The Devil: not a bad boy, just misunderstood?

Mittkait

- and my goodness Mittkait - autocratic much?
To say "The Devil card is in this box and absolutely cannot fit anywhere else - and you youngster - should just get over it" - is presumptuous for other users imo.
That's how it occurs to me.
I am not an advocate of Aleister Crowley - and I do believe he was not a Satanist though often depicted that way.
Neither did it come across to me, that euripides was "expecting everyone to conform" to his idea of The Devil.
And Doreen Virtue - deliberately took "the dark side" out of her decks because it made her feel uncomfortable - and she admits that.
I agree - it doesn't work. Lol.

I'm just relating the thought process of the people who created the cards. These are the same ideas that Robert Place used with his own tarot decks and he wrote two books on the subject. I took his lecture series and heard him personally speak about it in NYC.

Crowley was a satanist. Then decided he himself was a god and in the process went insane. Although I think his tarot looks beautiful. I rarely get anything useful from it. It always ends up telling me to do what I want. Which is really no help at all and in the long run leads to the same road Crowley used.
 

Tanga

I'm just relating the thought process of the people who created the cards. These are the same ideas that Robert Place used with his own tarot decks and he wrote two books on the subject. I took his lecture series and heard him personally speak about it in NYC.

Oh OK. But you didn't actually relate it quite like that.

Crowley was a satanist. Then decided he himself was a god and in the process went insane. Although I think his tarot looks beautiful. I rarely get anything useful from it. It always ends up telling me to do what I want. Which is really no help at all and in the long run leads to the same road Crowley used.

Again - your opinion and experience - not necessarily what everyone should take on (or experiences in using that Tarot deck for that matter).

Thank you for clarifying your position :). (not ours. Lol).
 

QueenOfTemperance

Greek Gods as silly? My - I've never quite thought of that.
But then I'm Pagan so I'm biased.

Silly isn't quite the right word... comical might not be either - but when you read about their antics from a modern perspective - changing into creatures, the abductions and squabbles and infidelities - it all seems a little chaotic and undignified.

^ This :)

Modern invokers might not quite think of them in a neo-classical context - but conjur them with a more modern visage.

Interesting. It's fascinating to see how these concepts change and shift, even if only slightly, with time.
 

DDwarks

Crowley was a satanist. Then decided he himself was a god and in the process went insane. Although I think his tarot looks beautiful. I rarely get anything useful from it. It always ends up telling me to do what I want. Which is really no help at all and in the long run leads to the same road Crowley used.

Personal statements are just that. Personal!
My experience with it has been nothing more than enlightening. None of my other decks come even close.
The deck although his idea wasn't his creation/vision anyway. I'm struggling to understand how telling you "to do what you want to do" would lead anyone down the "same road Crowley used".

I see The Devil as dealing with the 7 deadly sins....and fear.
All manners of temptations and restrictions are presented by his appearance but all can be remove by our own efforts.
Astrologically, I associate it with 6 (15= 1+5).
It's the number of The Lovers, showing weakness/difficulties in decision making.

Is he a bad guy? Not in my opinion.
To me he acts as a red flag or a big STOP sign. I particularly like The Thoth's Devil with his silly smirk.
He knows why we're stuck and he knows it's an illusion of our own making. While we struggle with our own shortcomings it amuses him to think we're blaming him!

Is he misunderstood? Absolutely.
This is where fear comes in.
You've got 2 choices with the Devil card.
Struggle with all kind of inner conflicts or feel the fear and break free from it all. The Lover's 6 comes back into play here where you have to make a choice.
The sayings "better the Devil you know" or "feel the fear and do it anyway" come to mind.
 

Edward Tarot Hands

I'm reading a book about the history of The Devil figure in myths and folklore arounnd the world. It's a hefty book and I've only just started it but it seems that she/he is a recently added fellow to religion as in being wholly evil. Most beleif systems had gods who were good and bad but not ne that embodied evil totally.
In my opinion on one level in the Tarot he/she is an archetypal image linked to the ideal of confusion, trickery and not seeing things as they truly are but like all the Trumps they have many layers of meaning each one relevant to the person using the cards...
could he be a bad boy or girl? Why not! Every good story needs one ;)
 

euripides

You've got 2 choices with the Devil card.
Struggle with all kind of inner conflicts or feel the fear and break free from it all. The Lover's 6 comes back into play here where you have to make a choice.
The sayings "better the Devil you know" or "feel the fear and do it anyway" come to mind.

Now this is interesting. I was just looking at the Trumps and comparing the figures in the Devil with the ones in the Lovers. That card is so often seen as so lovey-dovey, passion and pairing... the choice element usually glossed over. I can't help but wonder if that angel hovering over them both is the Devil before his Fall. And look at the Tower -

Luke 10:18 And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven

I'm a bit torn here as I know that with comparative mythology there's always a temptation to make connections that don't exist, (Robert Graves is pilloried by modern scholars for his 'white man theory of everything' conflation of myth) - but on the other hand, I feel that everything is connected and sometimes - because these stories evolved and express truths about the world or our experience of the world - these connecting threads are really valid.

Going back to the Greeks - I'm thinking that the Judao-Christian Satan and the Greco Roman Hades/Pluton really are very far apart. Hades is at times depicted as an old man with a cornucopia. In other art, he's just lolling about with Persephone. He was given the territory of the underworld and he does his duty.

Then there's Dionysus. My impression is that some of the cults associated with him were violent, but in himself, he seems reasonably benign... but he's a complex and interesting figure. I've seen entire threads on a history forum that pretty much make the entire Trump cycle about him. Certainly the Chariot brings to mind images of Bacchus driving a pair of leopards.. More reading to be done.

All of the Greek gods have flaws, but I'm not sure that any are truly evil. Chronos maybe. The whole devouring your children thing.

I'm reading a book about the history of The Devil figure in myths and folklore arounnd the world. It's a hefty book and I've only just started it but it seems that she/he is a recently added fellow to religion as in being wholly evil. Most beleif systems had gods who were good and bad but not ne that embodied evil totally.
In my opinion on one level in the Tarot he/she is an archetypal image linked to the ideal of confusion, trickery and not seeing things as they truly are but like all the Trumps they have many layers of meaning each one relevant to the person using the cards...
could he be a bad boy or girl? Why not! Every good story needs one ;)

oh, title & author please?
 

FLizarraga

Nice thread!

I want to add that the Devil in the Druidcraft has nothing to do with the Judeo-Christian devil. He's Cernunnos, who as most pagan gods has a benign and a terrible side. Pagan deities are rarely all good or all bad.

Plus the Christian devil incorporates in his iconography all things that early Christianity despised and feared: the god of nature's horns and hooves, sexual ambiguity, the Dionysian ecstasy. A lot has been written about that; I recommend, among other books, Elaine Pagels' The Origin of Satan, which is also a pleasure to read.

That's why that card does not make sense as a straight-up version of the RWS Devil or the Marseille Devil. It's something else --seductive and dangerous, that needs to be both indulged and controlled.
 

vifetoile

Practicing a little thread necromancy to say, I think in some decks, at least, the Devil can be read with a more positive connotation. On the one hand, you have associations like drug abuse and bad relationships - but sometimes people recover from addictions, and break bad patterns of behavior. I then almost imagine the Devil as like a good therapist - someone who's seen it all, lived most of it, who can guide others to a better life *because* he's been there and knows the worst of the human experience.