Twinn Swan

The imagery of this card is so strong and in your face that one can’t help but have a reaction to it. Bat wings, an inverted pentagram, a half-goat, half-man being that’s sitting on a pedestal bound to a man and a woman. Both the man and the woman have even grown horns!

Regardless of the number of mixed animal and human motifs in the card, it is the imagery of the goat that is particularly prominent in this card. Whenever the goat appears, it represents our hard work, but it also represents our ego and therefore our attachment to whatever we have invested our time and energy into. The key here, as the Bhagavad Gita would say, is to detach. Let go, release and surrender.

The truth is that the more time you spend and the more that you invest into a particular situation, the more likely you are to become something or someone that you never wanted to be. The chains give us the impression that the man and woman are being held captive when the reality is that they, themselves, are unable to let go of whatever seems to be holding them back. While some pleasure does come out of this ‘deal’ that they have made with the devil, this is not true happiness.

Somewhere deep down, all three parties know that this is not something that they should be doing for this is just not right. But they continue and seem unable to simply stop.

There are some elements to the Devil card that foreshadow and have a similar meaning to the 8 of Swords. Except this time, there is a much stronger sense of confinement or entrapment. We are, for some reason, constrained by external forces and circumstances that are out of our control. The repercussion of this is that we feel helpless and victimised. We simply cannot see a path or a way forward. We so terribly want to live the life of our dreams, but instead, we are stuck in a place that we do not want to be. Freedom feels like a pipe dream…

This is usually, but not always, the result of lust, greed, temptation and addiction. These are hedonists we’re talking about. All they care about pursuing is a purely self-centred satisfaction that only takes into account their own needs and at the expense of someone else’s. You may think that there is nothing wrong with deciding to have a little fun, but that, too, can lead to dire consequences. Be careful that severe and irreparable damage does not ensue from the decisions that you’ve chosen to make. Do not push your luck for these are the mistakes that will come back to haunt you later on in life.

Sometimes, the Devil appears when we’re facing a period where we have very limited resources. We just can’t seem to move forward financially no matter how much effort we put into our professional endeavours and into business. Is it all your fault that your ventures have not worked out? Perhaps there are energies at play that you’re unaware of. In the meantime, learn to live within your means and do not spend on unnecessary luxuries. This is simply not the time for indulgences.

Perhaps your money losses are the result of listening to bad advise. If you’ve realised that someone is offering or has offered you bad advise, it is in your best interest to walk away from the situation. Better to walk away with a small loss than a much bigger loss that will ensue later on. The important thing here is not to dwell on the issue. Learn from small mistakes so that you make better decisions later on. Even if you haven’t found the path of your dreams, promise yourself that you will say NO to certain opportunities and stay far far away from them no matter what.

The Devil card is not all doom and gloom, though. Sometimes it appears when we need to give our obligations and our pursuits a sense of structure. For instance, by using budgets, making to-do lists, having a plan and so on we can achieve greater and higher goals. However, the Devil card generally appears when we must take all possible steps to REJECT all opportunities that have never supported your objectives. This can mean staying away from certain communities and social situations.

Say NO and mean it.