The Devil tarot card meaning: upright, reversed and symbols

The Devil is card XV of the Major Arcana. It sounds frightening, but in a reading it is rarely about evil. It is about what holds you: habits, cravings, money worries, controlling relationships, patterns you can see and still feed. The good news is in the picture: the chains are loose. Here is what the Devil means upright and reversed, the symbols in the 1909 card and where the horned figure came from.

At a glance

• Upright keywords: bondage, attachment, temptation, unhealthy patterns
• Reversed keywords: release, breaking free, facing the chain
• Number: XV (15) in the Major Arcana
• Element: Earth Later tradition
• Astrology: Capricorn Later tradition
• Yes or no: No Modern

The element and astrology come from the Golden Dawn system of the 1880s and 1890s, not from the first tarot decks, and the yes or no lean is a modern reading habit. Use them if they help you remember the card, and skip them if they get in the way.

The card: what Pamela Colman Smith drew

The 1909 card shows a horned, bat-winged figure on a dark block, with a man and a woman chained below it, unclothed and with small horns and tails. Waite described “the Horned Goat of Mendes, with wings like those of a bat, standing on an altar”, and two figures chained by the neck, “as if Adam and Eve after the Fall”.

The loose chains

The chains around the two figures’ necks are loose enough to lift off. Nothing but habit and fear keeps them there. That is the most important detail in the card. Freedom begins with noticing the chain.

The horned figure

A horned figure with bat wings sits on a dark block. Its right hand is raised in a gesture that Waite called “the reverse of that benediction which is given by the Hierophant”. It is a mirror of the Hierophant: control instead of guidance.

The torch

In the figure’s left hand is a torch pointing down to the earth. Energy and desire are turned toward the material world only.

The two figures

The two chained figures look like the Lovers, now with small tails and horns. Waite wrote that “there is human intelligence in the faces”, and that the figure above them “is not to be their master for ever”.

Upright meaning

Upright, the Devil names bondage that often looks chosen: addiction, unhealthy attachment, exploitation, golden handcuffs or a pattern you can see and still feed. The chain is often loose enough to notice and tight enough to fear removing.

In a reading, ask what has power over you that you keep calling preference. The Devil invites clear seeing without melodrama. Freedom begins with naming the hook. If addiction, abuse or control is part of your situation, please talk to someone you trust, a doctor or a support line. A card can point at a problem, but people help you solve it.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, the Devil often means release: a temptation losing its grip, a chain being lifted, a decision to break free. It can also mean denial that the chain was ever there.

Ask whether you are stepping free or only rearranging the links. Real freedom needs structure: support, boundaries and someone to be accountable to. If you are early in release, expect unfinished work, and be kind to yourself through it.

Reversals are optional. Many readers never use them and read every card upright, and that is a complete way to read. If you do use them, decide before you shuffle what a reversed card will mean for you, and keep to that choice for the whole reading.

In love, work and spirituality

Love

Upright, a controlling or obsessive dynamic, jealousy, or strong physical attraction that clouds judgment. Reversed, beginning to leave or to renegotiate after a long entanglement.

Work and money

Golden handcuffs, debt, a job you stay in only for the money, or an unethical compromise. Reversed, walking toward freer terms even at a cost.

Spirituality

Shadow work that honestly admits appetite and power. Reversed, mistaking an edgy look for freedom while staying hooked.

As feelings

As feelings, the Devil shows intense desire, obsession or a strong pull the person may not fully trust. It is passion with a hook in it.

The Devil as past, present, future and advice

• Past: A habit or attachment that held you, perhaps still does.
• Present: Something has a hold on you. Look at the chain.
• Future: A temptation to watch for, or a chance to break free.
• Advice: Name the hook, and ask for help to lift it off.

A Major Arcana card names a theme, not a sentence passed on your life. When the Devil shows up among mostly Minor cards, give it extra weight: the theme of bondage runs under the whole question. If it keeps coming back over several days, write down what was happening each time. Patterns like that teach you more about the card than any list of keywords.

Is the Devil a yes or a no?

In modern yes or no readings, the Devil leans no. It warns that something is holding you, so it usually says no, or not until you deal with the chain. Tarot is better at showing the shape of a situation than at handing down verdicts, so if the question really matters, turn it into an open question such as “What do I need to know about this?” and draw again.

Affirmation and journal prompts

Affirmation: I name what binds me and take the next freeing step I can sustain.

Reversed affirmation: I keep releasing what binds me with honest support and steady boundaries.

Journal prompts:

• What do I keep doing even though I know it does not serve me?
• What does this chain give me, and what does it cost?
• Who could help me lift it off?

The history and art behind the card

In the Tarot de Marseille pattern the card is called Le Diable, the Devil. The Devil is missing from the oldest surviving painted decks, perhaps lost, perhaps never made, and we cannot be sure which. On Marseille cards the Devil is a strange figure with wings, horns and breasts, standing on a pedestal with two small chained imps.

The goat-headed figure on modern cards comes from Éliphas Lévi, who in 1856 drew a winged, goat-headed being he called Baphomet. Waite said he based his design on several older motifs, and Smith’s picture clearly echoes Lévi’s drawing. Waite also mocked Lévi for claiming that the figure stood for occult science and magic. For Waite it was about “the chain and fatality of the material life”.

Modern readers treat the Devil as a psychological card. It is about what we are attached to, not about an outside force that controls us. That reading is gentler and, for most people, more useful.

When A. E. Waite published The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1910, he listed these divinatory meanings for the card: “Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil.” Reversed, he gave: “Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.” Waite himself called the fortune-telling meanings of the trumps “artificial and arbitrary”, and on this site I read the picture first and treat lists like this as history.

In the modern teaching map called the Fool’s Journey, this card belongs to the third stage, seeing through and returning (roughly the Devil to the World): bondage, upheaval, hope, uncertainty, clarity, reckoning and completion. This map is a teaching aid made popular by twentieth-century guidebooks such as Eden Gray’s, not a medieval doctrine. Use it when it helps.

A spread for the Devil

Use this spread when you feel stuck in a habit or a pattern.

1. What holds me? The chain, named honestly.
2. What does it give me? Why I keep it on, the reward hidden inside the habit.
3. How can I lift it off? One step toward freedom, and who can help.

Lay the three cards in a row, read each one on its own first, then read them together as a short story. Write one sentence for each position and one small action you will take.

Common questions

Is the Devil card evil?

No. In tarot the Devil is about attachment, habits and temptation, not about evil forces. Its chains are loose.

Does the Devil mean someone is cheating?

Not by itself. It can point to obsession, jealousy or temptation, but tarot cannot prove what another person is doing.

The Devil with other cards

• With The Lovers: a relationship with an unhealthy pull.
• With Strength: the gentle courage it takes to break a habit.
• With The Tower: a pattern that breaks suddenly.

Related cards

• The Lovers: the card the Devil mirrors: love versus attachment
• The Tower: the next card: the shock that breaks the chains
• Strength: the gentle strength that frees you

Keep learning

The Devil is part of the lesson The Devil to the World in my free Tarot for Beginners course. To keep walking the Major Arcana, read the card before it, Temperance or the card after it, The Tower, or go back to all the card meanings. For every card with keywords, affirmations and examples, see my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot. If you would like a printable cheat sheet for all 78 cards, my 45-page Tarot Workbook is on Etsy.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part II and Part III, section 3.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (Marseille, 1760).
• Eden Gray, A Complete Guide to the Tarot (New York: Crown, 1970), epilogue “The Fool’s Journey”.
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot, entry for The Devil.