tarot card meanings · major arcana · XV
the devil — tarot card meaning
- bondage
- appetite
- compulsion
- the loose chain
The chains are loose enough to lift off; the bondage is accepted, not imposed (Waite, 1911).
reversed
Reversed: release, facing the shadow — the same force turned inward, blocked, or overdone.
- release
- facing the shadow
two philosophical anchors, cited
The tyranny of appetite · Plato, Republic IX (577d) · after Jowett
“The tyrannical soul is least likely to do what it wishes, being forever driven by the gadfly of desire.”
Plato's tyrant is not the master of his kingdom but the most enslaved man in it.
Craving grows like grass · Dhammapada, v.335 (tr. Mueller)
“Whomsoever this fierce thirst overcomes, his sufferings increase like the abounding Birana grass.”
The chain is made of repetitions, each singly weak; that is both the trap and the exit.
the question we would ask
Which of your chains would come off if you simply lifted it - and why haven't you?
how a reading is composed — and why it ends with a question, not a prediction.