*Synchronicity at its finest…I always have music playing when I write; a random playlist. I am sitting here, putting my words together to start the piece and what starts to play? The Number of the Beast – Iron Maiden; blew coffee on my monitor…too funny!”
The Devil. The scapegoat of the religious and fearful. The fall guy for the coward. But, this isn’t his domain in Tarot and this card, perhaps above all others, requires that the reader approach without preconceived notions of the Devil. Religion changes as the world moves forward. The concept of the Devil must change as well.
This card is the ultimate expression of irony. We create our own realities, in this realm and thenm, we end up wailing, moaning and fighting against what WE created.
The representation here shows the Devil as a goat, grinning out at us and he, absolutely, deserves that grin; our own concepts, our own magnum opus, is taking control. The Art is on a rampage. Instead of the masterpiece existing as our creation, it is now a dominating force.
Consider Frankenstein and his monster – the initial dream, the theory was good but it quickly spiraled out of control devouring all sense of equilibrium, of our internal sense of balance.
This is a loss of perspective. We’ve created something and we’re now obsessed with making it bigger, larger and to hell with anyone standing in our way. (Pun not intended, just kind of happened). In other words, we’ve lost sight of ourselves.
It was all good and then suddenly, it has all gone all bad – out of control and there is no one to blame but us. No scapegoat, no fall guy. This is our own personification of the concept of the Devil but as he does not truly exist? We must understand that we are to blame, we are our own Devil. Creating our own monster.
The Devil dominates this realm and can allow us to completely enjoy the material and human desire but the risk of losing sight of perspective walks with the Devil, holding hands. The two are inseparable. We embrace the creative energy of Art but must always guard against the creative force taking control and turning a situation at best or us, at its worst, a destructive force.
The Devil, in the Tarot, can be a really funny guy – he represents our own human desires but in balance and giggles away as we allow them to take control, thereby becoming our own “devil” per se.
Wicked Emerald - Live From The Montérégie 