The Devil as a Tarot Birth Card

The Personality card is about how others see you. The Devil makes a person magnetic. People are drawn to them; they know how to captivate, persuade and get their way. Their desires are strong, and they aren't ashamed of them.

Such people understand the material world well: money, power, the body, pleasure. They are more honest than most about what they want and can turn desire into results. The Devil's lesson is to stay the master of your passions, not their prisoner.

• Charisma. You attract people and can lead them.
• Strength of desire. When you want something, you find a way to get it.
• Business sense. You have a good feel for money, resources and advantage.
• Honesty with yourself. You don't dress up your desires in pretty words; you know what you want.

The flip side of The Devil is dependence. The passion that gave strength begins to rule the person: work, money, relationships and pleasures become chains. Yet the chains on the card are loose, and they can always be taken off.

The second trap is control over others. A talent for influence slides easily into wanting to keep people close. What the card teaches is that true power lies not in possession but in freedom, your own and other people's.

In love you are a passionate, magnetic partner. Relationships with you are vivid and sensual, and the bond is deep and strong. You can't stand indifference.

What matters is telling love from attachment. Jealousy and the urge to control destroy what you value so much. Here The Lovers, your Soul card, helps: they remind you that the best bond is the free choice of two people.

People with this card do well in anything that calls for influence and working with resources: business and entrepreneurship, finance and investing, sales and marketing, politics, entertainment, the beauty and pleasure industries, addiction psychology, negotiation.

You know how to earn and how to manage. Your challenge is not to let work or money swallow your whole life.

The Devil outside, The Lovers inside. The world sees passion, strength and magnetism. The Lovers reveal what that passion is really seeking: true closeness and an honest choice made by the heart.

On the Rider–Waite deck The Devil repeats the composition of The Lovers, only the couple is in chains. That is your main lesson: the same force of attraction can bind through love or tie through dependence. When you choose with your heart, passion becomes love.