(CAPRICORN) THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS: (West/Below)
Esoteric Titles:
The Angel of Darkness
Beelzebub – Lord of the Flies
Guardian of the Gates of Hades
The Devil is the 15th card of the Major Arcana and describes the primal instincts with which we are born into this world. This symbolises the supernatural animal, as opposed to the supernatural spirit contained within us all. He is depicted with the head of an ass, and the horns of a goat, reminiscent of the Hittite God Seth, with the wings of a bat, sat on a cube marked with a cross. On either side of him stands two figures, one male the other female linked together by a chain attached to his throne. Traditionally the card is linked to the zodiacal sign of Capricorn, indicating a wisdom born out of long experience and knowledge of the infernal realm. On a mundane level it defines the elements of the planet Saturn ie: scepticism, repression, nihilism, cynicism and physical reality as being the ultimate truth. It cautions therefore that unless we accept our existence as a rational and terminal one then we will never rid ourselves of fanciful and non-productive beliefs and habits. Cults to Satan worship are found throughout the world even now whose followers believe that the Lord of this world is in fact Satan and not God – he is the one to whom we should address our prayers. Presumably, Lucifer was an angel who fell from grace and was given dominion of purgatory. G.I. Gurdjieff in his book “Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson” compared the existence of human beings on Earth as exactly the same as that of purgatorial redemption. That we were all consigned here on this planet to learn from the school of life and thereby redeem ourselves. Beelzebub is derived from the Philistine or Canaanite God BAAL-ZEBUL, One should also bear in mind that the Bulgarians and other Transylvanian states were the home of the heretical sect of Bogomils who like the Templar Knights reputedly worshipped an Ass-headed deity called Baphomet. In effect he is a form of anti-Christ or Angel of Darkness sent to rid mankind of false religious pride. The Lord of the Mansion of the North.
The Canaanites worshipped him as a kind of Northern God of the otherworld. In their mythology he is a god of Prophecy & Fertility, a type of autumnal Dionysus who prophesied when intoxicated with a concoction made of hallucinogenic mushrooms (Soma)- hence “fly agaric” and the idea that Beelzebub was the Lord of the Flies. Much later in the Judaeo-Christian era he became associated with Satan or the Devil. Strictly speaking he was in fact a type of Luciferian demon or “fallen angel”. The Fall of Man from an age of innocence was a critical watershed in the iconography of religious belief because if mankind had not fallen from grace then there would have not been any need for the Redeemer (Jesus Christ). With respect to the elemental symbolism contained in the Grail legends one particular leitmotif is especially significant, that is the Angel of Darkness or Lucifer. According to Islamic belief Lucifer or Shaitan fell from grace because he refused to bow down to Adamel (the first man or humanity), he was therefore cast out of Heaven. In many obscure religious cultures therefore he still retains the reputation of being God’s greatest devotee, just as Hanuman in the Hindu epic the Ramayana revered Krishna as his Lord and Master. During this great cataclysmic event Lucifer‘s “eye”, supposedly an emerald stone, fell out of his forehead and became the philosopher’s stone (lapis philosorum or pineal gland) on Earth. As a result of this conflict in the firmament of heaven one third of the angelic beings sided with God, another third with Lucifer, while the remaining third stood bemused or neutral. The Bogomils who helped the Crusader Knights against the Saracens supported one of these views and hoped that their supreme ruler/guardian on Earth ie; Satan might one day be re-instated in Heaven.
The Florentine political philosopher Niccolo di Bernado dei Machiavelli (1469-1527) advocated in his science of statecraft that any means justified the end if they strengthened the power of the state. Similarly, Fredericke Nietzsche‘s philosophy of the “superman” states that an individual evolves by becoming self-assertive and above the laws contained within any ordinary or orthodox religious morality. For the most part the Devil is often associated with an image of a demon with an Ass’s head, sometimes a goat in the context of “Black Magic” or witchcraft. However, “Old Nick” is in fact none other than our Santa Claus himself, although St. Nicholas (the Bishop of Smyrna 413 BC) was the patron Saint of travellers and children. In the mythology of the Teutonic peoples the embodiment of evil was represented by Loki, the trickster who overthrew the power of the Gods. For the Greeks the forces of chaos were epitomised as Typhon, for the Egyptians it was the crocodile-headed monster Sebek who ate the souls of the dead, and for the Babylonians it was Tiamat– (a salt-water beast) all of whom are devouring monsters. The numerical symbolism of the card, ie: 1+5 = 6 substantiates the idea of the Number of the Beast 666, apparently worshipped by Aleister Crowley. The Jewish letter Ayin – means literally an eye, and refers to the symbolic context of the Egyptian myth of Horus whose solar right eye was eclipsed by the Moon. In the Naples arrangement the card sits just below “Arcanum IV, The Lovers” reminding us that the Fall of Man is the inevitable result of his being chained to his physical lusts and desires. Indeed it makes a passing reference to the next card in the series Arcanum XVI, The Tower which depicts the lovers being separated by cataclysmic circumstances beyond their control.
The Lord of Darkness (Othello) Ayin
In this series of articles comparing or attributing the arcane symbolic elements of the 22 Tarot Trumps with 22 of William Shakespeare’s plays I have arrived at Arcanum 15, The Devil as an archetypal or universal symbol. It is often said that human beings, having developed the philosophical idea of a compassionate and omniscient “God”, then had to invent or reconfigure in human or demonic terms the diametric opposite, namely “The Devil” to account for, or explain why evil co-exists with goodness in the world. Human beings are reluctant to ascribe the catastrophic events of human existence to a bi-polar type of ‘GOD’ such as Janus. Equally, the existence of Eros was plausible as an unpredictable and uncontrollable force to be encountered in devilish, romantic episodes. To deny the existence of evil in the world it seems equally plausible to deny the existence of God as some atheists and humanists have actually done. To be brief but obviously controversial, God does not “exist”. It is totally absurd to think of God as existing as does say a table or a shoe, as just another part of a finite or reductive Universe. GOD has being, but not “existence” as we would automatically assume and in no such sense in that we “exist” as human beings. There is no change or transience in God since GOD is the eternal life within us. God is best defined as “the essence of the universe.” And salvation is participation by the individual in the being (infinite life) of God. When a person does this, they give existence to God, that is, God exists in godliness, in Truth, Beauty & Goodness. Earthquakes, floods, and fires for example, are bad but not evil, since there is no human will involved in their occurrence. In short, evil exists because man’s conscience ignores the voice of God and conceals the light of God in this world.
Furthermore, during Shakespeare’s life the ‘Devil’ was almost synonymous with “Witchcraft”, with Alchemy and Astrology and of course the theatrical stage as the Puritan Phillip Stubbes wrote in his “Anatomy of Abuses” (1583). But as they say; “The Devil is in the detail” since among the Shakespeare Apocrypha is a play entitled “The Merry Devil of Edmonton” (1608) and “The White Devil” which was published by John Webster in 1612. The Devil it seems not only has the best tunes but the best plays since Webster freely admits he was at fault by composing this play for a specific audience. For centuries during the Great English Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries when surely GOD ‘existed’ alongside his lesser daemon, “The Devil” also existed just as palpably and viscerally in the mind of the populace. In other words there was a demand for tales of ruthless, diabolical human beings (both male and female), acting alongside ghosts, apparitions and demons. We have only to turn to the narrative and plot of Christopher Marlowe’s play “Dr. Faustus” to realise how ‘real’ and substantial and widespread the belief in the Devil was in Tudor England let alone in Scotland where persecutions, witch-hunts and trials were rife. To ask the question “Who Killed Christopher Marlowe” would have evoked a prejudicial Puritan or Protestant sermon on why ‘evils come to those who dabble and engage in them’. As portrayed in Ben Jonson’s “The Devil is an Ass” (1616), or in Thomas Middleton’s “The Witch” (1627) which probably inspired Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, that are part and parcel of the importance placed on Magic and Necromancy in Elizabethan England (See “The Queen’s Sorcerer”). In medieval morality and miracle plays the character or role of the ‘Devil’ (Beelzebub or Lucifer) was already a standard feature of the narrative, action and plot alongside the King/Queen, Fool, Doctor, Knight and Pope. In the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Theseus exclaims:
“The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
Shakespeare would no doubt have read the English monarch’s treatise on the subject of witchcraft (James 1st, “Daemonologie” 1597) attacking and denouncing the sceptical “Discovery of Witchcraft” (1584) by Reginald Scott, and also George Gifford’s “Concerning Witches and Witchcraft” (1593). However, the play that appears to resemble the esoteric elements of trump 15 “The Devil” in my view is “Othello” purely because it depicts the Devil in purely human form as the character Iago, and not in its astral or supernatural sense as it is done in “Macbeth’s apparitions and ghosts” or portrayal of the feral child Caliban as the son of a witch and the Devil in “The Tempest”. As I have already mentioned there is a great deal of the “Supernatural in Shakespeare” which could only be inspired by the widespread belief in the numinous, the natural and supernatural spirits as well as the demonic or fairy realms that are inhabited by goblins, boggarts and elves.
Although Othello is basically portrayed as a vulnerable man of noble position who is nevertheless out of his depth emotionally, some critics have declared this play illustrates Shakespeare’s ethnic bigotry and prejudice towards Caribbean, African or Asian people generally. My view, having researched Elizabethan attitudes towards race or ethnicity is that black people, North American Indians and Asians were largely a matter of idle curiosity or novelty rather than being something to be reviled, denigrated or feared. The attitudes of bigoted people today bear no resemblance or correlation and are probably much worse now than they were then with the burgeoning Islamaphobia and sexual exploitation run rife. What is perhaps difficult to explain from Shakespeare’s time is the metaphysical alchemical symbolism associated with the colour black. It is commonly known that Shakespeare consistently used the colours red, black, white and pale in his poetry and plays (these being the colours associated with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) but they also have Alchemical connotations.
The song of Autolycus has a number of examples:
“Lawn as white as driven snow;
Cyprus black as e’er was crow;
Gloves as sweet as damask roses;
Masks for faces and for noses;”
The use of black and white is predominant in some parts of the text of “Love’s Labours Lost” when for example Dumaine describes Catherine (who is probably dark blonde) as an “amber-coloured raven”; then declares: “Juno would swear Juno but an Ethiop were” and that Rosalinde (presumably dark-haired) is described by the King as being “black as ebony”. Biron replies: “No face is fair that is not full so black” and the King counters: “O paradox! Black is the badge of hell”. But the comparative colour analogies do not end there, Biron (Lit: Brown) imagines himself as an Indian when he addresses Rosalinde; “Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face/That we, like savages, may worship it”. The King finally accepting that conceivably “black is beautiful” saying: “Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack”, meaning apt to boast of their beauty. When Iago alerts Brabantio to the apparent abuse of his daughter:
“Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is topping your white ewe. Arise, arise;”
But the Duke of Venice actually defends Othello:
“And, noble signior,
If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.”
In a conversation with Desdemona; “Well praised! How if she be black and witty?” Iago comments:
“If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
She’ll find a white that shall her blackness fit.”
The use of black and red is common in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, here are a few examples:
“The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both,
And to his robbery had annex’d thy breath;” (#99)
“In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:” (#127)
“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;” (#130)
“Thy black is fairest in my judgment’s place.
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.” (#131)
“Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack.” (#132)
“For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.” (#147)
It was associated with evil, melancholy and negativity but whether that extended to the colour of a person’s skin is unsure. A rare engraving by Albrecht Durer actually depicts the saturnine “Muse of Melancholia” on the title page of the book by Richard Burton intended to be a treatise on mental illness. It may have been linked to the Elizabethan cult known as the “School of Night”. What is pretty certain is that the ‘green-eyed’ monster is latent in the mind and feelings of Othello, and it was no secret to the enlightened Elizabethan court that the Saracen or Moor was extremely covetous of his wife, and like Leontes in “A Winter’s Tale” would suspect even a friend or relative of adultery with his wife or lover. Iago’s main motive appears to be that he was overlooked in preferment or that he sought it elsewhere instead of being inferior to a Moor himself was motivated to disparage Othello’s honour or position.
The two-faced advisor or false confidant, Iago could be an allusion to St. Iago of Compostella, who was known as “Matamoros”, the Moor-killer. The Moors of Mauritania were Berbers and N. African Arabs who were keen to form an alliance with Protestant England in order to recover some of their lost lands in Spain. Moreover, the play is about jealousy, envy, intrigue and personal deception all of which were abundantly present in James’s newly established royal court. This must have been a busy time for Shakespeare or his collaborators as several coincidences occur between the lines of Hamlet and Othello. The name Montano appears unexpectedly in the 1st Quarto of Hamlet instead of Reynaldo. On top of which whole phrases appear in both for example: “to my unfolding/Lend thy listening ear” from Hamlet is similar to Desdemona’s “To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear”. Additionally, Hamlet’s “Look upon this tragic spectacle” is synonymous with Othello’s “Look on the tragic loading of this bed”. The words Othello and Romeo are a form of epanalepsis, the first letter appearing also at the end. “Oh” appears to be the dramatist’s favourite vowel and literary trademark, eg: “Oh for a muse of Fire!”, “Oh, But what’s in a name?” etc.
Divinatory Meaning of this Card:
The Devil is a demon spirit who fell ignominiously from above, and now sits at the Gates of Hell awaiting the damned, lost or abandoned souls who likewise fall into their own personal purgatorial realm. He is in you and in me as surely as the Great God Pan achieved his own immortality in the human mind. Hebrew Double Letter AYIN an eye, face, self, sight, perception, appearance, look at, ponder, weigh up, discern, bewitch, evil eye, abstraction, ring, hole, anus, collar, spring, well, fountain, source, secretion, enjoyment, delight, affliction, poverty.
“When the Devil is sick, a Saint he would be, but when well again – a worse Devil we would see.”
The 26th path links the sphere of Tiphereth (Beauty-Sun) with that of Yod (Splendour-Mercury), from the central pillar to the left hand side of the Tree of Life. Astrologically, it represents the Sun acting through the zodiacal sign of Capricorn upon Mercury. In Tarot it is known as the “Renovating Intelligence” because the power of light to renew, repair or refurbish what has become obsolete or decrepit. As in the case of the 24th and 25th paths this is another of those journeys that depict the misery and depression associated with the dark night of the soul. It also links the tormented, perverse or devilish aspects of the personality with the more individualised forms of higher consciousness derived from pleasure and pain. These 3 paths have something to teach the initiate about the use of love, wisdom and power respectively and this path concludes the teaching prescribed in the Tarot card 15. The Devil. As a result of Saturn‘s rulership and Mars‘ exaltation in the sign of Capricorn the path also denotes the rewards of dedicated actions, perseverance against adversity and the knowledge to achieve one’s goal in life. However, the darkness of the path lies in the many of the misunderstandings attached to it by orthodoxy and convention. It defines human beings or at least their minds as being trapped in the bonds of matter, chained to their desires and subjected to unimaginable mental tortures and above all in league with the Devil himself. The paradoxes of this path are innumerable, for every human being has a dark side which they have failed to recognise, simply repressed or unconsciously projected onto others. The archangel Satan or Beelzebub is for the most part a rejected aspect of God and according to Biblical texts the ambassador and sovereign on Earth sent to maintain respect for the Almighty. Personal salvation therefore lies in the mastery of material laws and physical conditions here on Earth before any plausible ascent is made into heaven. Understanding and being subservient to these laws furthermore indicates a respect and humility to the all-wise Maintainer and Creator.
Positive: An understanding of material tools/power, money and the material world, basic requirements and needs. Immense exertion of physical energy/skill and personal charisma. New insights/expressions.
Negative: Megalomania, oppression, perversion, bondage to lust/obesity & sexual appetites, ominous threats blackmail, fear of unknown dark forces of man & nature, addiction and exaggeration.
SPHERE: The Renovating Intelligence Ayin – An Eye
Astrological: .Mars Capricorn The 10th House.
Constellation: Cetus – The Sea Monster
Sacred Gemstone: Black Tourmaline, Obsidian
The next Arcanum in this series can be viewed by clicking on the following link:
