When a client pulls The Devil asking how someone feels about them, there's usually a small thrill in the room. The Devil as feelings means intensity — magnetic, physical, can't-stop-thinking-about-you intensity. And it's real. But after more than a decade reading the Rider-Waite-Smith deck in Tokyo, I've learned to say the uncomfortable part out loud: The Devil is the card of attraction, not the card of love. They can be the same thing. Often they aren't. Knowing the difference is the whole reason to pull this card.
Here's what The Devil as feelings actually means, upright and reversed, including the obsessive crush and the ex who can't quite let go.
Quick Answer
Upright, The Devil as feelings points to powerful attraction — desire, fascination, a pull that may feel like more than they can control. It's genuine and it's strong, but it's weighted toward the physical and the obsessive rather than the tender. Reversed, the grip is usually loosening: either they're breaking free of an attraction they'd outgrown, or the obsessive heat is cooling into something steadier. In both positions, the card asks the same question — is this pull building something, or just feeding a craving?
The Devil Upright as Feelings
Upright, The Devil describes feelings with the volume turned all the way up. The person feels a strong physical and emotional pull toward you, sometimes to the edge of obsession. This is the one who plays it cool to your face and then can't get you out of their head at midnight. The desire is real, the fascination is real, and it can be intoxicating to be on the receiving end of it.
But look at the card. Two figures stand chained to the Devil's block — and the chains around their necks are loose enough to lift off. That image is the truest thing about The Devil as feelings. The person feels bound to you, and on some level they know the binding is something they're choosing to keep. The feeling can carry a flavor of "I shouldn't want this so much," which is exactly why it burns so hot.
I'll give you my honest position, because the gentle guides won't. I do not read The Devil as confirmation of love. I read it as confirmation of want. Want can mature into love, especially if other warm cards sit beside it. On its own, The Devil tells me someone is gripped — and gripped is not the same as devoted.
When you're single or it's new
For a new connection, upright Devil is explosive — the attraction that skips the getting-to-know-you stage and goes straight to needing to be near you. That's not automatically a warning. But a connection that opens at this temperature needs something built underneath the heat, or the heat is all there'll ever be.
In an existing relationship
For an established couple, The Devil often points to strong physical chemistry that's still very much alive — sometimes the healthiest thing in the relationship, sometimes the only thing holding two mismatched people together. The card asks you to be honest about which.
The Devil Reversed as Feelings
Reversed, the chains are coming off. Most often this is liberation: the person is waking up from an attraction that had them in its grip, realizing the pull was based on craving rather than care, and stepping back. Their intense feelings are cooling — not always because they care less, sometimes because they've recognized the dynamic wasn't good for either of you.
There's a gentler version too. Reversed Devil can mean the obsessive first phase is passing and what remains is a calmer, more sustainable attraction — the fever breaking into something you can actually live inside. The rest of the spread tells you whether you're looking at release or recalibration.
What reversed rarely means is "the feelings got deeper." The Devil's motion reversed is almost always toward less grip, not more.
From a crush
A reversed Devil from a crush often shows someone pulling back from an intensity that scared them, or losing the obsessive edge that made them chase. Read honestly, it can mean the heat that felt like interest is cooling. That's worth knowing early, before you've built a story on a spark that was already fading.
From an ex, or during no contact
This is often the kindest reading the card offers. Reversed Devil about an ex usually means the hold is finally weakening — they still think about you, but the thought no longer runs them. In a no-contact situation, it frequently marks the moment an obsession breaks and the feeling settles into a memory. That can be painful to hear if you wanted the obsession back. But a loosened chain is the card doing its actual work.
Is This Love, or Is This a Craving?
This is the question The Devil exists to ask, and almost no feelings guide will ask it plainly. Intensity is the most convincing counterfeit of love there is. The Devil as feelings sits exactly on that fault line.
Here's how I separate them in a reading. Craving is focused on having — the wanting spikes when you're unavailable and fades when you're secure. It runs hot and possessive and a little anxious. Love survives the having; it wants your good even when wanting you isn't being rewarded. The Devil can't tell the two apart for you, because from the inside they feel identical — that's the whole trap of the card. What it can do is flag that the feeling is strong enough to be one or the other, and serious enough that you shouldn't confuse them. The loose chains are the clue: a craving feels inescapable and isn't. Notice whether the person treats the connection like a chain they can't remove, or one they keep choosing to wear.
The Devil vs. The Lovers as Feelings
These two are the deck's great confusion in love readings, because both run intense. The difference is everything. The Lovers as feelings is conscious choice — they feel you're worth deciding for, eyes open. The Devil is compulsion — they feel they can't help it, eyes half-shut. The Lovers chooses; the Devil is gripped. If you draw The Devil and wish it were The Lovers, the card is telling you the connection has heat but hasn't yet become a choice anyone's making on purpose.
How the Japanese Tarot Tradition Reads This
In Japanese タロット占い, The Devil (悪魔) is read closely with 「執着」(shūchaku) — attachment, clinging, the inability to let go — more than with the Western notion of sin. That distinction matters for feelings. Teachers I trained with would say the upright Devil shows 「離れられない気持ち」— a feeling you can't pull away from — without judging it as evil. Attachment, in this framing, is human and understandable, not damning. But the same tradition is clear-eyed: 執着 is not 愛 (love). When this card describes someone's feelings, the kind question to ask isn't "do they love me?" It's "can they let me go — and do they want to?"
Frequently Asked Questions
Does The Devil as feelings mean they're obsessed with me?
Often, yes — it points to powerful, sometimes obsessive attraction. But read obsession honestly: it's intense wanting, which is not the same as love. The Devil confirms the pull is strong; it doesn't confirm the feeling is tender or sustainable.
Is The Devil a bad card for how someone feels?
Not bad — intense. It shows genuine, magnetic attraction. The caution is only that intensity can masquerade as love. If warmer cards surround it, the desire may rest on real care. Alone, it leans more toward craving than devotion.
Does the reversed Devil mean they're losing interest?
Frequently, yes — reversed usually means the grip is loosening. That can be someone breaking free of an unhealthy pull, or an obsessive phase cooling into something calmer. It rarely means feelings are deepening.
What does The Devil say about an ex's feelings?
Upright, they're still caught in the pull — thinking about you, maybe unable to fully let go. Reversed, the hold is weakening and the obsession is settling into a memory. Reversed is often the healthier sign, even if it's the harder one to want.
Can The Devil ever mean real love?
It can, when surrounded by warm, committed cards — strong attraction is part of love, after all. But on its own, The Devil testifies to desire, not devotion. Treat it as raw intensity that still has to prove what it's made of.
Closing
If you've pulled The Devil for someone's feelings, take the intensity seriously and the conclusion slowly. The pull is real — that much the card guarantees. What it won't guarantee is that the pull is love rather than craving, and it's handing you that question on purpose. Look at the chains. A feeling that can't let go, but could, is the most human thing in the deck. Just don't mistake the heat for the whole story.
Want this card beyond the feelings question? Read the full The Devil meaning, or compare it with The Lovers as feelings to see the difference between compulsion and conscious choice.
