The Devil



The design is an accommodation, mean or harmony, between
several motives mentioned in the first part. The Horned Goat
of Mendes, with wings like those of a bat, is standing on an
altar. At the pit of the stomach there is the sign of
Mercury.

The right hand is upraised and extended, being the reverse
of that benediction which is given by the Hierophant in the
fifth card.

In the left hand there is a great flaming torch, inverted
towards the earth. A reversed pentagram is on the forehead.
There is a ring in front of the altar, from which two chains
are carried to the necks of two figures, male and female.
These are analogous with those of the fifth card, as if Adam
and Eve after the Fall.  Hereof is the chain, and fatality
of the material life.

The figures are tailed, to signify the animal nature, hut
there is human intelligence in the faces, and he who is
exalted above them is not to be their master for ever. Even
now, he is also a bondsman, sustained by the evil that is in
him and blind to the liberty of service.

With more than his usual derision for the arts which he
pretended to respect and interpret as a master therein,
Eliphas Levi affirms that the Baphometic figure is occult
science and magic. Another commentator says that in the
Divine world it signifies predestination, but there is no
correspondence in that world with the things which below are
of the brute. What it does signify is the Dweller on the
Threshold without the Mystical Garden when those are driven
forth therefrom who have eaten the forbidden fruit.