Cosmic Tribe Tarot

XV - DEVIL

Taste the wine, dig the herb, smell, smell the flower he just put in your hair. Go on, have a little more. Doesn't it taste...? Don't you feel... ?
Do you dare? Feel the swelling in your hips.
Then dance with wild abandon.
Just beware, the Devil doesn't care and it's back on you in the morning.

Frisky Pan bounds out of his cave in the forest. He is evidently quite happy to see us. He is, like all satyrs, half man and half goat. His man half is insatiably curious, intelligent, and thrilled at the prospect of new experiences. His goat half is his lusty drive for intoxication pushing him to extremes of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. His playfulness belies his considerable powers to raise earth magic in rituals for healing and, above all, for amusement. He loves to get us to do things we would like to do but think we shouldn't. Right now, for example - even though we're in the middle of a reading, he wants us to dance. He sports around the lingam waiting for us to join in his merriment. The sacred lingam pulls the penetrating horniness of the male lifeforce up from nature and makes it available for us to play with. Pan conjures it for his own uses in the form of a purple ring. He raises the ring over his head and plays us a mischievous time, all the while dancing and tempting us with erotic gestures. He raises sensual energies to a fever, knowing that this pleases us even if we don't think it should. In turn he is fed by our pleasure, so much so that we have to watch ourselves in his presence or risk becoming enslaved to his desire.

A brightly colored snake wraps around his waist. It is the ambassador from the musky mossy realm sent to pay homage to Pan's ability to raise energy out of the earth. The forest is Pan's home and the source of his vitality, but here he visits us in a lavishly tapestried forest fantasy. All of the colors of the human experience potentially turn him on. His is a many-hued lust of red hair, blue tongue, purple horns, green skin, yellow nipples, and silver legs. Only when he is shunned and misunderstood do these colors turn dark and threatening.

Divinatory Meaning

Should you pull the Devil in a reading, make room for celebration in your life. Sometimes a little excess is just the right amount. This means pushing yourself into an ecstatic state through movement, music, being in nature, or whatever alters your consciousness and gets you to do the extraordinary. The Devil is not for the prudish! He's about reveling in the use of the body for pleasure and extremes of experience. Contemplate your sex life. If you have a partner, when was the last time you explored something new? If you're flying solo, try something new on yourself. Often, however, the Devil goes too far for humans to follow and we do so at our peril. Are you going too far in search of pleasure? Listen to your sacred body, let it tell you. If a trusted friend tells you to slow down, do so. Have fun while taking responsibility for yourself. But don't get too serious, let the Devil sweep you into the dance of life once in a while. If you ignore him too long, he may reappear in you in more sinister ways.