- Tarot
- Card meanings
- The Devil
Major Arcana · XV
The Devil
Upright meaning
Attachment and the pull of the material. Waite also says that what is fated here is not, for that reason, bad; and the chains in the picture are loose. A card about noticing what holds you, and what you could set down.
Reversed meaning
Reversed, Waite reads weakness, pettiness and blindness. A prompt to look honestly at a habit or pattern that narrows your choices.
Symbolism
A horned, bat-winged figure on an altar; two figures below are loosely chained to it.
- Group
- Major Arcana
- Element, astrology
- Not given by Waite, so we give none
Source
Our own plain-English summary of A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1911), Part II §2 (symbolism); Part III §3 (divinatory meanings). The keywords are Waite’s own words. Waite’s fortune-telling lists also contain harsher terms; we keep to the reflective readings he gives and never state an event as certain.
Tarot is a tool for reflection, not a prediction of fixed outcomes. This is not medical, legal or financial advice.