The Devil

The Devil upright: chains you cannot see

The Devil is the card of attachment, obsession and the bonds that keep us captive. As card XV of the Major Arcana, it shows two people chained before a throne. It examines both an inward pull and pressure imposed from outside: a habit we cannot drop, a relationship that makes us smaller, an ambition that is never satisfied, manipulation and a constant need to be in control.

The Golden Dawn, whose teachings shaped the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, gave the Devil to Capricorn. Capricorn is the sign of the goat climbing to the top of the mountain: ambition, achievement, status and material security. Its ruler is Saturn, the planet of limits and structures. The Devil shows the shadow of that energy: holding on to security, money or a role so tightly that the thing you hold starts to hold you. The horned figure also recalls Pan, the wild god of nature in Greek myth, and the untamed force of instinct.

The Rider–Waite–Smith Devil draws on the Baphomet imagery of the nineteenth-century French occultist Éliphas Lévi. Its horned figure stands above a chained man and woman. The composition echoes the Lovers, but the open bond there becomes bondage here. Read the contrast through attraction, possession and the loss of freedom, rather than treating the two kinds of attachment as interchangeable.

Upright, the Devil asks for an honest look. Is there a behaviour you repeat despite wanting to stop, or an arrangement you keep accepting despite the limits you try to set? Identify its trigger, temporary reward and recurring cost. The card’s chain puts dependence and restricted choice in view; recognising the attachment includes facing its consequences.

The Devil reversed: efforts to change a bond and resistance

The Devil reversed describes questioning a bond and striving for freedom alongside resistance and concealed habits. Read the behaviour you intend to change together with the conditions sustaining it. Distinguish recognising the pattern from an observable change in what you do. The reversed card has four main directions:

The reversed Devil points to	What it looks like
Breaking free	Giving up a habit, leaving an unhealthy tie
Awareness	Seeing clearly, for the first time, what has been running you
A hidden habit	A cycle continuing under a life that looks orderly from outside
Risk of slipping back	Refastening a loosened chain with “once won’t hurt”

The neighbouring cards identify which aspect of the attachment is in focus. The Tower brings disruption; Strength examines your relationship with instinct; Judgement adds an assessment of past behaviour. The Moon or Seven of Swords introduces concealment and what you hide from yourself. Seven of Cups centres escape and fantasy, while Four of Pentacles centres clinging to security. Compare these themes with your attempted change, continuing pressures and behaviour you actually observe.

The Devil in love

In love, the Devil describes intense attraction and passion. That pull is exciting, but it can also carry possessiveness, jealousy and control. The card asks whether a relationship is making you larger or smaller.

In a relationship, the Devil examines unhealthy attachment and control: repeated boundary violations, pressure over decisions, circumstances that make separation difficult and the same unresolved conflict. Compare those patterns with what you actually observe. Read physical chemistry alongside the daily relationship, asking which behaviours and boundaries exist beside the attraction.

If you are single, the card points to an old tie you cannot quite release, or a habit of falling for the same kind of person. A familiar thrill is not always a good sign; sometimes it is only the familiarity of an old wound. Get to know someone new by how free you feel with them, not only by how they make you feel.

Reversed, the Devil in love examines the wish to change an unhealthy cycle alongside resistance to that change. Specify the boundary involved in jealousy, control or unequal terms. Look at observable behaviour in the relationship: has the room allowed for your decisions changed, or does the same pressure continue in another form?

The Devil in career and work

At work, the Devil describes a job that drains you but that you cannot let go of: an environment you put up with for the salary or the status, working hours with no limits at all, workaholism. “I have no choice” is this card’s voice at work.

Write two lists: the obligations that currently limit your choices, and the demands you keep accepting through habit, fear of losing status or reluctance to challenge the arrangement. Record the cost of each demand and the boundary involved, including what makes that boundary difficult to maintain. The card also warns about a manipulative manager, back-room deals or an offer that sits badly with your ethics.

Reversed, it examines efforts to question a binding work arrangement and set limits, including the financial conditions and pressure around those efforts. Switching off evening work notifications or specifying a boundary around weekend hours are concrete actions. Examine the demands, obligations and recurring habits that make each boundary difficult to maintain.

The Devil and money

With money, the Devil describes excessive attachment to the material world: an ambition that makes everything feel like not enough, spending to feel better, a debt cycle, or using money as a tool of control. The card asks what money means to you: security, value, or a way to fill an emptiness?

When it comes to the value of your work, it can also point to staying in an underpaid arrangement out of fear alone. “I won’t find this much anywhere else” is one of the chains this card fastens most often.

Reversed, the Devil brings efforts to confront a spending habit and resistance to changing it into focus. The chains on the card meet at the medallion before the throne. Record the moment before a purchase, its temporary reward and the financial burden left afterwards. Compare the repeated behaviour with your attempted boundary. Identifying a trigger and changing the habit that follows it are distinct parts of this reading.

The Devil, mood and inner balance

The Devil’s mood is a loop: snagging on the same thought, doing something you don’t want to do again and again, swinging between guilt and desire. The card does not judge any of this; it only makes it visible. Anxiety, boredom or loneliness is often the feeling underneath these loops.

Reversed, the Devil describes efforts to confront a binding pattern alongside the resistance that keeps it active. Watch how the cycle repeats: note its triggers, the times and places involved and the choices you make within it. Distinguish noticing the pattern from changing the behaviour that sustains it.

Give the loop a concrete description: note what happens just before it starts, what you reach for and what keeps the repetition going. The Devil’s subject is the hold of that pattern: dependence, compulsion, manipulation or a bargain that restricts your freedom. Name the behaviour plainly, then examine the pressure behind it and the boundary it crosses. Keep the recurring cost in view alongside any effort to change it; awareness and release are distinct parts of the reversed reading.

Which way does the Devil lean in a yes or no question?

Upright, the Devil leans towards no in questions about a bond, habit or tempting offer. Its focus is the cost of attachment: lost freedom, compromised values or control that is difficult to challenge. Before choosing, name what holds your attention, what the arrangement asks you to surrender and which choices are being restricted.

Reversed, the Devil leans towards “not this way”: the wish to change an attachment sits beside the resistance sustaining it. Name the wish’s cost, the choices it restricts and the boundary you intend to set. Ask: “What inside this wish is tying me down?”

Advice from the Devil

The Devil’s advice is to name what binds you plainly. Describe the habit, relationship pattern or fear through its temporary reward, recurring cost and restricted choices. The chain asks you to examine how an attachment you recognise continues through ordinary decisions and behaviour.

Make one intended boundary concrete: which behaviour, under what circumstances, and what are you refusing? Identify the pressure, habit and attachment that make the boundary difficult to maintain. Keep the chain’s weight beside your own stance in the arrangement, including the choices you hold and the constraints around them.

If the Devil falls in the “Repressed emotion” position of the Shadow Work spread in the Larisa app, read it together with the “Source of this shadow” card to see which habit that feeling has been feeding.

Key combinations with the Devil

Read the neighbouring card for the attachment’s main pressure: control, fear, insatiable desire or resistance to an established arrangement.

Combination	What it points to
The Devil + the Lovers	A relationship sliding from passion into dependence
The Devil + the Tower	Dependence and control read alongside disruption, collapse and loss
The Devil + Strength	Compulsion read alongside inner strength, self-restraint and your relationship with instinct
The Devil + the Moon	An area where you are fooling yourself; a habit hidden in fog
The Devil + Seven of Cups	A dependence built on fantasy and escape
The Devil + Four of Pentacles	Clinging tightly to money or security
The Devil + Eight of Swords	Dependence reinforced by fear and the feeling of having no room left to act
The Devil + Two of Cups	Attraction shadowed by possessiveness and jealousy

Symbols of the Devil in the Larisa deck

Ram’s horns and broad bat wings frame the seated figure in Larisa’s Devil card, whose throne occupies the centre of a dark, firelit chamber. He has pointed ears, a beard and bat wings spreading behind him, and his muscular body gleams with a dark bronze light. His gaze is aimed straight out at you: the card wants you to see what is pulling at you.

Above his head, against a dark arched recess in the wall, hangs a large inverted star. On his chest he wears an upright star medallion on a chain. Both stars share the scene: the inverted one is spirit bending down towards matter, and the medallion is the worth of that material world. This is where the shadow of Capricorn, the sign of earth and security, shows itself.

His right hand is raised in the air, and his left holds a flaming torch. The raised hand speaks of authority; the torch of desire and the fire that feeds it. On either side of the throne, flames burn in braziers and fill the room with a reddish glow.

Before the throne a man and a woman kneel with their heads bowed, chains wound around their arms and shoulders. The chains run down from the throne towards a medallion between them. Unlike the Rider–Waite–Smith version, they have no small horns and no tails: these two have not been transformed, only bound.

Where the chains gather, a round medallion bears two overlapping triangles forming a six-pointed star, with a small skull at its lower edge. The skull quietly recalls where limitless desire ends. The bowed figures remain bound beneath the throne. Their posture keeps the card’s central difficulty visible: desire and submission have narrowed their freedom to choose.