The Devil Tarot Card Meaning

What does the Devil card mean when it is upright?

You promise yourself the phone stays in another room tonight, and by nine o'clock it is back in your hand. Nobody made you pick it up. Biddy Tarot reads something like that in the picture: "the chains around their necks are loose and could be easily removed". Tarot.com says the two chained figures "could totally leave". Waite says nothing of the kind, as we show below.

Waite's own list begins with "Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality". The same list ends with a correction: "that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil". Nothing in Waite's text mentions addiction or loose chains.

Biddy Tarot's keywords are "Shadow self, attachment, addiction, restriction, sexuality". Addiction turns up on all four pages we read. Book T has no such word; its meaning is "Materiality, material force, material temptation, obsession." For a real dependency, a card is no substitute for help.

The Devil reversed: freedom or a harder look?

Does a reversed Devil mean you are free? Not by itself. Zenithalign scores the reversed card "Conditional Yes" and talks of freedom within reach. Labyrinthos gives the reversed keywords "independence, freedom, revelation, release, reclaiming power, reclaiming control", which point toward release.

Waite's reversed words go the other way: "Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness." No freedom word appears in them, so the release reading is a modern layer.

Sort the readings by one question: is the hold already loosening, or only noticed? Tarot.com describes the second case, a reversal that shows up when you are "still rationalizing a situation that's no longer good for you".

Is the Devil tarot a yes or no answer?

Biddy Tarot ties the Devil to the Lovers: "Just as the Lovers card speaks to duality and choice, so too does The Devil". Where the Lovers is a choice between two things, Biddy Tarot says the Devil is the choice of "instant gratification". The answers are blunt. Tarot.com writes "the answer is NO", and TarotAtlas and Zenithalign give upright a no too.

Our table says no when the question is whether to go further into something you already feel pulled by. Tarot.com's advice fits: "Think through the unintended consequences of whatever you're considering." Reversed we say a conditional yes, as Zenithalign does. Tarot.com names the condition: "the hard, honest work".

The table is ours. Wikipedia prints Waite's list with the line "not for this reason evil", so a no here is a comment on the question.

The Devil in love: relationships, singles, feelings, toxic?

In a relationship

In a relationship the card describes a pull that has turned into a grip. Tarot.com writes of "intense chemistry with a side of codependency, jealousy, or control issues" and says the card invites "radical honesty". Labyrinthos names "co-dependency" and warns that over time it can be "destructive to the individuality and self of both partners".

Single

Tarot.com asks single readers a hard question: "Settling for what's familiar instead of what's actually good for you?" Labyrinthos reads the card as temptation and hedonism, and says that if you want only casual dates, "it is up to you to communicate that with your dates".

The Devil as feelings

Labyrinthos reads someone's feelings under this card as strong. It says the person is "intensely drawn to you" and also wrestles with "insecurities and unhealthy attachments". Waite's book has no entry on what a person feels.

Is it a toxic connection?

The card does not say so by itself. Tarot.com describes "the relationship that feels addictive but may be more about fear than love" and ends with "Love should empower, not entrap." The Tarot Guide adds "Look to supporting cards to confirm this." If you feel unsafe or controlled, a spread is the wrong place to look for help. Talk to someone you trust or a professional.

Astrology side of the same question: Capricorn compatibility with every sign · Capricorn in love.

The Devil as work and money

All three career sections we read start from the same picture, a person stuck in a job. Labyrinthos says you may feel "stuck or trapped". Tarot.com says "being chained to a job, role, or paycheck out of fear instead of fulfillment". The Tarot Guide says you may "feel trapped in a job that you hate".

Then the sites turn the card around. Labyrinthos says the Devil's appearance can mean "you have more choices than you think you do". Tarot.com closes with "Awareness is the beginning of freedom." Reversed, Labyrinthos reads "reclaiming your accountability in your career choices". We leave money habits to a professional, and the card has no say on them.

The Devil as advice and as a person

First a limit. A card cannot diagnose a habit, a mood or a relationship, and The Tarot Guide puts it plainly: "please do not look to the cards to diagnose you". Used as advice, the Devil is practical. Tarot.com asks you to "name the habit, the hook, the dynamic" and stop there for now.

The picture holds one more line worth keeping, and it comes from Waite alone. He writes that "he who is exalted above them is not to be their master for ever" and adds, "Even now, he is also a bondsman". Applied to a tight grip on a partner or coworker, the grip binds both ends. That reading is ours.

Symbolism of the Rider–Waite–Smith card

• The goat. Waite describes "The Horned Goat of Mendes, with wings like those of a bat", standing on an altar. Biddy Tarot calls the figure Baphomet.
• The sign of Mercury. Waite places it low on the body: "At the pit of the stomach there is the sign of Mercury."
• The raised hand. Waite calls the upraised right hand "the reverse of that benediction which is given by the Hierophant".
• The pentagram and torch. Waite writes "A reversed pentagram is on the forehead", and he describes the torch in the left hand as inverted towards the earth.
• The chains. In Waite's words "two chains are carried to the necks of two figures, male and female". Biddy Tarot adds that they are loose.
• The tails. Waite says "The figures are tailed, to signify the animal nature". Biddy Tarot reads "the grapes and the fire on their respective tails" as pleasure and lust.
• The small horns. Biddy Tarot says the horns on the two figures show "they are becoming increasingly like him the longer they stay here".

Where the Devil card comes from: Baphomet, Waite and Book T

Wikipedia says the Rider-Waite-Smith Devil is "derived in part from Eliphas Levi's famous illustration" Baphomet, from 1855. Waite himself is cool about Lévi, writing of "more than his usual derision" for the arts he interpreted. The devil in the Tarot of Marseille, Wikipedia adds, has "a face on the belly, eyes on the knees". In Waite's version the belly carries the sign of Mercury.

Book T titles the card "The Lord of the Gates of Matter: the Child of the Forces of Time" and the meaning "Materiality, material force, material temptation, obsession." Wikipedia says the Devil "represents the Fool's involvement in economic materialism and complacency". So the older sources lean on matter and fate, and the modern pages lean on habit and psychology. Waite comes closest at the end of Part II, where he calls the one who is exalted "also a bondsman, sustained by the evil that is in him and blind to the liberty of service". He says nothing about habits.

The Devil and Capricorn: the card's zodiac sign

Attributions from Book T (Golden Dawn, c. 1892; printed 1912).

A goat stands on the altar, and the sign Book T gives the card is Capricorn, the goat of the zodiac. Wikipedia says the same: "The Devil card is associated with the planet Saturn, and the correlating zodiac Earth sign, Capricorn." Its Hebrew letter is Ayin.

Book T gives Capricorn three Pentacles cards. The Two is Harmonious Change under Jupiter, the Three is Material Works under Mars, and the Four is Earthly Power under the Sun. Material Works and Earthly Power echo the card's theme of matter. Saturn also rules Aquarius, so The Star shares the Devil's ruler, and The World takes Saturn itself.

The three Capricorn cards of the minor arcana

Next Capricorn season: the Sun enters Capricorn on December 21, 3:50 p.m. EST and stays until January 20, 2:30 a.m. EST (2026, US Eastern time).

Capricorn is busier in charts than you might guess. Of the dates from 1930 to 2025 we ran, 57.2% had at least one of ten planets in Capricorn. The tool below shows where your planets fall.

Questions about The Devil

Next to The Devil

In the Major Arcana: Temperance (14) ← The Devil (15) → The Tower (16).

Capricorn on this site: Capricorn zodiac sign · Capricorn rising · Mercury in Capricorn · Venus in Capricorn · your full birth chart.

All 22 cards with their signs and planets: tarot card meanings.

Written by The Zodiac Atlas editorial team with the help of AI and edited by a person. Quotations are from Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot and the Golden Dawn's Book T, both in the public domain; the card picture is a 1910 printing of Pamela Colman Smith's drawing for the 1909 deck. Sign dates and planet positions come from the astronomy-engine ephemeris (tropical zodiac). Tarot and astrology are symbolic traditions; they do not predict events.