Greater Arcana Study Group—The Devil

Abrac

The design is an accommodation, mean or harmony, between several motives mentioned in the first part [See below]. 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. The right hand is upraised and extended, being the reverse of that benediction which is given by the Hierophant in the fifth card. In the left hand there is a great flaming torch, inverted towards the earth. A reversed pentagram is on the forehead. There is a ring in front of the altar, from which two chains are carried to the necks of two figures, male and female. These are analogous with those of the sixth card, as if Adam and Eve after the Fall. Hereof is the chain and fatality of the material life.

The figures are tailed, to signify the animal nature, but there is human intelligence in the faces, and he who is exalted above them is not to be their master for ever. Even now, he is also a bondsman, sustained by the evil that is in him and blind to the liberty of service. With more than his usual derision for the arts which he pretended to respect and interpret as a master therein, Éliphas Lévi affirms that the Baphometic figure is occult science and magic. Another commentator says that in the Divine world it signifies predestination, but there is no correspondence in that world with the things which below are of the brute. What it does signify is the Dweller on the Threshold without the Mystical Garden when those are driven forth therefrom who have eaten the forbidden fruit.

First Part:

15. The Devil. In the eighteenth century this card seems to have been rather a symbol of merely animal impudicity [shamelessness, immodesty]. Except for a fantastic head-dress, the chief figure is entirely naked; it has bat-like wings, and the hands and feet are represented by the claws of a bird. In the right hand there is a scepter terminating in a sign which has been thought to represent fire. The figure as a whole is not particularly evil; it has no tail, and the commentators who have said that the claws are those of a harpy have spoken at random. There is no better ground for the alternative suggestion that they are eagle’s claws. Attached, by a cord depending from their collars, to the pedestal on which the figure is mounted, are two small demons, presumably male and female. These are tailed but not winged. Since 1856 the influence of Éliphas Lévi and his doctrine of occultism has changed the face of this card, and it now appears as a pseudo-Baphometic figure with the head of a goat and a great torch between the horns; it is seated instead of erect, and in place of the generative organs there is the Hermetic caduceus. In Le Tarot Divinatoire of Papus the small demons are replaced by naked human beings, male and female, who are yoked only to each other. The author may be felicitated on this improved symbolism.​
 

Abrac

In the first part Waite seems to be talking about a Devil from the Tarot de Marseille but I can’t identify exactly which one; perhaps someone else will know. Waite has given his Devil bat wings and Eagle claws as described in the first part.

Levi-Waite Comparison

Waite says the Devil’s hand is “the reverse of that benediction which is given by the Hierophant in the fifth card.” In the Levi image above, Baphomet’s hands are seen to be in the same sign of esotericism as the Hierophant. The Devil’s right hand is fully-open displaying a symbol in the palm. What the symbol is supposed to be is anyone’s guess. To me it seems an argument can be made it’s a composite symbol combining the four (five actually) Rivers of Eden with a Cross (the old and the new). Whatever it is, I believe it represents a secret that the Devil isn’t authorized to reveal, or he reveals it from a place of greed or self-aggrandizement. It’s also possible that what he reveals is a distortion of the truth or an outright lie. Here’s and enlarged picture.

Hand

For Levi, the torch burning between Baphomet’s horns represented the magical light, or soul elevated above matter. This is illustrated in a diagram from Regardie’s The Golden Dawn. It shows the wheel of spirit elevated above the four elements of matter.

Pentagram

Notice in Levi’s Baphomet the pentagram on its forehead is upright while the one on Waite’s Devil is reversed. Likewise, the torch in the Devil’s hand is turned downward.

Being driven from the Mystical Garden represents the Fall, or Loss. The way of Recovery involves ascending the mountain of initiation. The Dweller on the Threshold is a “terrible beast” which must be overcome along the Way. In his description of the analogous Waite-Trinick image "Lucifer," Waite states:

"The Lucifer of this diagram is the desire after spiritual things, to empower the life of sense and to equip the mind in separation. He is the magus opposed to the saint, and the path of occult science in its contrast to the science of the mystics."​

I believe what Waite is alluding to here is that one aspect of the "Dweller on the Threshold" represents, for the mystic, teachers and teaching that distract from the ultimate goal of the mystic, Union. He seems to make it clear enough what kind of teachers and teaching he means. I don't think he was opposed to study of occult science, he did enough of it himself, but I think he understood the pitfalls for the mystic.

I ran across an interesting reference in Waite's The Secret Doctrine in Israel that sheds some light on the grapes on the woman's tail:

"Recurring to the substitution of a mystical vine for the apple-tree, another tradition certifies that Eve pressed grapes and gave the juice to her husband. The opening of their eyes was to behold all the ills of the world. I suppose that I need not specify in what sense these grapes are to be understood as a sex-symbol, and it follows that she shewed Adam how they might be enjoyed." :)
 

Abrac

Azoth, or, The Star in the East, "The Obscure Night." Waite describes mystic death, and also something that’s suggestive of the Devil. In his description of that card in the PKT he says, "The figures are tailed, to signify the animal nature, but there is human intelligence in the faces, and he who is exalted above them is not to be their master for ever." He uses the sign of intelligence as the factor that will ultimately free them.

In Azoth, p. 186, "The Interior Sublimation, or the Ascent of the Mind," he says:

For any man who is only and absolutely governed by a clear intelligence, in the world of action equally with the world of thought, is of the quality of saints and adepts, and is constructing his nature towards the powers and prerogatives of the world angelical.​

The whole chapter is about the powers of intelligence.

Azoth, p. 193:

The Obscure Night is also the stage of transcendental experiment, because, as we have seen, it is a stage of uncertainty and doubt, wherein the fallen angel of the lesser or material man afflicts the emancipating intelligence with the scourge of mystical unbelief, tempting us to deny our inheritance and to forfeit our starry crown.

Again the use of "crown" as described in my last comment on Temperance.