The Devil Year Card
Year of the Devil Tarot Card Meanings
What the Devil Year Card Means for Your Journey
The year of the Devil teaches you that freedom requires first seeing your bondage. You are discovering that what you think you need is often what imprisons you, that pleasure can become addiction, that attachment masquerades as love. Devil energy is the chains you can remove but haven't, the fear that keeps you small, the shadow you've been avoiding.
When the Devil year card arrives in your life, you enter the year of the Devil — a twelve-month initiation into shadow work, facing addiction, and recognizing the chains you've placed on yourself. This major arcana card doesn't ask you to pretend you're free; it demands you see exactly what binds you and recognize that you hold the key to your own liberation.
The Devil tarot card brings confrontational card meanings when it appears as your personal year card. As the fifteenth card of the major arcana, the Devil adds up to 15, then reduces to 6 — the number of choice revisited, the Lovers energy now showing its shadow side, the recognition that every choice has bound or freed you. This root number amplifies the Devil energy of conscious liberation throughout your year ahead.
The Devil Year Card: Major Arcana Meanings & Initiation
CORE ARCHETYPE
The Shadow, The Tempter, The Bound One, The Addict, The Liberator
MAJOR ARCANA
XV (The Fifteenth Card of the Major Arcana)
NUMEROLOGY
Adds up to 15, reduces to 6 (shadow side of choice, bondage vs. liberation)
ELEMENTAL ENERGY
Adds up to 15, reduces to 6 (shadow side of choice, bondage vs. liberation)
ASTROLOGICAL CORRESPONDENCE
Capricorn (ambition's shadow, success at what cost, the goat climbing toward or away from light)
Understanding Devil Tarot Card Meanings in Your Personal Year
The Devil tarot card meanings shift when this major arcana card becomes your personal year card. Unlike a single tarot reading, the year of the Devil is a sustained initiation where Devil energy permeates every aspect of your life for twelve months.
Traditional tarot card meanings describe the Devil as representing bondage, addiction, shadow, materialism, unhealthy attachments, power dynamics, and the illusion of being trapped. When the Devil year card appears as your tarot card for 2020 (or any current year), these core card meanings become your curriculum.
The Energy of the Devil: What This Major Arcana Demands
The year of the Devil will ask you to:
Face your shadow — What you've denied, repressed, or projected
Recognize addiction — To substances, behaviors, relationships, identities, or outcomes
See your chains — What binds you? And crucially: who chained you? (Usually yourself)
Examine power — Where you use it and where you give it away
Choose liberation — The Devil only has power you give him
The challenge of the Devil year card is not becoming overwhelmed by shame. The aspects of the Devil include the recognition that seeing your bondage is the first step to freedom. You are not evil for being chained; you are human. Now choose.
Devil energy is provocative and liberating paradoxically. This major arcana card reveals every place where you've chosen comfort over freedom, where you've let fear keep you chained, where you've pretended you have no choice when you absolutely do.
Months 1-3: Seeing the Chains (The Recognition Phase)
What's Happening: Devil energy makes your bondage visible. What's been unconscious becomes conscious. This is when the Devil tarot card meanings become uncomfortable — you can no longer pretend.
The Work of the Year of the Devil:
Identify what has you in its grip (addiction, toxic relationship, job, identity, belief)
Notice where you feel trapped but haven't tried the door
Begin honest assessment of power dynamics in your life
Study the card meanings in relation to your shadow
Shadow to Watch: Denial. Blaming external forces for chains you placed on yourself.
Gift Emerging: Brutal honesty about what binds you
Navigating Your Devil Year Card: Month-by-Month Guidance
The year of the Devil unfolds through increasing awareness and eventual choice. This major arcana card teaches through confrontation, honesty, and the courage to remove your own chains. Below is your map for the twelve-month Devil year card initiation.
The Devil Year Card in Different Life Areas
The year of the Devil reveals career bondage and liberation. This major arcana card asks: What job, role, or ambition has you chained? Are you staying for the right reasons? Devil tarot card meanings in career focus on golden handcuffs and power dynamics.
Devil tarot card meanings in career:
Recognize when success has become prison
See where ambition drives you past what you actually want
Notice toxic workplace dynamics (dominance, submission, manipulation)
Face workaholism or career addiction
Choose to leave what binds you professionally
Shadow: Staying in career bondage out of fear disguised as practicality.
Gift: Career freedom through conscious choice
Devil energy teaches relationship bondage and codependency. This is a year of seeing toxic patterns clearly. The Devil year card asks: Is this love, or is this addiction? Are you free, or are you bound?
The year of the Devil asks you to:
Recognize codependent or toxic relationship patterns
See where you've lost yourself in relationship
Face relationship addiction (can't leave what's hurting you)
Examine power dynamics (who dominates? who submits?)
Choose: stay consciously or leave honestly
Shadow: Convincing yourself the chains are love.
Gift: Relationship freedom; choosing partnership from wholeness, not need
The year of the Devil confronts creative bondage. Devil energy says: What creative fear chains you? What perfectionism binds you?
Devil tarot card meanings for creativity:
Face creative blocks as self-imposed chains
Recognize perfectionism as addiction to control
See where you've made creativity an identity prison
Notice comparison as bondage
Choose creative freedom over approval addiction
Shadow: Using creative suffering as identity; staying bound to prove dedication.
Gift: Creative liberation; making art from freedom, not fear
Spirituality during a Devil year card is shadow work. This is the year you meet your demons and realize they're yours. Devil energy is the spiritual warrior facing the inner adversary.
Devil energy in spiritual work:
Deep shadow integration work
Face spiritual bypassing (using "light" to avoid darkness)
Recognize spiritual materialism or addiction
See where spirituality has become another chain
Choose authentic practice over spiritual performance
Shadow: Spiritual superiority disguising unintegrated shadow.
Gift: Authentic spirituality that includes the whole self
The Devil Year Card: Jungian & Archetypal Perspective
The Shadow Archetype
In Jungian psychology, the Devil tarot card represents the Shadow — everything about yourself you've denied, rejected, or repressed. This includes "negative" qualities (anger, lust, greed, aggression) and "positive" ones (power, creativity, sexuality, ambition) that you learned were unacceptable.
The year of the Devil initiates direct shadow work. You meet what you've kept in the dark and recognize it as yours. Jung taught that the shadow must be integrated, not destroyed — the Devil year forces this confrontation.
The Devil year card follows Temperance (balance and integration). After achieving balance, you must face what you balanced out — the shadow you suppressed to appear moderate.
The Chains of Unconsciousness
The Devil year card shows figures in chains — but the chains are loose. This represents unconscious bondage. You're not trapped by external forces; you're trapped by unconsciousness, by not knowing you have choice.
Devil energy teaches that consciousness is liberation.
Individuation Through Shadow Integration
Jung's individuation requires integrating the shadow. The Devil year card is your direct, unavoidable initiation:
Shadow Recognition — Seeing what you've denied
Projection Retrieval — Taking back what you've projected onto others
Integration — Accepting the whole self, including the "devil" within
Liberation — Freedom comes from accepting, not rejecting, your shadow
If you've avoided shadow work or projected your darkness onto others, the year of the Devil makes avoidance impossible.
THE YEAR OF THE DEVIL ASKS:
WHAT WILL YOU SEE?
AND HAVING SEEN, WHAT WILL YOU CHOOSE?
The Initiation Calls for More Than Knowing
You've traced the contours of this archetype—its invitations, its thresholds, the sacred work it asks of you. But reading about initiation is not the same as walking through it.
Is this your current Initiation Archetype?
The year you were born into carries a specific myth. Your Growth Aspect may be this one—or the spiral may be calling you elsewhere. Only your numbers will tell.
Already walking this initiation?
If this year's energy hums with recognition—if these words land like remembering—then the full ritual is waiting. Month by month. Threshold by threshold. The codex holds the map.
Curious, but not yet claimed?
You don't need to be in this initiation to learn from it. Join the Circle to unlock our growing library of free PDF guides, sacred tools, and symbolic wisdom.
Shadow Work with The Devil Year Card
The Devil Card Shadow: Shame, Denial, Addiction to Bondage
Every major arcana card carries shadow. The Devil year card's shadow emerges when recognition becomes shame, when seeing bondage creates paralysis, when liberation becomes another form of control.
During the year of the Devil, you will likely encounter:
The Shamed One — Drowning in shame about what you see; unable to move toward liberation
The Denier — Refusing to see the chains at all; "I'm free!" while clearly bound
The Bondage Addict — Finding identity or comfort in being chained; fearing freedom
The Blamer — Seeing the chains but insisting someone else put them there
The Controller — Removing one set of chains only to create another; making liberation another prison
Working with Devil Year Card Energy
Ritual Practice: Removing the Chains
What You'll Need:
Black candle
Chain or rope
Journal and pen
Optional: mirror
The Practice for Your Year of the Devil:
Light the candle. Speak: "I see my chains. I recognize my bondage. I honor this Devil year card initiation and welcome Devil energy's truth."
Reflect on Devil tarot card meanings:
What has me in its grip during the year of the Devil?
What chains have I placed on myself?
What am I afraid will happen if I'm free?
Write your commitment. Frame as liberation vow. Example: "During this Devil year card, I commit to seeing my shadow without shame. I will recognize my chains and choose, consciously, whether to remove them."
Physical ritual. Loosely place chain/rope around your wrists. Feel the bondage. Recognize: the chains are loose. You can remove them whenever you choose. Remove them now.
Mirror work (optional). Look yourself in the eye and say: "I see you. I accept you. I free you."
Close with choice. Declare your liberation. Blow out the candle.
Daily Practice: Embodying Devil Energy
Choose one liberation practice for your entire year of the Devil. Make it about consciousness, choice, and shadow integration.
Devil year card practices:
Daily shadow journaling (what did I deny today?)
Addiction awareness practice (notice compulsive patterns)
Power dynamics check-in (where did I dominate or submit?)
Choice consciousness (recognize: I am always choosing)
The Devil tarot card teaches through brutal honesty and compassionate choice.
The Devil Year Card & Related Major Arcana Cycles
The year of the Devil is one of 20 possible major arcana year cards. Each card of the major arcana brings different tarot card meanings.
Cards that flow from Devil energy:
Temperance year (XIV) — Balance before shadow confrontation
The Tower year (XVI) — External structures fall after internal chains removed
The Star year (XVII) — Hope and healing after liberation
The Moon year (XVIII) — Deeper unconscious work continues
