Alternative Religion/ Library

CHAPTER X

The significance of the fifteenth Tarot Key has little, if anything to do with that creature of the gloomy imaginations of mediaeval theology - the malignant personal adversary of mankind, who bought human souls and presided at the Sabbat. In a certain sense, to be sure, it is the tempter and deceiver of man, and although it is not the devil of theologians, it does correspond to that which is called the "Devil" in the Bible. Primarily, however, this trump denotes a particular aspect of the Great Magical Agent, concerning which Eliphas Levi wrote:

"It is the first physical manifestation of the Divine Breath. God creates it eternally, and man, in the image of the Deity, modifies and apparently multiplies it in the reproduction of his species."

This doctrine of Western occultism is identical with the Yoga teaching that the Divine Breath (Prana) is especially active in the reproductive centers of the human organism. The Yogis assert that this energy in the sex-centers may be transmuted into the "illuminating or bright" force which they call Ojas, the very highest form of Prana. Ojas, they say, working through certain high centers of the nervous system, brings about the liberation of the mind from the illusions of sense-life.

In his correspondence to the generative aspect of the Great Magical Agent, the Devil is also related to the Greek god, Priapus, the son of Dionysos and Aphrodite. Dionysos was known in the Eleusinian mysteries as Iacchos. He is represented in the Tarot by the Fool and the Hermit. Aphrodite, as we know, is the Empress. Hence we may say that the Devil, as Priapus, is the projection of the ideas represented by the Fool, the Empress, and the Hermit. All these trumps correspond to the letter Yod in the Tetragrammaton, and, with the exception of the Fool, they all bear numbers which are multiples of3. Furthermore, the number of the Devil is 15, which is the extension of 5, the number of the Hierophant; and the reduction of 15 is 6, the number of the Lovers. The student should carefully compare the symbolism of the Devil with all of these trumps.

By its correspondence to the letter Ayin, this card is also related to Capricorn, and the Devil's horns refer to that correspondence. Capricorn is the nocturnal house of Saturn. In alchemy "Saturn" is lead, and the nocturnal house of Saturn corresponds to the dark state of lead, i.e., to the state of the metal before transmutation. The untransmuted lead is the Vital Light in the nerve-centers controlling reproduction. Hence, in one attribution of the metals to the Sephiroth, we find Lead ascribed to Yesod, the Foundation, which is associated in the Qabalah with the reproductive power of Micro pros opus.

These hints should be sufficient to set the student upon the track of the true interpretation of the fifteenth Key; but perhaps the meaning will be even clearer if I add another quotation from the eminent Qabalist whose explanation of the Hanged Man was given in Chapter IX. He says:

"The Devil is a figure of the Creative Fire encased in Matter, and he is also the god of 'them that walk in darkness.' For they see the Source of All as a creative power ungoverned by Law; but God follows the Law of His own being, which is Love. Love misunderstood, materialized, and perverted, is the veritable Devil. Therefore are the human figures in chains, and the Pentagram inverted."

By its connection with the letter Peh, the sixteenth major trump corresponds to the planet Mars, which rules Aries by day and Scorpio by night. Aries is the Emperor, and Scorpio is Death. These two cards are also connected with the Tower, because they correspond to the first Heh in the Tetragrammaton. In the same way, too, the Tower corresponds to the Magician, whose number is the final reduction of the extension of 16 (136=10=1); to the Chariot, whose number is the reduction of 16; and to the Wheel of Fortune, whose number is the first reduction of the extension of 16.

In the symbolism of this trump, Mars is the lightning flash which denotes the masculine aspect of Spirit or Purusha. Hence Krishna says, "Among weapons I am the thunder-bolt." Among the ancients lightning was an emblem of fecundation and nutrition, as well as of destruction; and Plutarch says, "The agriculturalists call the lightning the fertilizer of the waters, and so regard it." (Symposiacs. IV.2.) Here we are reminded of the Greek myth that Ares (Mars) was the lover and consort of Aphrodite.

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