
“Indulgence without awareness is bondage. Indulgence with choice is freedom.”
The invitation to indulge
When the Fool reaches The Devil, the journey leaves behind the calm inner balance of Temperance and dives head first into the shadows. This is the point where desire takes over. After striving for equilibrium, you now face the heat of obsession, the pull of temptation, and the magnetic lure of something you know might burn you.
The Devil doesn’t whisper promises of virtue or self-control. He leans in close, teeth bared, and murmurs, Why starve when you could feast? I’m reminded of a line from the goat, Black Phillip in one of my favorite movies, The Witch: "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"
Upon first glance, you might take this illustration at face value: The Devil card represents bondage, addiction, and attachment to earthly pleasures. While this is a valid read, a closer look will reveal that the chains aren’t locked or even connected to anything. They never were. They could shrug them off at any time. They are just draped loosely around them like jewelry. The Devil himself dangles a thin and impotent chain that isn’t tethered to anyone.
I wanted to make my Devil menacing though, mostly because I like the aesthetic. His eyes glow red and his bat-like wings are outstretched, reflecting vampire energy, like he’s sucking your soul into temptation. But really, The Devil doesn’t lure anyone into submission: they walk willingly. Bondage is voluntary.
The Devil and desire
The Devil drips with sex. It’s a card of lust, erotic tension, and that delicious sense of danger that makes your pulse quicken. It’s the part of you that wants sweat and a taste of the forbidden. The press of skin, the sharp intake of breath, the thrill of wanting without apology. Something unholy but exquisite. It’s fantasy knocking on the door and maybe you’re tired of pretending you don’t hear it.
This card can feel both liberating and terrifying. For centuries, society and religion have shamed desire, branding it as sinful, dirty, or dangerous. The result? Guilt, repression, and the quiet erosion of pleasure. The Devil shows up like a rebel lover saying, Enough. Your natural yearnings are okay. Your hunger is not a curse; it’s a compass. Wanting doesn’t make you wicked. Fantasizing doesn’t make you broken. The Devil invites you to reclaim your right to pleasure: not in a reckless or harmful way, but in a conscious, empowering, consensual way. The irony is that the things we repress are the things that control us. The Devil gives us permission to name those things.
Chains, power, and play
The chains in my woodburning tell a deeper story: they’re symbols of choice, illusion, and power. Sometimes that illusion shows up in the bedroom. For some, bondage or role-play becomes a way to explore surrender safely, as long as it’s rooted in consent and curiosity. There’s a kind of honesty in admitting you want to play with the edge, but only when you remember you can always untie the knot.
But the chains aren’t just about sex. They wind through every corner of life. They show up in the compulsive scrolling, the shopping cart at 2 a.m., the drink you swore would be your last. The chains glitter in the promise of prestige, the dopamine of another like, or the rush of a risky bet. The Devil arrives when something once thrilling hardens into habit, and habit might become a cage. But the worst part is that you start telling yourself stories that make the cage sound like home: I can’t quit now. I need this to feel alive. Those lies are the true shackles: not the wine, the secret lover, or the paycheck. The belief that you have no power is the lock you’ve fastened around your own neck. But of course, it was never locked.
And this is where the line is drawn. Temptation becomes toxic when it owns you. But shadow becomes power when you own it. There’s a vast difference between spiraling into obsession and consciously stepping into the dark for the sake of integration and pleasure. The Devil invites you to explore with your eyes open, your agency intact, and your consent leading the way. Indulgence without awareness is bondage. Indulgence with choice is freedom.
Why are they nude?
The naked bodies in this card are as essential as they were in Pamela Smith’s classic illustration over a century ago. Nudity here symbolizes radical vulnerability. Stripped of clothing, the figures are stripped of pretense. No armor, no curated image, no polite denial.This exposure underscores the truth that desire leaves us raw. When you crave, you’re not polished and perfect. You're an animal. And that’s not shameful, it’s honest. In tarot readings, the nudity often points to authenticity in pleasure: Who are you when you peel away the layers of performance? Can you stand in your “temptation” without hiding behind what you’ve been told is “acceptable”?
Christian Devil vs. Tarot Devil
It's important to address the Christian symbolism and its devil mythology. Tarot borrows a lot of its imagery from Christian iconography and The Devil is no exception: a horrifying creature with horns, wings, barbed tail: the monstrous embodiment of sin. The devil archetype is a dominant component of religion, especially Protestantism. For centuries, the figure of the devil has symbolized sin and punishment, often used to enforce morality through fear.
Thankfully, tarot is not a morality tale and doesn’t deal in eternal damnation. Where religion says resist or burn, tarot says, Explore, but own your decisions. The Devil is used as a symbol here because it’s a familiar reference point and symbol that most people understand in some sense. But here, the archetype is not about evil, it’s about shadow. Insight into the parts of you that you keep in the dark. The impulses that scare you because they threaten your self-image as “good”, “nice”, “proper”, “respectable”, or “in control.” The Devil dares you to confront your deepest impulses with honesty and curiosity. It’s not “tempting” you to blindly indulge or trying to shame you into repressing your desires. The Devil is reminding you that you are human and you control your actions. You have agency over your own body. This card is empowering you to integrate your passions, your lusts, and your cravings without guilt. To say, Yes, I have these desires. Yes, I can choose what to do with them.
The Devil as a safe space
Tarot is a container for honesty. The kind we all struggle to find in everyday life. Pulling The Devil card can feel like an accusation, but really, it’s an invitation. It asks, What are you hiding from yourself? Or, What feels too risky to admit out loud? Maybe it’s a kink you’ve never voiced. Maybe it’s a hunger for attention you judge yourself for. Maybe it’s the thrill of risk: the extra drink, the overspending, the bad idea that feels so good. The Devil offers you a safe space to hold those truths without shame. To bring the secret into the light where it can’t own you anymore. It’s a card about introspection and freedom. About examining unhealthy indulgences and feeling safe to explore darker desires.
The Fool’s Journey: From balance to breaking point
In the grand arc, The Devil follows Temperance for a reason. After striving for harmony and balance, maybe you weren’t ready for moderation. Sometimes we need to swing into excess and plunge deep into a craving so we can feel its weight. Beyond The Devil looms The Tower, where illusions shatter. If you don’t release your chains willingly, life might do it for you, unpleasantly. But here, now, you still have the freedom to either tear off the chain or pull it tighter. Live deliciously, but wide awake.
When The Devil shows up in a reading
So what does this look like in real life? Here are a few ways The Devil might strut onto your stage:
Love & Lust: You meet someone, and the chemistry is explosive. You know this won’t end in a forever relationship…but maybe forever isn’t the point. The Devil says: if you go there, do it with your eyes open. Play safe. Own your hunger.
Long-Term Relationships: You’ve been craving kink but too ashamed to speak it. The Devil dares you: ask. Fantasy is oxygen. Denial is suffocation.
Career Moves: That lucrative offer comes with strings. Long hours, ethical compromises, creative death. Is the price worth it? Or are you selling your soul for a bonus?
Money & Consumption: It’s 2 a.m., your cart is full, and your dopamine is screaming yes. The Devil says pause. Will this soothe or spiral?
Mindset & Obsession: Still obsessively stalking your ex’s socials? Does it keep you up at night? The Devil wonders: do you want them, or just the drama?
Notice the pattern? The Devil isn’t telling you “no.” He’s telling you to examine your choices with honesty. And to boldly own your yes. To stop pretending the chain is locked when you’re the one holding it tight.
The Lesson
The Devil is not your enemy. He’s the mirror that shows you the truth: freedom isn’t about avoiding temptation. It’s about knowing what drives you and choosing with full awareness. Lust isn’t evil. Power isn’t poison. Pleasure isn’t a trap. The danger comes when you hide from them, when you let shame make the decisions for you. If you pull them into the light, the monster loses its teeth and the craving becomes a choice. You can easily slip out of the chains.
Finally, despite the imagery on the card this isn’t just a heterosexual story. Desire doesn’t care whether you’re queer, straight, non-binary, kinky, vanilla, or whatever. The Devil belongs to you. Because this card isn’t really about him at all. It’s about you, and the glorious, messy, hungering parts of your humanity you’ve been taught to fear. Tarot doesn’t call that evil. It calls it power.
"The Devil card can feel like an accusation, but really, it’s an invitation."
Reversed Interpretation
If the upright Devil is about intoxication, leaning fully into desire, and pretending the chain is stronger than it is, the reversal is the moment when the illusion collapses. The chain slips, and you see what you’ve known all along: you were never really bound. That realization can feel like liberation or leave you confused. Because if the thing that owned you no longer does, who are you without it?
This card reversed often signals the breaking point where you reclaim your power. The addictive pattern loses its hold, the toxic attachment shatters, the secret habit stops feeling worth it. Sometimes this awakening is a quiet flicker of awareness, like the thought that interrupts a late-night spiral: Why am I still doing this? Other times it’s a violent rupture, like walking away from someone you once swore you couldn’t live without. Either way, the door is open now.
But reversal is not always a rescue story. Sometimes it means you have overcorrected. If upright energy loses itself in indulgence, reversed energy can starve itself in the name of control. Maybe you have turned your shadow into an enemy, punishing your body for wanting, exiling pleasure as if virtue lives in denial. Fear-based purity is still a form of bondage. If you cannot look your desires in the eye without flinching, they still own you.
That’s the paradox of The Devil reversed. Both obsession and avoidance keep you caged. Freedom is not found in swinging between extremes. It lives in the quiet center where you meet your hunger without shame and choose consciously what belongs in your life. This is not about surrendering to every impulse, nor is it about suffocating them. It is about integration. Shadow loses its teeth when you stop pretending it does not exist. Maybe this is a nudge from the previous card, Temperance.
So when this card turns upside down, it asks a deeper question than whether you will break the chains. It asks what you will do with the space that follows. Will you rush to fill it with another pattern, another cage that feels safer than the unknown? Or will you sit in that open air and imagine a different kind of power, one rooted in choice rather than compulsion or fear?
Pause and Reflect
What secret desire have you labeled as dangerous, and what would it feel like to explore it without shame? Imagine the story you’ve built around that hunger. Is it really a threat, or just a part of you you’ve been taught to fear? How would your relationship with pleasure change if you allowed curiosity to replace judgment?
Take Action
Write down one deep desire you’ve kept locked in your head. Something you crave but never admit. It’s important to actually write it down, not just imagine it. Describe it in detail, in physical form. (Don’t type it into an app!) This act can be quite a profound awakening. Fold the paper and tuck it somewhere only you’ll find, like your wallet or under your mattress.
Before you hide it, give your body a sensory reward: dip your feet in warm water, inhale your favorite scent, or a bite into something decadent. Make the act feel deliberate and sensual, like a pact between you and your shadow. Remind yourself that pleasure isn’t a sin and keeping this secret can feel delicious.
Whenever guilt creeps in, reread your note as a reminder that desire is part of you. And when that desire is satisfied or no longer owns you, release the paper. Burn it, tear it, or just let it go.