The Devil

The Devil card holds within it the most profound liberation in the tarot. This particular card, like most of the major arcana, invites us to check in with the ego. When the Devil shows up in a reading the brain has a tendency to sort of freak out, which happens any time there is any type of soul expansion occurring. The urge is to hide or avoid certain parts of us due to the most universal fear of them all, the fear of exclusion. The thought is that “you will be rejected by a person or group you care about if characteristics of yourself or of your behavior are made public.” (DBT Skills Training Handouts & Worksheets, Marsha Linehan) And maybe that used to be true, when communities were smaller and technology was far less advanced than it is today.

This type of transformative freedom takes an extraordinary amount of effort. We get caught in cycles of loathing that become comfortable, safe even. This sucks, but I know what this type of suck is. That over there is a whole different kind of suck. We start feeling hopelessness close in and we limit our options. We sabotage ourselves before we’ve even begun. Some would say that perfectionism is a form of shame. Others say that perfectionism leads to shame, which then leads to self-blame. Blame, the discharging of pain and discomfort, is essentially a symptom of shame. The Devil is not a bad card, just as there are no bad emotions. The Devil is merely asking us to break free of these negative thought patterns, ones that have been embedded into our psyche by people who may have their own healing to do.

Shame, & the Blame Game

Western religion teaches us that the Devil is a fallen angel from Heaven. The Church teaches us about sin, a completely manmade construct designed to keep us small and them in power. It wasn’t that long ago when Rome held the majority of the world in the palm of its hand. We can partially thank Henry VIII and his seven wives for this separation from the Pope, although England was one of the biggest colonizers ever to exist. So there’s that.

There are 12 notable shame triggers that are apparent in our current culture. They are (in no particular order) as follows: appearance and body image, money and work, motherhood/fatherhood, being stereotyped or labelled, religion, family, parenting, mental and physical health, surviving trauma, addiction, aging, and sex. “Childhood experiences of shame change who we are, how we think about ourselves, and our sense of self-worth.” (Daring Greatly, Dr. Brené Brown) Men are told not to be perceived as weak. They have two acceptable primary responses: pissed off or shut down. Women’s primary triggers are how we look and motherhood, but the real struggle tends to be perfection.

Clearing shame and guilt has been one of the most difficult, yet most rewarding self-work I have done thus far. Once you begin to realize that the people who have raised you, mentored you, and taught you all have their own unworked material, you can begin to befriend your shadow, the unexplored self. As humans we have a tendency to impress our own traumas upon other people, assuming that they have the same needs as us. We forget that their beliefs may actually have nothing to do with us. This liberation from shame-based beliefs leads to the greatest antidote to this emotion: empathy. And that empathy gives us the gift of knowing that we are not alone in this, bringing us back into belonging.

I Am Not a Puppet

Ruled by Capricorn, it is no coincidence that the Devil has been sometimes called Baphomet, the horned Goat of Mendes. This half man, half goat creature was originally meant to symbolize the balance needed between our human side and our more primordial nature. We can thank modern religion yet again for delegating this figure to the occult, and Hollywood for running wild with that social construct. You can see in the Rider-Waite deck that there is an upside-down pentagram, a symbol condemning witchcraft. This is a clear sign of the times during which this particular deck was made, around the same time we were burning witches at the stake.

The Devil is depicted by the archangel Ariel, the patron angel of wild animals and new beginnings. This card moves us from Temperance into the Tower, from patience into awakening. It’s asking us to break free from the puppeteer’s strings by looking beyond the material restrictions and temptations. It is possible, and it is up to you to make it happen. The short-term pleasure may not actually be enough to dispel the long-term pain we’ve been carrying. It may feel like it does in the moment, but does the instant gratification really do anything for your own wellbeing in the long run?

I have allowed my attachments and addictions run my life for a very long time, much to my own demise. Some would have said that I sold my soul to the devil, which isn’t too far off the mark. I relinquished my power, cultivating years of my own shame, anxiety, and disconnection. “Shame enters for those of us who experience anxiety because not only are we feeling fearful, out of control, and incapable of managing our increasingly demanding lives, but eventually our anxiety is compounded and made unbearable by our belief that if we were just smarter, stronger, or better, we’d be able to handle everything.” (Daring Greatly, Dr. Brené Brown) Learning to love ourselves and to embrace our desires in a thoughtful manner is the cure for this ailment, although one that has been taking me my whole life to learn. I still don’t think I’m done yet.

Dance with the Devil

Working with the energy of the Devil takes a lot of shame resilience, which could require some outside assistance in the form of a trained counselor or therapist. At least it did for me. Pretty much in every session at some point I would ask if I was normal. Not one of them said I was weird, although they 100% could have been straight lying to my face. I don’t care if they were. I needed to hear it. “Shame resilience is about finding a middle path, an option that allows us to stay engaged and to find the emotional courage we need to respond in a way that aligns with our values.” (Daring Greatly, Dr. Brené Brown) It was about this time when I truly began to question what exactly my values are, and what were other people projecting onto me.

We see people who have gone through this type of personal development, but people rarely talk about how they got from here to there. Each of us has our own individual path that we must take, but there are some universal truths that we can all utilize in order to find our way. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy teaches us to do the opposite action if the emotion is inappropriate to the reality of the situation. In terms of shame the contradictory reaction would be spilling the metaphorical tea on yourself. This is the scene in 8 Mile where Eminem battle raps first and owns all his shortcomings, leaving his opponent without any fuel for his fire. The Devil is saying in earnest that this shame that I carry can be here, and it does not define me. I can choose differently.

Self-praise is the next step, which is something that I royally struggle with. I can’t take a compliment from others without deflecting it, something that I am actively working on. We’ve all been told to talk to yourself the way you would someone else. This sounds like a really solid idea, for someone who isn’t caught up in their own version of unworthiness. There was that time I wrote “I am enough” on my mirror, hoping that one day I would believe it. I’m beginning to, even though I cleaned the red lipstick off years ago. I am also coming to terms with owning my part in the story, the roles that I have played that may have robbed others of their joy. Now we are approaching guilt territory, which carries its own set of emotional baggage.

Mad love, Jenna

Please enjoy The Devil playlist on Spotify.