This post is about the Devil.

This is a post that I feel deserves to appear on both my blogs for the simple reason that it is something about my life, and also something about Tarot. And both are integral parts of me.

First, a little background on why this post sprang up. It is essential.

The Devil: How The Quest Began

I was surfing the net as I am wont to do when I don’t have anything better to do. Just ended up on Yahoo! Answers and put in “Tarot” in the ‘Search’ box and hit enter. Just to see what comes up, you know. Then stuff began to pop up, which made me wonder.

The Surge of Tarot in India

Tarot is recently gaining quite a bit of popularity in India because a Tarot reader (I really don’t know their name) came on a cricket match show and predicted the outcome of the game. Soon enough, we had a bunch of Tarot readers on the popular news channels and newspapers giving out advice and daily/weekly predictions for each sign. And then we have “Tarot Readers” springing up all over the place, teachers teaching Tarot all over the country, and so on and so forth.

Like every other method of ‘fortune-telling’ this one also has its bad apples, and its materialists. For me, Tarot became something else altogether. I admit it began as a ‘fortune-telling’ medium, but as I studied and as I came closer to the meanings of the cards, it became much more than just that for me. Tarot cards became the lamps lighting my way on my spiritual path, guiding me.

Exploring Origins of the Devil in Myth & Religion

Of course, I have to point out here that, being a Hindu, I have not much of an idea about Christian concepts and ideologies. However, the Tarot was full of them. So I did a bit of research.

I’ve been fascinated by mythology and the idea of ‘story creation’ as the basis of myth; I already had some idea of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and, of course, Hindu mythology. I never knew that reading up on all this would one day culminate in Tarot, so simply.

When I saw all the people on the site condemning Tarot for being ‘the work of the Devil,’ and all those who practiced Tarot were supposed to be ‘the Devil’s disciples,’ and so on, I began to wonder. Luckily, in India, which is primarily a Hindu nation, perhaps this drivel won’t filter down. Perhaps that is why I can see this without prejudice or preconceived ideas. Who knows?

I have met a couple of Christians in my time: a guy who won’t read ‘The Da Vinci Code’, for example (it’s just a book for crying out loud! And it says ‘Fiction” very clearly on the cover!) and this woman who told me that we all were ‘born in sin’.

In my experience, I find these people a bit, well, cuckoo! So who the heck is the Devil anyway?

I know we have The Devil card in the Tarot. Of course, I kinda had a personal interest in him because in the Tarot this card of the Major Arcana also stands for the sign Capricorn. And according to my date of birth, I am a Capricorn. So you see, I had to know more. So I googled the Devil.

A lot of sites turned up. If anyone is interested in some further reading, I’ve provided a list of what I had to read through at the end of this post.

The Devil in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism

So here’s what I found. The Christian Bible, the Islamic Quran, and the Jewish Bible talk about the Devil.

Apparently, he was originally one of the angels God created. His name was Lucifer, which means ‘the Bringer of Light’.

The story goes: When Man was created, God asked all the Angels to bow before His creation. But Lucifer refused because he preferred to bow only to God. So God became angry with him and cast him out of Heaven. (!!!???!!!) Thus, he became a Fallen Angel.

That was when he decided to corrupt Man, to show God that this creation was not perfect at all.

He got his chance when Adam and Eve were living in the Garden of Eden. The Devil took the form of a snake and convinced Eve that she ought to eat the fruit from the ‘Tree of Knowledge’ so that she would be as knowledgeable as God.

She not only ate the fruit, but also gave it to Adam, who ate it too.

After that, Adam and Eve felt very guilty about what they had done because they had disobeyed one of God’s direct orders. This was the ‘original sin’. For this, God punished them by throwing them out of Eden. Additionally, this is also why all the descendants of Adam and Eve (that is all of us!) are ‘born in sin’.

Phew! I hope I got the gist right! If not, please feel free to correct me if I missed something.

The Devil in the Lovers Card of the Tarot

There is a Tarot card showing something like this, called Lovers.

In this card, we see Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Behind Adam is the Tree of Life (with its flame-like leaves) and behind Eve is the Tree of Knowledge (complete with the apples and the serpent). Adam looks at Eve, who in turn looks heavenward at the Angel blessing them both.

This card means choices, relationships, love, divine inspiration, and so on. But this picture conveys so much more than all that.

The man and woman can reach bliss and thoughtlessness only when they are ‘with’ each other. This bliss is often referred to as a glimpse into an enlightened state of being.

Towards this end, for the man, this woman becomes the means to achieving this state. But it also says to me that the woman doesn’t need the man to reach this state. She is the womb and thus the Mother. She goes through these cycles of creation-ability every month. She instinctively knows what it is all about. She can get to this enlightened state of being simply through her own awareness of the movement of the cycles on a spiritual level.

The man can also reach this state of bliss on his own. He, however, needs to do more work to raise his awareness levels and get attuned to these cycles.

Methinks Mr. A.E. Waite was a feminist.

Religious Condemnation of Divination

We have a whole bunch of people criticizing and condemning, not just Tarot but also other forms of divination. Now ‘divination’ means ‘A prediction uttered under divine inspiration’. Apparently the Bible condemns all this, and the people who do this ‘divination’ are all witches and so on. But, as far as I can see from all the info about the Bible and Quran on the Net, the Bible and the Quran themselves have a bunch of predictions and so on within them. Now what’s the deal with that?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not against any religion. Really. I am just against the hypocrisy created by ‘organized religion’. My own religion is included in this list, too. Any religion, when it becomes ‘organized ’, becomes open to corruption. Either from within or without. This corruption becomes an essential part of this drama created by that religion.

That is when dogmas, rituals, and strict enforcement of certain religious statements emerge. True debate over the concepts in that religion is suppressed. Each statement is easily open to debate and criticism. But that is suppressed. Each person within this religion is expected to follow the rules that are laid down. There is no place for rational thoughts, and complete obedience is expected. Usually, a Priest of some sort sits at the top of this hierarchy, laying down these ‘laws’ based on the religion’s basic text.

But each religion has its good points. As far as I know, there isn’t a single religion in the world that tells you to lie, cheat, and steal. All religions tell you to be good, tell the truth, and be kind to other people.

And yet, we have people killing each other in the name of a religion. We have people discriminating in the name of a religion. We have people hating each other in the name of a religion. Why?

Even in Hinduism, we had the caste system, which was pushed to an extreme end and created discrimination. Today, this kind of discrimination has been abolished by the law, but it still exists. This is the part I don’t like about it.

The Hierophant Card: Organized Religion

There is a Tarot card that represents this bit about ‘organized religion’. It is called ‘The Hierophant’. In fact, the name of this card in the older Tarot de Marseille decks was The Pope. Additionally, the meaning of the word ‘Hierophant‘ is ‘a person, especially a priest, who interprets sacred mysteries or esoteric principles’. The word originates from a combination of the Latin words ‘hieros‘, which means ‘sacred’, and ‘phainein ‘, which means ‘show’ and ‘reveal ‘.

This card shows a Pope blessing two students, with two keys at his feet. This card can stand for morality, society, religious initiation, systematic and orderly mode of study, and so on.

What I feel that this picture is trying to convey is that ‘organized religion’ need not be the barrier that it is made out to be. Religion and its study and practice need not be so ritualistic and dogmatic. For somewhere within the babble of this and that, lie the keys to your own realization. It’s just a question of how you end up using that knowledge and when and what you use it for.

Within this card, therefore, I see a very valuable paradox. This card is not quite what you see at first glance. Although one must pass through certain strict processes to look within and understand the basic tenets of any religion, once one has the keys to that inner wisdom, one can still choose to use that knowledge well.

Only those among the learned ones who feel the need for control go the way of fanaticism, and those who truly understand the concepts use it for good deeds.

Rituals are simply a means of getting attuned to that particular energy level. Most religions have them, one way or the other. These, I feel, cannot be truly avoided or done away with. In fact, there are a plethora of rituals because there’s no one-size-fits-all. To each his own. Even in that, every religion has given us some space.

The Devil in the Tarot Cards

So where does the Devil fit into all this? Yup, like I said before, we have a card called The Devil in the Tarot deck.

In The Devil card, we see, once again, the two characters from the Lovers card. However, now their surroundings have changed considerably.

In The Devil card, the man and the woman from The Lovers card are chained to a block. One thing to note is that those chains don’t seem tightly tied around their necks.

A creature with horns, bat wings, the upper body of a man, the lower body of a furry goat, and the claws of a bird for its feet is sitting on top of this block. He has a particularly sour expression on his face.

In one hand, he carries a downward-pointing flaming torch, right behind the backside of the man. With the other, he makes some sort of “V” sign with his fingers (strangely resembling the Vulcan salute from Star Trek). Also, an inverted pentacle appears on this person’s head.

The man and the woman from The Lovers card seem to have sprouted horns. The man has grown a tail with the end looking like a leaf from the Tree of Life. The woman also has a tail with a bunch of grapes at the end.

The card background is just darkness.

This card means to tell us to look within our inner darkness – this is the darkness of the soul trapped in the material world. We need to see that the chains and shackles are of our own making. We have to understand that we ought not to be tied to the rituals and moral codes of living and knowing. We should understand that these are the things within us that keep us locked into this darkness. The ritual does not mean attainment. We must learn that the moral code may be the way but not the answer. This card imagery also shows how a materialistic outlook on life ends up tying us down.

To me, The Devil card also talks of addiction, relationships, and jobs that feel like chains and restrict your personal development and so on.

Perhaps this is also a lesson for Capricorn people to come out of their materialistic attitude about life.

This funny-looking person on top of the block is actually a synthesis of a whole bunch of pre-Christian deities such as Pan, Cernunnos, and The Horned One. Each one had their own set of myths.

Here is a quote from the bit about Pan as to how the symbol for the sign of ‘Capricorn’ emerged:

The constellation Capricornus is often depicted as a sea-goat, a goat with a fish’s tail: see Aigaion or Briareos, one of the Hecatonchires. One myth that would seem to be invented to justify a connection of Pan with Capricorn says that when Aigipan, that is Pan in his goat-god aspect, was attacked by the monster Typhon, he dove into the Nile; the parts above the water remained a goat, but those under the water transformed into a fish.

And of course we have the pentacle being condemned for being a symbol of the Devil. When in fact, it is a symbol of all the five elements in Nature: Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Spirit.

Upward-pointing pentacles signal that all these elements are being channeled into the spirit. Downward-pointing pentacles signify that this spirit essence is being channeled down towards the material realm.

Of course, the horror film industry has built this whole thing up into a vast money-making business. And this added to the masses’ idea that the pentacle was a sign of the Devil. I suppose, the Church also gave it some added impetus. And thus, the Pentacle became an ‘evil’ symbol. So tell me, where is this ‘evil’ in all the five elements of nature?

What I understand by and from the Devil

So now we come down to what it actually boils down to, for me.

The Devil, based on all this research, is nothing but the inner darkness that we all carry, and have to face from time to time. Within us exist both good and bad, black and white, yin and yang, male and female, positive and negative, and so on.

As human beings, we are challenged to create a synthesis of all these aspects. Because that is essential for us to attain the state of being closer to an enlightened state of bliss. This is what we have to conquer within ourselves.

Without one, there is no other. If there would not have been ‘bad’ then we would not know what is ‘good’. Without white, black would be meaningless. The male and female principles have to unite to generate the act of creation. This duality is therefore essential to any kind of movement of the spirit.

The Tarot & the church: Different approaches to connect with Higher Knowledge

The Tarot cards have these principles and secrets intertwined within them through pictures and symbols. This so-called ‘secret knowledge’ is freely available for those who choose to know it within the Book of Tarot.

The Tarot readers who understand this knowledge and incorporate it within their life will find that they are part of a free and straightforward system of attaining that state of enlightened bliss. And their journey then begins.

Of course, it is not easy. No one said that it would be. But it is a beginning, and as such, this process is made up of looking within, creating inner awareness, seeking knowledge, and so on. Thus, this system does not need any intermediaries between the reader and the universal consciousness.

It’s like a direct connection with the knowledge within oneself and within the universe. And the Tarot cards are just like the runway for the soul-airplane. They provide the place or the means for this jump or this connection to take place.

Perhaps this is why the Church opposes the Tarot cards. If everyone had such a connection, then these Churches would not be needed. And perhaps that is why they are called the work of the Devil. Because they are a straightforward means of getting the ‘knowledge’ – like eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

When I was a child, my grandmother always told me that if I had to stand against something or dislike something, then I had to find out what it was all about in the first place before I could condemn it.

My suggestion to all the Tarot-haters of the world is that they find out what the cards are all about in the first place before they condemn them. Half knowledge is, in fact, a dangerous thing.

If one really sees the cards and their meanings for what they are, then one will understand that they are not evil.

And as far as the knowledge of future events goes, all Tarotists will tell you that the future is something that isn’t hard and fast written on stone. It isn’t something that cannot be changed.

The way I see it, Tarot readings are meant to be a guidance for the future. They are meant to help the querent see how they can prepare for forthcoming events and use their ‘free will’ to create change within themselves so it reflects in their lives.

We all have the power within ourselves to create and generate our lives. What we think, feel, and talk about is converted into energy and manifests in our lives. So we are, in fact, active participants in our future. Perhaps that is why each religion tells us to speak the truth, be kind towards other people, and so on. Because this energy that we send out to the world is thus going to manifest in our life in a good way.

And then when we don’t see this cause-effect relationship manifesting, we begin to question more deeply and stumble upon the concepts of Karma, Past Life Karma, and so on. But all that is fodder for another post – wot say? Stay tuned! 😀

The Devil: Information & Links

Here are the links that I mentioned at the very beginning:

• http://www.lucifer.com/lucifer.html
• http://religion-cults.com/Occult/O-Overview.htm
• http://www.religion-cults.com/Occult/Satanism/Satanism.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_God
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cernunnos
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_(mythology)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_in_Christianity
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iblis
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_Eden
• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04764a.htm
• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09410a.htm

Your Turn

Did this post about The Devil give you something to think about? Did you take a look at the different links given above? What did you think? Did my thoughts make sense? Do you have something to add to this post?

Please share your thoughts with me in the comments section below.