The Devil
Alright. Now we’re talking. From the peaceful, liminal, balanced tranquility of Temperance, we go to a winged, horned spectacle that jolts us out of our reverie and disrupts our contemplative journey with sheer shock and awe. The Devil is a thrashing death metal solo interrupting your performance of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. It’s you deciding to break from your vegan diet with a Big Mac. It’s a segmented tiger shark, toothed jaws agape, in your clean white-walled art gallery.
The Devil ranks alongside the Ten of Swords, the Tower and Death as among the most feared and most misunderstood cards of the tarot. For good reason of course: the grotesque visage of the otherworldly demon stares out tauntingly at us, the five-pointed star inverted as if to show how the natural, proper order of things has been upended. Much like in the biblical scene set out in The Lovers, there is a man and a woman here, but unlike The Lovers, they wear shackles around their necks, and the tails coming out of their bodies, and the horns growing out of their heads suggest that the transmutation has reached them as well, in body if not in mind and in soul.
The traditional associations with this card range from unfettered sexuality, to pleasure pursued, to wanton and carnal excess, to addiction. Edgier interpretations suggest a call to playfulness and pleasure outside of the bounds of conventional propriety; indeed, one deck I know (Tina Gong/Labryrinthos’ wonderfully modern Golden Thread Tarot) even has Pac Man-inspired ghost characters flanking the devil, to this effect.
A.E. Waite, who is said to have directed Pamela Coleman-Smith’s illustration of the Smith-Waite deck, has this to say about The Devil in his original companion guidebook to the deck, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot:
15. THE DEVIL. — Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil. Reversed: Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.
Setting aside the reversed meaning for this card, it is interesting to note that while these aspects are often associated with a negative meaning, arguably none of these aspects of this card are necessarily evil. The word “ravage” is probably the strongest of these words that sounds the most “evil”, but looking up the dictionary definition of the word gives us terms like “total destruction”, with one example being the mass destruction left in the wake of a hurricane. But like the examples I gave earlier, this is an exemplar of something violent, and something that required great force to achieve.
But are they evil? Things that are evil are not necessarily directly physically violent (even though they may be violent in other ways). And things that are violent, like a hurricane, are not necessarily or inherently evil.
That is why the Devil is also commonly associated with something that is not necessarily evil, and yet, has the potential to be very destructive and harmful to others: the Shadow Self.
In very very general and broad brush strokes, I understand the Shadow Self to be the part of the self we have that we generally try to deny, or may even life in wilful ignorance of. It is the needs, wants, and desires we have, but dare not express to others; it is the things we wish we could say to others or do to others in anger, but dare not even entertain in our conscious imagination. And yet, despite this violence and force, it may have altogether important motivations: for example, flashes of anger and rage at a parent or a partner may simply be the Shadow Self reflecting a need from your unconscious to work towards a relationship where your own needs and desires are tangibly heard and acknowledged, and boundaries are respected.
In my own ace experience, the Shadow Self might take many different forms and be seen in many differing ways — these ways are likely as varied and different as individual aces are themselves.
For some, the Devil may represent their urge for physical intimacy with another human being (one who may or not necessarily be a partner in a relationship with them). This is physical intimacy that does not involve sex or sexual activity (but it may, if someone identified as Grey Ace/Grey Aro or Demi) but may be a manifestation of what is called Touch Starvation, or being Touch Starved. Simply put, this is a recognized condition arising from a prolonged lack of skin-to-skin contact with other humans. (I would personally also add the qualifiers “safe” and “consenting” to the idea of skin-to-skin contact.) Studies tell us that it is usually associated with depression, health anxiety, insomnia, and anger, in addition to the exacerbation of other mental disorders.
This need for skin and touch contact may run counter to how some may feel as a result of trauma, or if they are touch-averse. This tension may be especially heightened for those who are ace and/or aro, thanks to the constant association made between skin-to-skin touching and sexuality.
From a practical standpoint, attending “cuddle parties” may be a possibility (pandemic issues aside), but very firm boundaries need to be laid down, and those involved in the group itself need to be firmly on the same page in terms of the connection being strictly non-sexual (or perhaps even all be aspec). Otherwise, it may be all too easy for connections at cuddle parties to very quickly veer into the realm of unwanted and unsolicited sexual advances. “Professional Cuddlers” are another option — but not all feel safe in the idea of hiring a stranger to provide them with the safe touch contact they need (again, especially in this age of the pandemic).
In a similar vein, this tension may extend into the realm of dating and partnered relationships as a whole. It is not a stretch to say that thanks to so many misconceptions and so much misinformation surrounding aspec people, asexuality and aromanticism, it can be especially difficult to find willing dating and relationship partners who are open to relationships who identify on the ace and aro spectrums. This is on top of the difficulties navigating a dating landscape where sex are conventional romance are one of the most, if not the most important aspects of a partnered relationship. These difficulties in turn easily feeds into the notions that ace and aro people are sad and lonely cast-offs, who can’t find people to date, which in a vicious circle may even be further internalized by the aces and aros who hear these opinions voiced aloud.
For some ace and aro people, an encounter with The Devil may occur if they experience the one thing that they may have never thought possible or probable: a romantic or (or even sexual) attraction to one unique person in a very specific context. Not only does this pose potentially serious questions undercutting one’s own perceptions or identity as asexual or aromantic, it also elicits fears that their identity may be invalid altogether.
All of that can contribute to a clear tension between what one thinks they are as as an asexual and/or aromantic, and what they feel they need: a sexual relationship or romantic relationship with someone. This can be further compounded if the gender orientation of the attraction goes “against” what they have thought or assumed their attractions were directed toward. (e.g. same gender, or different gender, or multiple genders.)
If they have been subjected to especially acute aphobia, bullying, harassment and exclusion from queer and allosexual spaces and communities, the Devil might manifest itself for others as a need for space and community — but in an unconsciously unhealthy way, it may be expressed as a community space characterized with gatekeeping and exclusion directed at other aces or aros who are not deemed worthy or “ace enough”. This can potentially be seen in exclusion directed at Demisexuals, Demiromantics and Grey Ace and/or Grey Aro people. Unconsciously, this could be a phenomenon where if we were subjected to exclusion, harassment and gatekeeping, then it’s only fair that we should subject others in the community to it too. This serves to only further perpetuate the phenomenon of gatekeeping and exclusion that we see in so many other queer community groups and spaces, and such gatekeeping and exclusion is often seen to be directed by more privileged queer people against queer people who are more marginalized, at the expense of the community as a whole.
So where does that leave us? I think part of the challenge in dealing with the Shadow Self is understanding what it’s trying to tell us.
All too often people express a strong hunger for something, or a powerful desire for acting aggressively towards others, when in fact these powerful impulses may actually be an expression of an unconscious drive to protect oneself or gain safety for themselves and their loved ones. This especially makes sense when we look around us and see so much hostility towards queer people and marginalized identities. And then on top of that, there is the hostility routinely seen in the queer community itself towards ace and aro people.
What someone might think is a desire for a relationship may be more reflective of a need for honest, intellectually meaningful and emotionally intimate connections with others. What might on the surface be a desire to exclude people from a community, or a desire to keep a community closed, might actually be an inner expression for a safe and inclusive environment that will give them them comfort and safety to express their sexual identity. On an interpersonal basis, this can potentially be seen in relationships: Out of the fear of harming their relationships or hurting their partner’s feelings, many ace and aro people do not, or feel like they cannot communicate their sexual needs, relationship needs and boundaries with their partners. As a result, these frustrations are often left to simmer quietly, bubbling and boiling, until the pressure becomes too much for the both partners and the relationship itself to handle. Additionally, what might be outwardly an act of anger and aggression directed towards a friend, family member or loved one may in fact be an unexpressed need to be listened, and heard, and to have their needs and wants acknowledged. Looking at the many stories I’ve seen and heard on social media, and in my own offline and offline social groups, all too often I’ve encountered the experiences of many frustrated ace and aro people that reflect this.
What also needs to be stressed is that these needs — whether they be for physical contact for another person, or companionship, or community, or otherwise — are all valid, and it is important for us to recognize and acknowledge them. And they in no way shape or form invalidate or undermine our identity as aces or aros. This is more than just the “But aces have sex too!” line that is often repeated — this speaks to how aces and aros both have
There is no easy way to relate to the Shadow Self and its needs in a way that is direct, simple, painless and clean. It often involves difficult, and even hurtful conversations, as well as a great deal of self-introspection, and inner work. And yet, there is really no other way to engage and honour our deepest, innermost needs. There is no other or better way to really engage with our unvoiced feelings and thoughts in a way that can allows us to integrate them with our conscious selves.
If the eventual goal is for us, as ace, aro, and queer people, to better integrate the disparate parts of ourselves into a healthy whole, then we have to engage and enter into dialogue with the parts of our selves that we have tried to hide, or bury. We have to meet and acknowledge the parts of ourselves that consciously invite shame, or embarrassment, or revulsion. They are all parts of us. And like the queer community as a whole, we can only be stronger when we include the parts of ourselves that we find the hardest to understand.
One more note about this card before we depart: notice the shackles around the man and woman — the shackles around their neck don’t seem to be very tight, are they? It is almost as if those yokes made of chains were not cast around their necks against their will, but that they took those chains around their necks of their own volition. And it almost seems as if, whenever they wanted to, they could easily take off the chains around their necks and simply walk away from this horrible scene. What does this say about the emotional burdens we carry with us — our sexual guilt, our resentments and frustrations, or our relationship anxieties? It’s food for thought, at least.
Next: The Tower
Previous: Temperance
