EP 146.5: Tarot Analysis: The Devil | Major Arcana | Sexuality, Seduction, and the Shadow Self

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Hi everyone! This week, we’ll look at the Devil in my tarot deck, the Fortunus Games tarot deck.

Who else other than Ardalion Mayakov, the enigmatic and darkly seductive owner of the adult anarchist bookstore, "Ardalion Books and Gifts," would be the Devil?

Ardalion is a character from my graphic novel, "Sam in New York."

Like the Devil in the Major Arcana, Ardalion stands for sexuality and the shadow self. As we’ve seen in my short story, “Mephistopheles Tips His Hat,” (which was published in The Victoria Review 2019 Anthology), Ardalion is the ultimate Devil’s advocate. He likes to challenge people’s deep-seated views, especially if doing so makes them uncomfortable. He is obsessed with breaking down barriers (usually discretely) and he wants to challenge all norms, especially sexual ones.

Like traditional portrays of the Devil in the Major Arcana, Ardalion is shown as Baphomet or the Horned Goat of Mendes, a creature that is half goat, half man. Although Baphomet originally symbolized the balance between opposites like male and female, human and animal, and good and evil, it’s recently been linked to the occult. As such, it’s become symbolic of all things “evil.”