Capricorn Tarot: The Devil
While “Death” is likely the most ominous card to appear in a Tarot reading, “The Devil” takes the cake when it comes to just plain nasty connotations. Divinatory meanings are varied and situational, so the fact that this card corresponds with Capricorn shouldn’t lead to the conclusion that all Capricorns are evil, in the Judeo-Christian sense of the term. However, the irony is not lost on me that the sign whose dates include the birth of Jesus is linked to a Tarot card that depicts Jesus’s primary adversary in the Bible…
The Devil is number 15 of the Major Arcana, and there is a lot going on in this card, starting with the grotesque figure perched in the background. The eponymous devil has the horns of a goat (more on that later), the wings of a bat, and an inverted pentagram inscribed above their forehead, all of which call up obviously Satanic imagery. Chained to their pedestal are a male and a female figure, horned and tailed, who according to Arthur Edward Waite possibly represent “Adam and Eve after the Fall. Hereof is the chain and fatality of the material life.” Fitting imagery for a sign that encompasses the dead of winter.
Before moving onto this card’s analogue in the Baseball Tarot – entitled The Goat – I should clarify a matter of terminology. In modern day slang, GOAT is commonly used as an acronym for Greatest Of All Time. This usage could not be farther from the meaning behind this card. In traditional baseball terminology, Goat refers to a player whose actions lead to an undesirable outcome. Several good examples are given by Mark Lerner and Laura Philips in the book accompanying the Baseball Tarot deck: “the crestfallen player who drops a routine fly ball to let in the winning run; the pitcher who serves up a round-tripper to lose a game; the runner who, in trying to stretch a double into a triple, is called out at third base.” Or, for Red Sox fans, Bill Buckner in the 1986 World Series.
I’m not exactly sure where the terminology comes from, but I would guess it has something to do with the word scapegoat, which is itself a biblical term. There’s a ritual described in the book of Leviticus that involves two goats: one is sacrificed, and the other (the scapegoat) is sent off into the wilderness, after symbolically absorbing the sins of the people. You can see how this evolved into how the term is used nowadays, referring to someone on whom is heaped undeserved blame. After all, it’s never just one play that wins or loses a baseball game, and any player branded the goat only gets there from a culmination of many other factors.
There is of course one more way in which goats and Capricorn are linked, and it has nothing to do with either baseball slang or acronyms. Capricorn’s mascot is the Goat, which makes the connection in the Baseball Tarot all the more meaningful. Well, technically Capricorn’s mascot is the Sea-Goat… but that completely undercuts the metaphor that Lerner & Philips use to shed some positivity on the card: “The Goat is an expert climber, with sure footing in even the rockiest of terrain. ... [T]his player also has the skill to rise from self-doubt and pessimism, leaping to higher ground, where the altitude and lofty vision will clear away the guilt and pain that’s been keeping the Goat down.” A fitting metaphor for the cyclical nature of sports, astrology, and all of life.
Next time, we’ll go back to the sign associated with the “Death” card, and take an in-depth look at the 2021 Scorpio Scorpions!