Tarot card meanings · Major Arcana 15
What does The Devil mean in tarot?
In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Devil upright means “vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force”, and reversed “weakness, pettiness, blindness”.
Upright
Vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
Reversed
Weakness, pettiness, blindness.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
What does the picture show?
The design is an accommodation, mean or harmony, between several motives mentioned in the first part. The Horned Goat of Mendes, with wings like those of a bat, is standing on an altar. At the pit of the stomach there is the sign of Mercury.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 2
Where does the Devil fall in a reading?
The Devil belongs to the Major Arcana. On this site you draw three cards, which take three of the places in the ten-card method Waite describes: “This covers him”, “This crosses him”, “This is before him”. The same card reads differently in each place, and the I Ching cast beside it may agree or disagree.
Ask one question. Draw three cards, and cast an I Ching hexagram beside them to see where East and West agree. Free.
Draw three cardsWaite's words are quoted as printed, and left out where they speak of money, law, illness or disaster. The pictures are the 1909 deck drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. For entertainment and self-reflection.