 The
Devil
XV – The
Devil, like Death, can be very misunderstood in the
cards. When the Devil shows up, people will often
cringe but here again he is not such a bad guy. He
is what I refer to as a necessary evil in life. The
Devil is said to come from the god Pan. Pan is again
often misunderstood. The Devil often represents those
things in life that we feel will be a short cut somehow,
or something that will make things easier for us in
life. I equate things like jobs, those work-a-day
varieties that we do for the money.
Substance
abuse issues can also be spotted with this card. The
Devil is about all those things that we do in life
in order to make life easier and in some cases this
will be things like drugs or alcohol. There are those
who take drugs because of necessity, and then there
are those who take drugs or drink in order to make
life more agreeable. In the beginning, no harm no
foul, but ultimately drugs and alcohol have a way
of taking over our life. Well, so does a job that
we are doing only for the money sucks us dry in life.
We sometimes do not recognize what we do to ourselves
when we go after material wealth to the point that
it takes our life away.
Right
side up, you can be sure that there is some lesson
about something in your life that you are using to
make life better, but the trouble is that whatever
it is has now become more trouble then it is worth.
This can be anything from a relationship, because
relationships are also addictive, to substance abuse
or a job. We think it makes things easier, it seems
to be the path of least resistance, and in some ways
it is. That it the lesson, we are not here to find
easy ways out but to strive through the process, take
the pain with the effort. In the case of a job, we
often don’t give ourselves credit enough to
believe that we can follow our heart and still make
money, or we have ourselves into debt so bad that
we are forced to work at something that is draining
us and keeping us from having and living a balanced
life.
In
the reverse, this card can indicate the opposite,
of being on the right track and doing the right things.
The fact that it is not about the power or the money,
it is only about doing what is believed to be the
right thing. This is a card of doing the right things
for the right reasons.
In
meditation this might be a good card to look at when
you need to look at something that might be draining
your life, whether it is a person, a job or a drug.
It may be good for an individual to also be more aware
of those necessary evils in life, such as we all need
to work. To understand that being here in the earth
plane also makes us aware of material concepts and
here to we find our friend Pan or as we know him in
the cards The Devil.
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