Your Chosen Card – The Devil Upright Thoth Deck
When upright, the Devil suggests that you have an opportunity to pursue activities that provide intense pleasure and satisfaction. This card often appears when we are contemplating a project requiring an almost obsessional devotion to achieve a material ambition. The Devil cautions us to maintain balance in our lives as we eagerly pursue this goal and not to allow excessive attachment to material temptations to lead us astray.
Unfortunately, the Devil card has become linked to views of dour theologians who believe that bodily pleasure is sinful in the eyes of the deity who ironically created the human body with all its capacity for enjoyment. The Devil card teaches us that seeking pleasure in life is perfectly acceptable, so long as it is done with moderation (which is why Temperance, card XIV, precedes card XV, the Devil). When this card appears in a reading, its time to lighten up and delight in activities that you may have avoided because of a rigid sense of obligation or morality. The Devil whispers in your ear: ‘If it feels good, do it.’ Thus, if there is a cherished worldly ambition you have held back from pursing, now is the time to go for it. The Devil simply cautions you to maintain a spiritual perspective so that you can avoid becoming ensnared by your material ambitions and adopt a twisted view of the world. Along these lines, a recent survey of a thousand parents in the UK found that despite the popular notion that money, professional success, and material possessions are essential for a happy life, 95 percent of them stated that the key to happiness lies in ‘spending quality family time together.’ 39
Keywords Upright: Loosening the ties that bind, breaking free of rigid morality, enjoyable material attachments, making healthy choices, having fun, enjoying sex, confronting temptation, delighting in what gives you pleasure, adopting a spiritual perspective, confronting ones inner demons, casting off the chains of religious dogmatism, leading the life that you desire, intense devotion to a worldly ambition.
Key XV: The Devil (the god Pan)
Myths/Archetypes: Pan, the sex-crazed goat-legged god of the shepherds. Bacchanalia. Adam and Eve. Baphomet. Cernunnos. Lucifer. Faust. Knight Midas. Alexander the Great. Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. The religiously obsessed suicide bomber.
Dates of Capricorn: 21 December19 January (tropical); 14 January12 February (sidereal)
Astrology: Capricorn, the Mountain or Sea Goat (an Earth sign ruled by Saturn)
Numerology: 6 (Lovers) = 1 + 5 (Devil)
Hebrew letters: Ayin (an eye; a Hebrew word meaning to see, watch, experience, know; also primeval light, shade, a spring or fountain, as an eye producing purifying tears in response to pain or grief). In the Bible, Lucifers name means ‘bringer of light.’ The letter Ghah is also associated with the Devil card. According to Jeff Benner, the twenty-third letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet, Ghah (‘a twisted rope’), was absorbed into the modern letter Ayin. 38 Ghah means ‘twisted,’ ‘dark,’ or ‘wicked,’ and refers to goats because of their twisted horns. In modern slang, ‘horny’ has come to mean lustful or sexually preoccupied. Perhaps the combination Ayin Ghah associated with this card suggests adopting a twisted view of the world. Coincidentally, Capricorn – the goat of astrology – is assigned to the Devil trump.
When The Devil is upright you can pretty much take it that life is going well but that’s when life takes us by surprise. If The Devil is unclear it may help to choose a card from the Major Arcana to provide more insight into what it is The Devil is trying to tell you. If you had a particular issue in mind, or want to seek clarification on something else, you can also choose again to get more guidance.
This chosen card is part of your upright card reading for The Devil using cards from the Thoth Tarot Deck. You will find many more tarot pages that will be of great help if you need tarot card meanings. Use the search at the bottom of the page. We have some amazing tarot books for you to browse. Please see below.
Here are some snippets from a few of my favorite books
Book Details
World of Psychics: In the Thoth deck the figure on the Temperance card stands over a large cooking pot, adding the ingredients that will help everything to reach a fulfilling conclusion. She is surrounded by opposites, showing that nothing is impossible and with the right conditions opposites can not only attract but also work well together.
Complete Book of Tarot: The gardener in the Seven of Coins is tending a bush sprouting seven Pentacle-fruits. Some of the fruit looks healthy and delicious, others look discolored and unappetizing. The man seems to be taking a break, perhaps to contemplate his work and decide upon a next move. With this card, the tarot is suggesting that it can help us to reflect on our labors, enabling us to make prudent choices that lead to a productive outcome. A. E. Waite, author of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, described the young man on this card as viewing the fruits ‘as if they were his treasures and that his heart was there,’ so maybe the tarot is also saying that it can help us to clarify our hearts desires.
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Complete Book of Tarot: The silk cloth myth: always wrap your cards in silk cloth and store them in an oak box with crystals like quartz or amethyst.