The Devil Tarot Card Meaning

The Devil upright

A horned, bat-winged figure crouches on an altar; below, a man and woman are chained loosely by the neck. Waite contrasts this with The Lovers and reads it as bondage to the material, animal side of life. The card asks: what is holding you, and are you actually free to step away?

The Devil reversed

Waite reversed gives weakness, pettiness and blindness. Today it is often read as the hold loosening — you can see the pattern now. Take one practical step away from it.

A reversed card (What does Upright / reversed card mean?) is one drawn upside-down.

Is The Devil a yes or no?

Upright: Leans no. No — the situation carries a hook. Look at what you would be tying yourself to.

Reversed: Reversed, The Devil reads as mixed — not a clear yes or no: release, breaking free, pettiness.

The yes/no lean is BornClock’s reading convention drawn from the card’s meaning — Waite himself did not assign one.

Symbolism in the The Devil card

What appears in the 1909 Rider–Waite–Smith picture, as Waite describes it:

• Horned figure on an altar — the pull of material desire
• Hand raised the opposite way to the Hierophant's — Waite: a blessing reversed
• Torch held pointing down — inverted, like the blessing
• Man and woman chained to a ring — Waite: the chain and fatality of material life
• Tails on the chained pair — Waite: the animal nature joined to human intelligence

In Waite’s own words (paraphrased)

Upright: vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality — which Waite says is predestined but not for that reason evil.

Reversed: evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.

Source: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910, public domain). Some of Waite’s 1910 fortune-telling meanings are old-fashioned; the plain-English reading above is ours.