XV – The Devil
“the masks of pretending and exaggeration”
symbol: lust for power, materialism, outside forces and influences, appetite, and craving
Zodiac: Capricorn
date and ritual: Walpurgis Night – hedonism, disguise, ecstasy
path of Ayin: Tiphareth – Hod
In pop-culture, the devil is seen as something like a second anti-god who is the master of chaos, slavery, and destruction. We can define this phenomenon as the wish to create a conception of a dual god and enemy concept. One ultimate good creator entity versus one bad destructive scapegoat is a worldview that will never fit any logical or practical system.
Something like that would not exist for exceedingly long, due to the laws of the cosmos, which any order and structure must obey, so that it can dwell. Even an abscess on the celestial body needs rules on how to grow, and growth is never destruction, but exaggeration.
The devil is not male or female, nor an almighty hostile being – it wears many masks. Mostly those of diversion, materialism, and obstinacy, always prevailing in its most beautiful glory and colors, often guarded by institutions of law and hierarchies, which you can see as guardians on itsit’s lower left and right.
The veils, which represent our realities, we are trapped in, are depicted left and right. The different letters would represent language, culture, and hierarchy as well as division of unity (compare to the biblical fall of the tower of Bbabel)
We can observe a small tree of life (of the kabbalah) in the lower area of the card. That is because therebecause, there are many world views and religions which worship small, devilish, and extreme aspects of this great illusion.
In the first stage of awakening, the god/s we believe in often becomes our devil. The world view usually changes upside down, before entering a different realm of awareness. The Flower of Life in the upper area represents the gnostic creation or web, (compare “XX – The Aeon” and the myth of Yaldabaoth) which emerges from the symbiosis of the active mind/idea/light interacting with the passive network (aether). A physical expression of this symbol would be our big-bang and creation itself.
The devil often represents a foreign illusion we came to believe, when we lose or never develop our own. Once trapped in someone else’s net like a fly, it is difficult to get out. To find the true inner self, we cannot comply with ideas or structures and truths of other beings, organizations, and religions. A key-phrase would be to „create an own unique view about ourselves and the universe, instead of believing in a foreign invented system“. The first step in escaping the net, is to go back to the beginning. To actively play the nearly impossible game of forgetting about what has been learned and walk a path to a different approach on a certain theme or lifechoice.
To struggle our way out of someone’s illusion, we all have to study our own truths and inner depths. Outside of us are many ideas of different worldviews, religions, gods, whom to choose as enemy and friend, and what to believe in general. Getting influenced by certain currents is never an excuse to get trapped in one or many of the various nets surrounding each and every one of us. Inside of us there is no propaganda, no option formers or influencers, no pyramid schemes but just ourthe own devils to face.
Sure, it is convenient, being abstracted all the time. Often, it is not something outside of us, we are fearing, but the inner demons, who knock from the inside.
If this card is pulled, it is usually a hint to rethink some current opinions and to try to subduct our influences. This card is almost always a warning, that there is an opportunity ahead, to do something really wrong. The goal of this card would be, to face the devils within, instead of pointing at enemies all around us. There is no essentially evil entity in the cosmos – just some beings who followed a wrong order or idea and got lost in it. The devils are not almighty and there is no need to choose a master outside of ourselves. This is the narrative, to turn away from the creator, (or the forces which decided for us) to find our own path and to become our own inner god, capable of acting freely.
