Dodal
Le Diable · XV
A winged figure stands above two smaller horned figures. Cords run from their necks toward the central support. The larger body has a face-like form on its abdomen and holds a long implement beside one wing.
How are the smaller figures held?
Look at the connection between the large figure and the smaller ones. Cords, chains and enclosed groups make different kinds of relationship visible.
Start with the pictures
Le Diable · XV
Jean Dodal · Lyon, 1701–1715
Open the source image ↗
The Devil · XV
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 129
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Smith
The Devil · XV
A horned, winged figure crouches above two smaller figures chained at the neck. It raises one hand and holds a downward-pointing torch in the other.
Harris
The Devil · XV
A goat with long, twisting horns faces outward before a tall central form. A winged staff stands in front of its legs. Two rounded enclosures below contain groups of small human figures.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite connects the chains with material and animal life, yet says the dominating figure will not rule its captives forever. His explanation is a particular account of bondage and possible release.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley treats the card as material creative energy.
What connects the large figure to the smaller figures in each design, and what could change that relationship?
Write one thing you can point to in the image, one interpretation from a named author, and one inference of your own. Keeping the three separate gives you something useful to revisit.
Read the contemporary essay
Gabriel reads the designs through desire and repression. His discussion includes clinical analogies; the comparison here treats those as commentary, not as explanations or assessments of mental illness.
Sources and image credits
The Dodal cards are one early-eighteenth-century Marseille witness. The black-and-white Smith plates come from the 1922 Rider reprint, whose title verso lists first publication in 1910. Colours in later editions can differ.
The images shown here are reproduced from public-domain sources, with their original borders and page context.
- Jean Dodal · source record and rights statement ↗
- Pamela Colman Smith · source record and rights statement ↗
Harris’s paintings are linked on their host’s reference pages. Crowley’s text is the separately identified Thelemagick transcription of The Book of Thoth. Neither a modern reproduction nor a transcription replaces examination of the original artwork or edition.