You’ve probably seen it on a heavy metal album cover or spray-painted under a bridge. Maybe you saw it on a piece of high-end jewelry and wondered why someone would wear "evil" on their neck. People ask all the time: what is the symbol of the devil? Most folks assume there is just one—the pointy-horned guy or maybe a star in a circle. But history is way messier than that.
The truth? There isn't just one.
Symbols shift. They morph over centuries. What was once a sign of a Greek god of nature became the face of ultimate evil because of some very clever marketing by the early Church. Honestly, it’s a bit of a rebranding masterclass. If you're looking for the symbol of the devil, you’re actually looking for a collection of icons that range from ancient livestock to complex geometry.
The Goat Head and the Baphomet Mix-up
Let’s talk about the goat. Specifically, the one with the beard and the horns. If you ask a random person on the street to describe a satanic image, they’ll describe the Baphomet. But here is the kicker: Eliphas Lévi, the occultist who drew the famous "Sabbatic Goat" in 1856, didn't think he was drawing the devil.
Lévi was trying to represent the equilibrium of opposites.
Male and female. Animal and human. Light and dark. It was supposed to be a symbol of universal balance. However, the image was so striking and, frankly, a bit creepy to the uninitiated, that it got sucked into the vacuum of "scary stuff." By the time the Church of Satan was founded in the 1960s, the goat head inside an inverted pentagram—known as the Sigil of Baphomet—became the definitive answer to what is the symbol of the devil in the modern era.
It's basically a mascot now.
But why a goat? Goats have been the "bad guys" of the animal kingdom for a long time. In the Bible, specifically Matthew 25, there’s a whole bit about separating the sheep from the goats. Sheep are the followers, the "good" ones. Goats are the stubborn, independent ones who don't listen. If you’re trying to build a religion based on obedience, the stubborn goat is the perfect fall guy.
The Inverted Pentagram: It’s All About Direction
The pentagram is just a five-pointed star. For most of history, it was actually a Christian symbol. It represented the five wounds of Christ. Seriously. You can still find it in old cathedral windows if you look close enough.
So, how did it become the symbol of the devil?
It’s all about the orientation. When the star points up, it represents the spirit presiding over the four elements of matter (earth, air, fire, water). It’s "order." When you flip it upside down, the two points go up, looking a bit like horns, and the single point goes down into the dirt. This signifies the triumph of matter over spirit. It’s a "rejection of the divine hierarchy," according to scholars like Chris Mathews in Modern Satanism: Anatomy of a Radical Subculture.
Flip the star, flip the meaning. Simple.
The Number of the Beast and the Nero Connection
Everyone knows 666. It’s the ultimate "evil" number. You see it in horror movies, and people freak out when their grocery bill hits $6.66. But if you look at the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Revelation, some of them actually list the number as 616.
Wait, what?
Historians and theologians generally agree that these numbers were actually a code. Back then, you couldn't just tweet that the Roman Emperor was a monster. You’d get executed. So, writers used "gematria," where letters have numerical values.
If you translate "Neron Caesar" (the Hebrew version of Emperor Nero’s name) into numbers, you get 666. If you use the Latin version, you get 616. Nero was notorious for persecuting Christians—rumor has it he used them as human torches to light his gardens. To the early church, Nero was the devil incarnate. The symbol of the devil wasn't a supernatural monster; it was a specific guy in a palace.
The Pitchfork and the Trident
Where did the pitchfork come from? It’s not in the Bible. You won't find a verse describing Satan poking people with a three-pronged tool.
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The pitchfork is a hand-me-down.
It’s essentially Poseidon’s (or Neptune’s) trident. As Christianity spread through the Greco-Roman world, it had to compete with the old gods. The best way to get people to stop worshipping the old gods was to turn them into demons. Poseidon’s trident and Pan’s goat legs were stripped from their original context and glued onto the image of the devil.
It was a smear campaign. And it worked.
The Serpent: The Original Antagonist
Before there were goats or stars, there was the snake. This is the oldest answer to what is the symbol of the devil. In Genesis, the serpent is "more crafty than any of the wild animals." Interestingly, the text doesn't actually say the snake is Satan. It just says it's a snake.
It wasn't until much later that the two were merged in the popular imagination.
The snake is a powerful symbol because it sheds its skin. It represents rebirth, but also deception. It’s low to the ground. It’s quiet. In many cultures, the snake is actually a symbol of wisdom (think of the Staff of Hermes). But in the Western tradition, the snake became the ultimate symbol of the fall of man. It’s the icon of the "whisperer."
Peter’s Cross and the "Reverse" Logic
Here is a weird one: the inverted cross.
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If you see someone wearing an upside-down cross today, you probably assume they're into the occult. However, in the Catholic Church, the inverted cross is the Cross of Saint Peter. Tradition says that when Peter was to be martyred, he asked to be crucified upside down because he didn't feel worthy of dying the same way as Jesus.
The Pope even has the inverted cross carved into his throne in some locations.
The shift happened in the 20th century. Horror movies like The Exorcist and The Omen took the most sacred Christian symbol, flipped it, and used it to represent the "anti-Christ." It’s "symbolic inversion." Take what is holy, turn it on its head, and you get something that feels inherently wrong to the viewer. It’s a psychological trick more than a historical fact.
Why Do These Symbols Still Carry Power?
Symbols are just ink on paper or metal in a mold. They don't actually do anything. So why do they still make us uncomfortable?
It’s the weight of the "collective unconscious," a term Carl Jung loved. We’ve spent two thousand years piling fear, rebellion, and "otherness" onto these images. Even if you aren't religious, you’ve been marinated in a culture that treats the goat head or the number 666 as a warning sign.
They represent the "Shadow."
Everything we aren't supposed to be—selfish, rebellious, carnal—is wrapped up in these icons. When someone uses the symbol of the devil, they aren't usually saying they literally worship a red man with a tail. They are usually making a statement about being an outsider. They are embracing the "adversary."
Misconceptions That Just Won't Die
- The Peace Sign: There was a weird rumor in the 80s that the peace sign was a "broken cross" or a "crow's foot" used by devil worshippers. Total nonsense. It was designed for the British nuclear disarmament movement using semaphore letters N and D.
- The "Okay" Sign: No, most people aren't making a "666" with their fingers when they say things are fine. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
- The Eye of Providence: The eye in the triangle on the dollar bill? People call it satanic or Illuminati-related all the time. Historically, it’s the "Eye of God" watching over humanity. It’s actually the opposite of a devil symbol.
Sorting Out the Facts
If you’re trying to identify a symbol you’ve encountered, look at the context. Is it being used in a historical sense? A religious one? Or is it just "edgy" branding?
The reality is that "the" symbol of the devil doesn't exist in a vacuum. It’s a patchwork quilt of stolen mythology, political codes, and 19th-century art projects.
How to Evaluate Symbols in the Wild
If you're researching this for a project or just because you’re curious, here is the move:
- Check the Era: If the symbol is from before the 1800s, it likely had a completely different meaning than what we think of as "satanic" today.
- Look for Inversion: Most "evil" symbols are just "good" symbols flipped. Look for the original version to understand the protest behind the flip.
- Read the Source Material: Don't trust TikTok "experts" claiming everything is a hidden sign. Check out The Dictionary of Symbols by J.E. Cirlot or academic texts on the history of the early Church.
- Understand the Intent: A Baphomet on a heavy metal shirt is a fashion statement. A Baphomet in a 19th-century occult text is a philosophical argument. Context is everything.
The next time you see a strange star or a goat-headed figure, remember that it's probably telling you more about the person who drew it than it is about any literal underworld. Symbols are tools. Like any tool, they can be used to build a philosophy or just to get a reaction out of people. Mostly, it's the latter.