The Devil

What The Devil means

This card pairs with the Lovers: the same joining, renegotiated on worse terms. What it names is bondage of the sort that was entered into — arrangements that were once chosen and have quietly become the floor. It is not squeamish about appetite and does not moralise about pleasure; the interest is in what has come to be accepted as necessary, which is generally something ordinary and seldom something dramatic. There is comedy in it too. The tempter is an externalised want, and the joke is that the power on that side was never its own.

Upright

Look clearly at the bargain underneath the habit. Naming what has power over you is the beginning of taking your choice back.

Reversed

A chain is loosening because you can finally see its link. Replace shame with a practical boundary and choose the next free action.

A question to sit with

What promise does this attachment make, and what does it cost?

Traditional attribution

Capricorn. Attributions follow the Golden Dawn with Waite's numbering.