TRUMP 15 - THE DEVIL
We come now to one of the most difficult and controversial cards in the entire deck. Many people we see in common circles, in movies, on television, and in commercials seem to remember two cards better than any others--one is the Devil, the other is Death. And, with this iconography they automatically assume that the Tarot cards are darkness incarnate.
When we discuss the Devil, we are discussing a subject which is very near and dear to the hearts of many people. People feel very passionate one way or the other about the Devil. For some, the Devil is a living physical individual being who is the conscious deliberate underlord of all that goes wrong with this world. For others, the Devil is a symbol of negative tendencies within man and is, therefore, really not essential.
The pathway of Temperance leads us straight to the Devil's doorway, and if we wish to finally have our homecoming, we must overcome the Devil in one form or another. We must come to terms with who or what the devil is. We must come to terms with the Devil's temptation. We must become unchained and unfettered and have the Devil get behind us, if we are to proceed.
As I present some historical perspective, I do not wish to offend anyone. As I said, many people take the Devil quite seriously, and this is one matter which people find intently personal. Some feel immediately threatened if you challenge any of their conceptions or preconceptions about the Devil. Before we go into any form of religious or spiritual interpretation or understanding of the Devil, we must understand the history.
The Devil was invented or discovered, depending upon your perspective, approximately in the year 580 B.C. How do I say this? I am not fabricating and I am not interpreting. I am expressing to you actual documented facts of history, which the Bible makes clear to us. If you read in the Bible there are several writings in what we call the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, which account the history of the early Jewish race as it transforms a theocracy into a monarchy. Those books are 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Chronicles. They account almost chapter for chapter the same events, the same perspectives, the same times. The difference is they are written at two very different time periods. 1st and 2nd Samuel where written first. Most authors will say approximately around the time of their events. Many people actually believe that they were written by Samuel himself, and I have no reason to dispute this one way or the other.
1st and 2nd Chronicles were written much later, some few hundred years later after the Babylonian captivity. What was the Babylonian captivity? You should review your history if you're unfamiliar with this event. This was a pivotal moment in the life of the Jewish people. The Babylonians from the North, in what we now call Iraq and Iran, came down and through war, conquered the Jews.
In those days, the Babylonians were actually relatively kind people. Yes, there was a lot of slaughter, but the way the Babylonians dealt with things was not to kill everyone, but to disperse them. The Babylonians recognized that the political and economic rulers of a given country were talented, bright, energetic people, and if they could, they would harness them for their own purposes. So rather than slaughter all of the lords and the kings and the queens and the mayors and the merchants, they would take them back to Babylon with them. In this way, they left their conquered people without any leadership, seriously reducing the opportunities for uprising, and at the same time making available for themselves the wit, wisdom, and enterprise of the best and brightest of the conquered nations. This is what was known as the Babylonian captivity.
After the Babylonian captivity around 535 B.C., the Jews were able to come back to Jerusalem, back to the holy promised land. During this time, they attempted to recount their history. After years of study, they "published" 1st and 2nd Chronicles which is a review of the early history of Judaism. This is the same period that 1st and 2nd Samuel dealt with, the early days of Saul, Samuel, King David.
Now why have I taken you on this miniature tour of history? What in the world does that have to do with the Tarot cards? What in the world does that have to do with the Devil?
The first accounting of the Devil we have, historically speaking, is in Samuel. The second accounting is in Chronicles. In 2nd Samuel 24, David takes a census. He counts all of the people. He was punished for this because God saw that he was attempting to usurp God's authority. David was not merely satisfied to be the king, but he also wanted to count all the people, make himself more glorious by knowing exactly how many people he truly ruled.
Now the key issue here is in the differences between two verses in the Bible. 2nd Samuel 24:1 says, "Now the anger of the Lord burned against Israel and it incited David against them to say, ‘Go number Israel and Judah.’" 1st Chronicles 21:1 says, "Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel." I, of course, don't know anything about you my reader, but perhaps you have been reading the Bible and going to church for decades, and have never had this pointed out to you. The contrast cannot be more apparent.
Read the context yourself. Study it. Become convinced that they are talking about the same events, because they are. Before the Babylonian captivity, the historians said that the Lord incited David to make the census,. David did the census, and then the Lord punished him for doing it. This was Jewish thought.
As in the book of Job, shall we accept good from the hand of the Lord and not evil. Jewish thought, early Jewish thought, was that the only reality was God, and that all things come from Him. As in the book of Ecclesiastes, a time to live and a time to die. They are both seen as being parts of God's unfolding plan.
The only active agent in the world is God, to the early Jewish mind. Therefore, if David was to be incited to take a census, either it would be himself, some of the humans, or God. There was no concept of a devil in early Jewish thought. And, if you read the book of Genesis, it never says that the Devil told Eve to eat this forbidden fruit. It says that the serpent talked to her. We have discussed this before. The serpent, hundreds of years later, became reinterpreted by St. Paul as the Devil. But this interpretation did not exist when Moses wrote Genesis and did not exist for the first several hundred years that that book was read. The only active agent is God.
Now, in 1st Chronicles, it is quite clear that Satan inspires David to do this horrible thing. God obviously couldn't do this, because it was evil and God punished David for it. Therefore, how could it have been God's will? Why would God tell David to do this and then punish him for it? It doesn't make any sense.
Now ladies and gentlemen you can be as fundamentalist as you choose. By “fundamentalist,” I mean essentially a Bibliolotrist, someone who worships the Bible and doesn't worship God. All of this talk about the Bible being perfect, the Bible not having a single contradiction, the Bible not having any "mistakes" or errors of any kind, either scientific or moral or philosophical, is the creation of a false God. It seeks to worship the Bible instead of God. It seeks to have one magical answer book that one can follow, without having to be involved with the Spirit. without having to follow the religious pathway, without having the testimony of the Holy Spirit in one's life.
You tell me the answers God, and I will do it. You tell me the command, and I will do it. This is exoteric religion as delivered in retail establishments. It has nothing to do with the true path. This is plain, because the Bible could not be clearer in this direct and immediate contradiction. 2nd Samuel 24 says God told David to create the census. 1st Chronicles 21 says that Satan told David to create the census. Either God did, or David did, or Satan did. It cannot be the same. A contradiction is defined when something in the same time, same way, and same manner is both true and not true. Did God tell David to create this census? The Bible contradicts itself. In the one place the answer is God, and another place the answer is Satan. Is God Satan? Is Satan God? That is the only way to resolve the contradiction.
I must hasten to add here that this does not in the slightest way devalue the power of the Bible and the revelation it contains. To simply close our eyes and shut our minds to a plain simple fact of history, however, does not serve God, Christendom, the Bible, or ourselves any good. The Biblical record is here for a reason and the writers of the Bible were not offended by this contradiction. That is a key point. If they had wanted to, they could have changed Chronicles to make it match Samuel. They could have edited the texts of Samuel to make them match Chronicles. They did not do that; it was not necessary. They were comfortable with this contradiction because this contradiction teaches us much. It teaches us is that in the early days, God was seen as the only active agent within the world. After the Babylonian captivity, Satan is seen as being the great tempter. What changed? Well, Zoroastrianism is what changed.
Zoroastrianism is the religion of the Parsees, the Babylonians. Zoroastrian was a prophet, who sought for God. Around the year 580 B.C., he came to a revelation that everything that happens in the world that is good is the act of God, and everything that is bad is the result of a single controlling underlord, the evil mind, Anya Maynu. This is the evil one; this is Satan.
Through the Babylonian captivity, the Jews encountered Zoroastrianism, and became familiar with the idea of the Devil. When they came back, the Devil was intimately a part of their religion. As they chronicled their early history, some things were rewritten with their new understanding and their new interpretation, saying that you know it couldn't have been God who inspired David to do that census. It had to have been the Devil. Oh, that serpent of old, you know, that had to have been the Devil.
This is a new interpretation. So you have choices, and these are the choices of history--not theology--history. Either, the people who wrote the earliest Biblical records understood that God was the only active agent and they were correct, but that through the influx of an evil paganism the notion of a devil crept into the Bible. Or, you can say that the early people, who wrote the Bible, did not understand exactly everything that they were talking about and dealing with, and that through the revelation which God gave to Zoroaster, they came to see the higher deeper truths of the nature of evil.
Now the Biblical record is quite clear that in the New Testament times, the Devil is an actual, factual being. The Devil is cursing people. The Devil is seen as being the primal enemy of God. The Devil must be enchained inside of the lake of fire. And, Jesus wrestles with the Devil throughout his ministry, not as a symbol, but as a real being.
Well, perhaps you could say Jesus was speaking of the Devil as though he was in a parable form. But, Jesus was not so much admitting the actual, personal underlord of all evil, so much as he was using the symbol of the Devil for illustrative purposes. The Bible is quite clear that Jesus was tempted of the Devil, spoke of the Devil, and had to deal with the Devil. People become very uncomfortable with talk of the Devil as a symbol, because they feel that this is the first step that the Devil wants in order to get people to not believe in him. It is only through believing in him, that the Devil loses his power.
Each personal aspirant must make these decisions for himself. If I am to take a position, I would say, yes, it is apparent that there are personal forces of evil. The Devil is a very real entity and must be dealt with. It is through the revelation which God gave to Zoroaster, a Parsee, hundreds of miles from Jerusalem, in the year 580 B.C. that we have been able to discover the Devil and meet him.
This touches upon the broader issue that there are perhaps other revelations that God has given to other people in other lands and other religions, that we could also learn from. But we will leave that question for you.
In terms of the Devil, the Devil is the controlling force of matter. The Devil is the opposite of God, to worship the creation instead of the creator, to amass the powers of all manifest existence and harness it as a separate entity apart from the prevailing will of God.
The temptation of Jesus by the Devil is astoundingly illustrative. Regrettably so few seem to recognize what these temptations are. Temptations are not simply Jesus being able to prove that he is really the Son of God. There are three temptations, and each one represents a very specific danger on the pathway of spiritual existence. As we learn, as we grow, as we are able to harness strength and manifest the divine will, and as we begin to overcome the temptations of ego, there are three definite temptations which the Devil gives to us.
Temptation #1: If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. The temptation here is to use the spiritual powers which the adept acquires for the purpose of satisfying his own flesh and his own needs and wants.
Temptation #2: If you are the Son of God, stand upon this high pinnacle of the temple and throw yourself down. The temptation here is, as one overcomes the limits of normal humanity and begins to glow with the celestial light of God, to make a spectacle of one's self and point to one's self as an object of worship and adoration.
Temptation #3: The devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all of the kingdoms of the world and all of their glory. He said to Jesus, "All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me." This temptation is the final and most difficult. This is, in some respects, the last dying gasp of the ego. As the ego becomes cleansed and spiritual abilities are granted, and as the soul begins to recognize that it is a manifestation of God, the temptation is to harness those energies to control the entire world.
Temptation #1, we use our spiritual powers for our own personal pleasure.
Temptation #2, we use our spiritual powers to draw attention to ourselves as an object of worship.
And temptation #3, we use our spiritual powers to control the world.
To overcome temptation #1, we must always seek to serve others and recognize that we are all one.
For temptation #2, we must recognize that we are, in fact, nothing more then a conduit of the divine light and a channel of God's presence in this world.
And for temptation #3, we must recognize that the totality of manifest creation, as glorious as it is, is simply the dancing of shadows upon the face of God. We are to live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We shall not tempt the Lord our God, and we shall worship the Lord our God and serve Him only.
The Devil must be overcome, and these temptations must be overcome as we return on the pathway.
Jesus, through his passion and his death on the cross, states quite clearly, "It is finished." The struggle between good and evil, God and man, the spirit and the flesh, is over. The bonds of sin and death have been broken. The chains which ensnare the human race have been cast aside. We are now free to worship God and no longer be cast about and plagued by the Devil, yet the Devil is still alive and still well.
This is the symbolism of card #15. What else do we see? The most striking element perhaps is that this card has a completely black background. This card and the next card are the only two cards in the Tarot deck like that. The other backgrounds are either blue, the color of air; yellow, the color of the fiery sky; or, gray, which is non-committal. The Devil's black background indicates the absence of light. This leads us to another key point--the difference between light and dark. Many people ignorantly feel that light and dark are part of the pairs of opposites, just like male and female, heads and tails, North and South, but this is absolutely and categorically wrong.
From a perceptive standpoint, it is true in that we perceive light and we perceive darkness and we perceive them as being opposites. But they are, as we are transformed by metanoia, not opposites at all. Male and female are equally existent entities. Both are good. Both have the same ontological status in that they exist in the same way and the same manner although they are opposites. Heads and tails on a coin are equal entities but they are opposites. Light and dark are not equal entities. Light is an energy; light is a presence; light is a physical aspect of reality. Darkness is simply the absence of the light. When I turn on a light switch, the light comes flooding into the room. When I turn off the light switch, darkness does not flood the room. The light simply disappears. Light is the positive existence. Light is the truth. God is light. Darkness is the absence of light. It is not a power and a presence of its own. It is a lessening. It is a weakness. Strength is power. Light is energy. Darkness is a dimming or a blocking of the light.
And in a universe of all light, how do we get darkness? We cannot turn off the light of God. How then do you get darkness? There is only one way. Via a shadow. You must have something stand between you and God. There must be something solid, something created, something material, which is standing between you and the Divine light. This revelation could not be clearer. The Devil and his darkness result as we block out the light of God by placing some part of the physical creation between us and the celestial presence. When we turn from the Creator to worship the creation, we place that darkness into our souls. This is clear.
So if we are worshipping our automobiles and considering them to be more important than fellow human beings, or if we fulfilling our monetary dreams and desires at the expense of our family, friends and against the will of God, we have placed some part of the creation between us and God. That is where the darkness of the Devil comes from. God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Therefore, since God fills the heavens and the earth, the only way that there can be this darkness of the Devil is through the casting of a shadow, where we have placed something between ourselves and God. To overcome the Devil, is to overcome these temptations, rise above the fetters of matter, and once again dwell in the limitless light.
What else do we see on this card? On the Devil's head, we see an inverted star. The star is a blessed symbol. It is the four elements: earth, water, air, fire, crowned with a fifth. This is known as sometimes ether. This is the spirit, the actual individual spark of God. The star is inverted here to show that the Devil is the pathway of inversion. The creation flows from the Creator and returns to the Creator, in, of, and through Him, to Him. That is the natural flow of things.
The pathway of the Devil is when we get the energies of the universe inverted, when our minds are being used to serve our desires. Our desires are being used to serve the body. The body is there to carry the higher vehicles. When the higher vehicles exert all of their energy for the sustenance and manipulation of the lower vehicles, then we have an inversion. We have a blocking of the light. Things are there to help the people. People are not to be used to gain access to more things. All of the mechanical devices are there to help other people to live theoretically, happier, better lives. When we manipulate people, lie to them, use them for purposes of procuring more money so that we can have more things, then we are dwelling in the realm of the Devil. We are experiencing the inverted pentagram. This is darkness. This is blocking the light.
We see at the foot of the Devil, Adam and Eve, the Lovers, chained to the Devil's footstool. As we talked about Jesus saying that he had overcome the powers of sin and death, he had overcome the Devil. As he said, it is finished. We see, though, that people are still being plagued by the Devil. Why?
This card gives us the clearest indication it possibly could. These poor fools, Adam and Eve, are wearing the Devil's horns. They're dressing like him. Adam's got his Devil's tail, and so does Eve. They are acting as though they are enslaved to their sin, enslaved to their conscience. The Devil made me do it. I am weak. I have no control. I am being held prisoner here. My parents didn't love me as a child, and that's why I can't love you. I had a rotten day, so that's why I'm going to tell you a lie. Oh, I was misunderstood in my youth, and people made fun of me on the playground, so that's why I'm going to murder you and eat you for dinner.
The card is telling us very clearly that this is all a lie. If you look, you can plainly see that Adam and Eve, with their fettering chains around their necks, could very easily remove those chains. The loops are so large that they could quite simply slip over their heads. All they have to do is want to be released through the divine will. Through an exercising of their conscience, they will be free. It is truly over. The only forces and power that the Devil and darkness have over us are the forces which we voluntarily grant to them. This is the key.
The only power which darkness has is that which we grant to it by volunteering to become its agent. The only truth is God. The only truth is the light. That freedom and that oneness is your divine call. Why do we have this at this stage of the aspirant’s life?
We have come through the Wheel of Fortune, Justice, the Hanged Man, Death, and we have the divine guidance of Temperance. Why now do we face the Devil?
Because all of the fetters of creation, all of the temptations which we have seen, stand as the dark night of the soul, as one of the final obstacles for the seeker of God to overcome. Until we begin to deal with the Hanged Man, and until we begin to respond to the call to the egoless state, we are encased inside of the Devil's powers and his creation. It is only through working with God's enlightening forces that we are able to recognize other entrapments, other ensnarements, and other temptations.
At this point of the spiritual seeker’s life, the Devil exists when he becomes conscious and aware of the temptations of life. Those final three temptations which Jesus had with the Devil are the temptations which we all must overcome--to not use the material creation for either our own personal gratification, our own fame, or as the center of our worship. Instead, we must use the physical creation to assist the soul in its ascent, as the soul becomes free from its own personal glory, and to move through all aspects of the creation back to the limitless godhead of the Creator. That is why we encounter the Devil here. We have accomplished so much, yet there is still so much to learn.
The three important points on this card are:
Number 1, that the temptations that Jesus encountered are the temptations that we must all encounter.
Number 2, darkness is only the blocking of the light and is not a positive existent reality, as light is.
And, number 3, that we are free to slip the bonds of Satan off our heads anytime we choose. Our imprisonment to the fetters of materiality is none other than our own doing.
