Episode 163: The Source of All Abysses: On the Devil Card in the Tarot

"The Devil's finest ruse," Baudelaire wrote, "is to persuade you that he doesn't exist." In this episode, JF and Phil peer through a buzzing haze of lies, illusions, and mirages, in hopes of catching a glimpse, however brief, of the figure standing at its center. With a focus on the fifteenth major arcanum of the tarot, they try to make sense of this archetype which feels, at once, remotely distant and uncomfortably close to us, all while heeding the warning from the anonymous author of Meditations on the Tarot that one ought not look too deeply into the nature of evil, which is "unknowable in its essence." Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot The Gnostic Tarot Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Faust, Part 1 Ramsey Dukes, SSOTBME Edgar Allan Poe, The Imp of the Perverse Aleister Crowley, Magic, Book 4 Leigh McCloskey, Tarot Re-Visioned Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth The Library of Esoterica, Tarot Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic