The Devil as How Someone Sees You: Wanted, Possibly Too Much

Written by Chaya the Medium.

The Devil as how someone sees you means you are the thing they keep returning to. Here is what the picture includes, upright and reversed, and why it is not love by default.

If you want the short answer, the Devil as how someone sees you means they see you as something they want and cannot leave alone: a temptation, an obsession, a pleasure with a hook in it, the thing they go back to against their own judgment. It is an intense picture. It is not a picture of you as a person so much as of you as a pull, and the person may be as bound by it as you are.

This is you as one of the chained figures, or as the figure on the pedestal. Either way, they see the chains, and they have not taken theirs off.

The Devil upright as how someone sees you

Tina Gong's the Devil guide at Labyrinthos associates the upright card with attachment, addiction, materialism, sexuality and bondage. When the card lands in a position that asks how someone sees you, I read those meanings as the image the person holds of you, which is not the same as who you are and not the same as what they feel. the Devil as feelings covers what they feel; the Devil as intentions covers what they plan. This page covers the picture. The Major Arcana overview at Biddy Tarot is a useful second reference.

Upright, I read the Devil as a person who sees you with heat and grip: desire, attraction, a pull they return to even when they have decided not to. They may find you exciting, dangerous, irresistible. In the upright card the wanting is honest, and it is wanting rather than knowing.

What I would not read into it is depth or care. The Devil sees what it wants. Whether the person also sees who you are is not something this card can say.

What the card does not tell you

The card does not confirm the person sees you as a partner, that the attraction is healthy, or that they see you at all when the wanting is not active. No card lets a reader see inside another person's head. What a card can do is describe the kind of image that fits the person's behaviour toward you, and give you something to check against how they actually treat you.

The Devil reversed as how someone sees you

Reversed, the Devil as how someone sees you means the chains loosening or hidden: they are starting to see you as a person rather than a pull, or they have decided to break the attachment and see you as something to escape, or the obsession has gone underground and they see you in a way they will not admit.

In your own question, ask whether the person has pulled back in a way that looks like health, or whether their picture of you has gone silent and strange. A reversed card here is a prompt to notice whether the picture the person holds has gone sour or gone wrong, not a verdict on you.

The Devil as how an ex sees you

Asked how an ex sees you, the Devil suggests they see you as the pull: the thing they keep coming back to, the pattern, the late-night message. Many on-and-off relationships live in this picture. The question it asks is not whether they will return but whether their picture of you would ever let either of you be free. My guide to asking a psychic whether an ex will come back explains what a reading can and cannot say about that question.

The Devil as how a new person sees you

For someone new, this card means they see you as intensely desirable, with something attached: a situation, a secret, a need. Find out what the attachment is before you decide what the heat means.

How to check the picture against reality

Look for intensity with conditions: they want you and cannot be seen with you, they return and withdraw on a cycle, they are drawn to you and resent it. A Devil picture looks like wanting with strings. Wanting without strings is a different card.

What to record before drawing again

Keep three short notes: the question you asked, what seems to bind the person to their picture of you, and what binds you to them. The third note is the one people skip.

For comparison, the Lovers as how someone sees you and the Tower as how someone sees you describe different pictures. The the Devil card meaning page covers the card in full, and the Devil as a person covers the card when it describes a temperament rather than an image. For a personal interpretation, my guide to a love psychic reading online explains how I work, and the three-card tarot listing and customer reviews are worth reading before deciding whether to order.