Speaker 1: Oh that's are hello, and welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: This is the Cult of Conspiracy and my name is
Speaker 2: Jacob Hi Raving, and today we are going to be
Speaker 2: diving into one of the more famous troupes to ever
Speaker 2: grace the screen slash stage, slash your favorite literary textbook. Today,
Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about Faust and in a
Speaker 2: more short term way, and then talking more about certain
Speaker 2: celebrities and academic types and musician types and all of
Speaker 2: these that have made deals with the devil for their
Speaker 2: immortal soul in exchange for wealth, power, success, knowledge, whatever
Speaker 2: the case would be. We have a long list of
Speaker 2: individuals that we're going to be going over here today.
Speaker 2: But Raven Lee, have you heard of Faust before you
Speaker 2: and I started doing research on this?
Speaker 1: No? Really, I actually haven't you.
Speaker 2: Being the avid reader, I figured that maybe you would
Speaker 2: have picked up the book at some.
Speaker 1: Point I have heard, Like I didn't really remember. Like
Speaker 1: once you started kind of telling me about it, I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, now I kind of know, but I
Speaker 1: haven't actually like read it before at all. I knew
Speaker 1: I know more of like the more modern stuff when
Speaker 1: it comes to this, then the you know, later years
Speaker 1: and stuff.
Speaker 2: So if I was to say the name Mesostopheles, does
Speaker 2: that do anything for you?
Speaker 1: That was? Is that a composer? That's the devil? The devil?
Speaker 2: Oh in the in the book, No, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you're fine. Some people recognize the term, some people don't.
Speaker 1: I do not.
Speaker 2: So in Faust, long story short, and we're gonna read
Speaker 2: the synopsis of the play from the f I'm not
Speaker 2: Mistaken the Manchester Opera House. There has been movies composed
Speaker 2: of this, there has been plays, there has been operas,
Speaker 2: but it all is based off of a book named Faust.
Speaker 2: And long story short, this guy who is he's a genius.
Speaker 2: He has devoted his life to learning everything that there
Speaker 2: is to learn on earth, of all of the humanly knowledge,
Speaker 2: right of all things. And it gets to a point
Speaker 2: where he decides, you know, there's nothing left to learn here,
Speaker 2: So I'm just gonna go and nead and end it.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm gonna go hit that self delete button
Speaker 2: because there's just nothing left to learn, and that's all
Speaker 2: my life is consistent of, So just fuck it.
Speaker 1: I want to live forever because I don't think like
Speaker 1: you can take ten lifetimes and you still wouldn't learn everything.
Speaker 2: This guy allegedly decided that he had learned enough, so
Speaker 2: he decides to drink some poison and as he drank
Speaker 2: the poison, he heard church bells and he realized it
Speaker 2: was Easter Sunday, which actually ended up saving his life.
Speaker 2: Cut to the next day, he's talking with a homeboy
Speaker 2: of his and he's like, look, I'm just I'm over it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna jump to my death, Like I don't know
Speaker 2: what the hell is going on here, but I'm done
Speaker 2: unless God or Satan can give me something that I
Speaker 2: don't already have, Like, I'm just done here, and so
Speaker 2: something answers him. Mesostopheles, this demonic figure we could call
Speaker 2: him an imp for lack of better words. It's not
Speaker 2: actually Satan himself, one of his minions. If you will
Speaker 2: decides hey, brother, I got you on that. Here's the
Speaker 2: trade off. You sell me your mortal soul and for
Speaker 2: the next twenty four years I will give you wealth, power, success,
Speaker 2: whatever woman you set your heart on, Like, I got
Speaker 2: you on this. But when that time comes and I
Speaker 2: come to collect, You're just gonna come quietly and I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna bring you to hell for all attorney pretty
Speaker 2: solid trade off though.
Speaker 1: Right, twenty four years, that's all you get? What well,
Speaker 1: at the time, why would you like, no, dog, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, all right, twenty five hundred years, let's do that.
Speaker 2: So we no, no, no, maybe the whole living foreverything,
Speaker 2: that's just not a possibility. Right as far as the
Speaker 2: literature during the Middle Ages of Renaissance goes, that was
Speaker 2: only for vampires and they don't have to make a
Speaker 2: deal with the devil. They already did so according to them,
Speaker 2: of course, ecy four years, so he was sixty or
Speaker 2: around that time frame. Whenever Mesostophiles first introduced himself.
Speaker 1: To him, he's like, look, you get eighty, you get
Speaker 1: to eighty four, Ye're done. Look that is a solid gap.
Speaker 2: Eighty four in the fourteen hundreds, Like brother, you grand
Speaker 2: old man of your village at that point, like for.
Speaker 1: Real it is. Think now you've be working at eighty
Speaker 1: four and he's over here, like eighty woman.
Speaker 2: You want caveat Within those twenty four years, he jumps
Speaker 2: back in age thirty years. So although he's a sixty
Speaker 2: year old man, he gets the look of a thirty
Speaker 2: year old again and the.
Speaker 1: Vitality, Oh wow, good for him.
Speaker 2: So it's wild. It's wild, and y'all, if you've never
Speaker 2: read the book, I've.
Speaker 1: Never heard the like I've heard of some of it,
Speaker 1: but not.
Speaker 2: It is wild, and the synopsis is not going to
Speaker 2: do it justice. This dude ends up banging Helen of Troy, Yes,
Speaker 2: that Helen of Troy. It's a whole fucking thing. He
Speaker 2: ends up killing Paris. It be like what it's it's
Speaker 2: so wild, it's so wild. Basically, long story short, every
Speaker 2: step of the way where he thinks he's about to
Speaker 2: get ahead, right, He's about to do some wild things
Speaker 2: and everything's gonna be better for him. Come to find out,
Speaker 2: the devil's got his hooks and I'm so deep to
Speaker 2: where you've ever seen a bewit be dazzled with Brendan Fraser. Yes, okay.
Speaker 2: That movie was another trope of the Faustian deal if
Speaker 2: you will, Oh okay, So every time you make a
Speaker 2: deal and you're like boom, I am the guy by
Speaker 2: the way, you're about to get fucked over in a
Speaker 2: whole other way you didn't see coming.
Speaker 1: What is with everyone in Helen and Troy? Like straight up?
Speaker 2: Because apparently this was the face that launched a thousand ships.
Speaker 2: Apparently this chick was so hot and her shit was
Speaker 2: lined in gold, had to have been to the point
Speaker 2: to where this dude. Keep in mind, she was married
Speaker 2: to the King of Sparta, like the whole thing. It's
Speaker 2: not like she was married to some scrub. She was
Speaker 2: married to the actual king of one of the most
Speaker 2: prolific warring nations to ever grease the face of the earth.
Speaker 2: And he decides, to know what, I'm gonna shoot my
Speaker 2: shot for that Paris fucking second in line to the throne.
Speaker 2: I'm a full on nepo baby, I'm never gonna assume
Speaker 2: the throne in any way, shape or form. I just
Speaker 2: get to go bang out all these horrors anytime I want.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go ahead and sh shoot my shot for
Speaker 2: the Queen of the war lords. And so we did,
Speaker 2: and she thought that was like a really good idea,
Speaker 2: ran away with him, and now we got the whole
Speaker 2: Trojan war that happens as a result of it. I
Speaker 2: don't understand what was so good about her, although they
Speaker 2: do say that Spartan women were the most gorgeous ever
Speaker 2: period ever, but that's because of the crazy eugenics they
Speaker 2: used to do.
Speaker 1: M I would love to have seen what she actually
Speaker 1: looked like, like real shit look like. I mean maybe
Speaker 1: old boy King of Sparta's you know, was not great
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, and maybe she was just
Speaker 1: like you know what, I'm sick of your shit.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I mean, I guarantee he wasn't exactly the
Speaker 2: kindest husband to her. The Spartan men weren't known for
Speaker 2: being like super sweet and loving to their wives. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know how they took wives mm hmm. You had
Speaker 2: to successfully force yourself upon her and then if you succeeded,
Speaker 2: this is clearly your wife now. So like I guarantee
Speaker 2: there was some animosity.
Speaker 1: But a little bit hatred, you know, I don't blame
Speaker 1: her for being like Baye.
Speaker 2: But also Spartan women held a lot of power because
Speaker 2: of inheritance laws. Yeah, so men would die in battle,
Speaker 2: so usually women would get the inheritance. So you had
Speaker 2: a mafia, let's just call it a cartel of women
Speaker 2: who actually were running Sparta.
Speaker 1: Through and why it fell. That's it's true.
Speaker 2: That's that is a true statement, but that's also a
Speaker 2: bit of an oversimplification because fell into disrepair for like
Speaker 2: two centuries.
Speaker 1: It is totally a simplification of it, and that in
Speaker 1: the way that they were overranmed by their slave population.
Speaker 1: But I will say that they had an opportunity to
Speaker 1: stand up and take arms and do things, and they
Speaker 1: were just like, nah, I mean, we want to be
Speaker 1: like the Greek women.
Speaker 2: Yeah, their slave population out numbered them seven to one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like I mean, yeah, you know, that's why they launched
Speaker 2: their war every year with Okay, but at the point,
Speaker 2: off topic. So anyway, cut to Faust, right, who, Yes,
Speaker 2: later on in the play slash book, he ends up
Speaker 2: betting and taking Helen for himself, but then she decides
Speaker 2: to go to the underworld rather than be with him.
Speaker 1: It's wild, yeah, because.
Speaker 2: That's there's but that's a part of the deal with
Speaker 2: the devil, right. It wasn't like she lost favor with him.
Speaker 2: He did something to betray her, and it's because he
Speaker 2: made himself look like Paris. Oh, he like shape shifted
Speaker 2: into Paris to bet her. It's yeah, So anyway, anyway, anyway,
Speaker 2: we're gonna read the synopsis of Faust, and then we're
Speaker 2: gonna talk about the actual guy, because Faust isn't just
Speaker 2: a fictitious character. Johann George Faust is an actual alchemist
Speaker 2: and polymath that existed in Germany during the timeframe that
Speaker 2: this book was written. The whereabouts of his death are
Speaker 2: also extremely interesting because he allegedly died from an explosion,
Speaker 2: but when they found his body it was torn to shreds,
Speaker 2: not burned, not exploded, ripped apart hell hounds, cud and
Speaker 2: a lot of the people that found his body believed
Speaker 2: that the devil had come to collect his due.
Speaker 1: Well, but hell hounds are sent out to collect the dues.
Speaker 1: See I didn't You don't know about that.
Speaker 2: So the hell hounds that I know of are from
Speaker 2: playing Nazi zombies and every fifth level is the hell
Speaker 2: hounds level, So I don't know. No.
Speaker 1: So a good example is Supernatural has a great, like
Speaker 1: you know, show about hell hounds are sent out to
Speaker 1: collect the dues. There's actually like a whole thing about
Speaker 1: that is how they get sent out. Instead of like,
Speaker 1: no one's gonna be bothered, They're just gonna go send
Speaker 1: the hounds out. And you hear the hounds first, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you know you're fucked, like they're coming for
Speaker 1: your soul and then they you know, rip you apart
Speaker 1: and they take your soul.
Speaker 2: That would explain why in the game, whenever the hell
Speaker 2: Hounds come, you hear the demon voice saying, fetch me
Speaker 2: their souls.
Speaker 1: That makes perfect day they come to collect the souls
Speaker 1: because they're the lackeys.
Speaker 2: Shouts out to Supernatural for getting so many things spot on.
Speaker 2: Like I understand, it was just a TV and it
Speaker 2: was all that. Every time they go up about a
Speaker 2: Greek god, Nordic god, im, a nim for whatever the
Speaker 2: case is, they do their fucking homework.
Speaker 1: They did their homework on a lot of things. It's
Speaker 1: a good representation of that specific thing. And also the
Speaker 1: Crossroads stuff too, which we will get to you later.
Speaker 2: Oh, the Crossroads are going to get their play on
Speaker 2: this episode. Good cult members, because as we start off
Speaker 2: talking about the fictitious faust, then go into talking about
Speaker 2: the real faust. There have been a laundry list, and
Speaker 2: we're not talking about maybe ten, maybe twenty. We're gonna
Speaker 2: go over upwards of forty people this evening, and this
Speaker 2: is a very short comprehensive list. Short comprehensive yeah, that
Speaker 2: is going to go over how many of these people
Speaker 2: actually sold their souls to the devil, how many of
Speaker 2: them have claimed that they have. How many people are
Speaker 2: believed that have. We are going to be talking about
Speaker 2: the Crossroads, are going to be talking about the early
Speaker 2: blues players in the early nineteen hundreds that claim that
Speaker 2: they did it. Both of these gentlemen in question outwardly
Speaker 2: claimed themselves that they sold their soul to the devil
Speaker 2: at the Crossroads in Mississippi. We're going to get to
Speaker 2: all of it. So let's get into it here. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about Faust and all the things and all the stuff.
Speaker 2: For anybody that would like to see the articles and
Speaker 2: the clips that we have to play on this episode
Speaker 2: rather than just hear our voices tell you about it,
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Speaker 2: show notes below. Anyway, without further ado, let us get
Speaker 2: to the articles and all the things. So let's start
Speaker 2: off with the Metropolitan Opera. And this is a quick
Speaker 2: synopus synopsis rather of Faust. Again, it's based off of
Speaker 2: alleged reality. We shall see where it goes. Let's start
Speaker 2: off here Act one. Faust has spent a lifetime in
Speaker 2: the study of science. Disillusioned with life, he resolves to
Speaker 2: poison himself. He curses God and calls on the devil
Speaker 2: Mephistophiles obligingly appears and offers faust Riches, power or glory. Faust, however,
Speaker 2: only wants to recapture the innocence of youth. Mesostopheles agrees
Speaker 2: to Faust's request, but there are conditions. On Earth, Faust
Speaker 2: will be master, but in the world below their roles
Speaker 2: will be reversed. Basically, the demon says that fine, I'm
Speaker 2: yours to command for the next twenty four years, but
Speaker 2: when the time comes, you will serve me, and hell,
Speaker 2: you'll be my bitch essentially.
Speaker 1: For all of eternity. How is that even a fair trade? Like,
Speaker 1: why would you even assume that this would be a
Speaker 1: fair trade.
Speaker 2: I mean, the guy was already suicidal, you know, it's
Speaker 2: not he ain't and to lose, he's just like sure,
Speaker 2: I guess we'll see.
Speaker 1: But that was the other thing too.
Speaker 2: If the demon could not hold up his end of
Speaker 2: the bargain, then the deal was off. And a portion
Speaker 2: of this was he wanted to recapture the innocence of youth,
Speaker 2: but also he wanted to achieve true intellectual enlightenment.
Speaker 1: Doesn't say enlightenment how to be not spiritual? No, No,
Speaker 1: I meant intellectual yeah.
Speaker 2: He wanted to have some sort of an epiphany that
Speaker 2: was unmatched and would be rivaled by all of humanity
Speaker 2: for the rest of eternity. And if the demon could
Speaker 2: not provide that for him, the deal was off. So
Speaker 2: the devil says, Okay, no problem, homie, let me just
Speaker 2: get a little contract going on real quick. And this
Speaker 2: is where the expression of signing your name in blood
Speaker 2: comes from. If you've ever seen any of these movies
Speaker 2: where you're making a deal with the devil or selling
Speaker 2: for your soul or whatever the case.
Speaker 1: He out of nowhere pulls.
Speaker 2: Up this really nice parchment scroll like contract and you
Speaker 2: have to prick your finger and sign your name in blood.
Speaker 2: This comes from Faust, really, and as a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: it's interesting when he first signs the contract his blood
Speaker 2: coagulates rather than soaks into the paper. It's even more
Speaker 2: of a play of his body saying like homeboy, stop,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? Even at a cellular level, his
Speaker 2: body did not want to do this. After some more
Speaker 2: finger pricking and cutting of his hand, he got some
Speaker 2: fresh blood and was able to sign his name on
Speaker 2: the dotted line.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, I didn't know that came from this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild. There are so many tropes that come
Speaker 2: off of this play or this book. I should say
Speaker 2: so continue. It says, when Faust hesitates, Mephistopheles conjures up
Speaker 2: a vision of Marguerite. Marguerite is the love interest that
Speaker 2: is the deciding factor for Foulest to be like, you
Speaker 2: know what it's worth it? Yeah, screw the enlightenment, the
Speaker 2: knowledge that piece right there, that's what's worth selling my
Speaker 2: immortal soul for. So he does it. Them Germans be doing.
Speaker 1: The mostest shocker. A man's gonna sell his whole school
Speaker 1: for a woman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen many of men, many men ruin their
Speaker 2: life for something they found on the streets. I'na be
Speaker 2: very honest with you, on the streets, in them streets,
Speaker 2: because she belonged to the streets, and they should have
Speaker 2: left her where they found her. But no, no, Now,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you got married to her, you
Speaker 2: had kids with her, She runs off with your kids
Speaker 2: and takes your entire enlistment bonus, and you come back
Speaker 2: from deployment and your bank account's emptied, and now she's
Speaker 2: fucking claiming that you assaulted her when you were across
Speaker 2: the ocean and shit. So you're facing prison charges for
Speaker 2: shit you didn't even fucking do. Then you got her
Speaker 2: new husband calling you up saying, hey, homie, where's that
Speaker 2: child support? I got a fucking truck payment that's due.
Speaker 2: Oh I've seen it. Oh, I've seen it way too
Speaker 2: many times.
Speaker 1: You've filmed some type of boy on that one. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, to be fair, there has been quite a
Speaker 1: bit of things you tell me you don't happen. I
Speaker 1: will say that men tend to think with their dicks.
Speaker 2: So you know.
Speaker 1: That post, that clarity is a vibe that's show that
Speaker 1: men definitely need to per take in.
Speaker 2: Boys, boys, if you're listening right now, wrap it up too,
Speaker 2: by the way, wrap it up for one and for two. Listen, Uh,
Speaker 2: don't go into the situation with around in the chamber.
Speaker 1: Okay. That has definitely happened to a lot of marines,
Speaker 1: so many, so many, and and.
Speaker 2: I'm saying this from a place of love, gentlemen. Okay,
Speaker 2: I get it. But also if you go in without
Speaker 2: around in the chamber, you are far more likely to
Speaker 2: make a conscious decision rather than an impulsive one. That's
Speaker 2: not a one hundred percent rule. Saying it gets you
Speaker 2: the best likely scenario for yourself.
Speaker 1: Anyways, back to this girls, Marguerite, so.
Speaker 2: He shows her or he the demon shows Faust a
Speaker 2: vision of Marguerite, and Faust is like, yep, that's it.
Speaker 1: We sign on the.
Speaker 2: Contract and returns to his youth, although again he's still
Speaker 2: in his upper years of things, but his body basically
Speaker 2: is thirty years younger looking. Think hocus Pocus when the
Speaker 2: witch is sucked in the life force of that one girl.
Speaker 2: They weren't children by it means, but they were now
Speaker 2: of the cougar variety rather than the old spencer lady variety.
Speaker 2: If you get my vibe, Yeah, yeah, I get it
Speaker 2: all right. So Act two, Valentine and Wagner are going
Speaker 2: off to war with other soldiers, and Valentine is concerned
Speaker 2: about leaving his sister Marguerite unprotected. Wagner starts a song
Speaker 2: to cheer everyone up, although it's German, so I think
Speaker 2: he'd probably be pronounced Wagner, but bear with me, but
Speaker 2: is interrupted by Mephistopheles. Mefistopheles tells Fortunes Wagner, it seems,
Speaker 2: will be killed in his first battle. The flowers that
Speaker 2: Sebiuel picks will wither and Valentine will meet his death
Speaker 2: at the hands of someone close to Mefistopheles. The demon
Speaker 2: comes up to this group of soldiers and just starts
Speaker 2: spitting bars for no reason.
Speaker 1: Cool, that's kind of awkward. You'd be like, sure, random
Speaker 1: person spirit thing yep, okay, yep.
Speaker 2: Dissatisfied with the wine on offer, Mefistopheles conjures up a
Speaker 2: better vintage to toast Marguerite. This angers Valentine. He might
Speaker 2: sugi bitch too. Yeah, demons be.
Speaker 1: Like that wine wine level, you know.
Speaker 2: So Valentine, who is this soldier and apparently this wasn't
Speaker 2: his first battle. He was actually a pretty decorated warrior
Speaker 2: his sister Marguerite. The demon just toasts to his sister
Speaker 2: and this angers Valentine and both draw their swords. Valentine
Speaker 2: strikes out and his blade shatters because he's trying to
Speaker 2: slap a demon with a sword. You'll have that on
Speaker 2: those jobs. Everyone is convinced they're in the presence of
Speaker 2: the devil. Mephistopheles leads Faust to a place where couples
Speaker 2: are dancing. Faust sees Marguerite and offers her his arm.
Speaker 2: She refuses, but so charmingly that he has left more
Speaker 2: entrance than before.
Speaker 1: Gotta leave him one and more. God playing hard to
Speaker 1: get here goes the chase because you know, she said no,
Speaker 1: but like I didn't hear it, so I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: keep going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a thing. So sea Bell gathers flowers for
Speaker 2: Marguerite outside her house. As Memphistopheles predicted, they wither, but
Speaker 2: holy water seems to restore them. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of Uh, there's a lot of religious symbolism and nods
Speaker 2: throughout this play I should mention, and yeah, the atmosphere
Speaker 2: of innocence surrounding Marguerite's home moves Faust. Marguerite finds the
Speaker 2: jewels and puts them on He he got her a
Speaker 2: bunch of jewels, like priceless, priceless jewels, and like left
Speaker 2: him in a box for her.
Speaker 1: What is it with the innocence situation?
Speaker 2: Like, because your boy Faust was already kind of corrupted.
Speaker 2: He literally just sold a soul to the devil. So
Speaker 2: the only thing that's gonna make him even slightly I
Speaker 2: guess attracted to somebody would be if they were so pure.
Speaker 1: Yep, you know, I'm not gonna touch this.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, Marguerite was of age. Gonna throw that out.
Speaker 1: It just seems like, you know, hey, she's so sweet
Speaker 1: and innocent. Let me corrupt the shit out of that
Speaker 1: and like ignore everything that she's saying.
Speaker 2: So, you know, that being said, they just say that
Speaker 2: Marguerite is a maiden, which in the proper context just
Speaker 2: means an unwed woman. I don't know if they actually
Speaker 2: said what her age was. I think in the book
Speaker 2: they probably did. I don't know if they In the
Speaker 2: play they actually make.
Speaker 1: A mention of it, but it's sixteen probably for the
Speaker 1: day and age. It was so.
Speaker 2: Okay, yep, that's bad anyway. Moving on, and so Marguerite
Speaker 2: finds the jewels that Faust had left for and puts
Speaker 2: them on. When she looks in the mirror, she sees
Speaker 2: a different woman and is further confused by the encouragement
Speaker 2: of her neighbor Marth Faust and Metastophele's return, and Metastopheles
Speaker 2: flirts with marthe giving Faust the opportunity to seduce Marguerite.
Speaker 2: He's playing wingman vibes right, He's he's jumping on the
Speaker 2: handker day for his homie.
Speaker 1: That was all the m names, I know every one
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 2: It'd be like that, though.
Speaker 1: He is uh.
Speaker 2: She begins to give in and Mevastophles conjures up a
Speaker 2: garden and makes Martha run off before disappearing himself. Marguerite
Speaker 2: realizes she loves Faust, and they make love. Quite the
Speaker 2: scandal of the DNA should be hooking up with the
Speaker 2: guy you only met at a dance hall a couple
Speaker 2: of nights prior, and uh.
Speaker 1: You know, probably twice her age at least, if not more.
Speaker 2: But he looked closer.
Speaker 1: To her age. He looked thirty.
Speaker 2: We don't know if she was twenty. We don't know that.
Speaker 2: We also don't know, to your point, we don't know
Speaker 2: if she was sixteen. I cannot speak intelligently on this,
Speaker 2: but yes.
Speaker 1: She was innocent. I'm assuming that she's probably maybe eighteen
Speaker 1: and four. We're gonna be you know, lucky here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah at four. Seduced and abandoned. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: Faust as soon as he knocked her up dipped.
Speaker 1: Out by the way, shocker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, it's crazy. So seduced and abandoned. Marguerite
Speaker 2: is expecting Fauss child. She is still in love with him,
Speaker 2: and praise for him and their unborn child. She really
Speaker 2: is like a good girl all the way through to
Speaker 2: her death.
Speaker 1: She really is.
Speaker 2: I should also mention this story and play are considered
Speaker 2: a tragedy if you couldn't see the riding on the walls.
Speaker 2: But all right, uh. The soldiers return with Valentine. Sebil
Speaker 2: tries to stop him seeing Marguerite, but Valentine, suspecting the worst,
Speaker 2: pushes him aside outside her house. Melastopheles serenades Marguerite on
Speaker 2: Faust's behalf. Valentine and Faus fight and with the intervention
Speaker 2: of Mevastopheles, Valentine is fatally wounded. Yeah, the entire fight
Speaker 2: scenes pretty fucked as well. You've seen Romeo and Juliet
Speaker 2: a time or two, right, You remember how Tibbalts and
Speaker 2: Marcutio were fighting, and you know the only reason why
Speaker 2: Marcutio died was because Romeo jumped in the middle and
Speaker 2: he got a lucky stab on him. Yeah, think that,
Speaker 2: but way more underhanded. While Faust and Valentine were getting
Speaker 2: after Mellistopheles comes up and fucking gangs him in the
Speaker 2: kidney from behind, giving Faus the opportunity to him in
Speaker 2: the heart. Complete dirty shit. But I mean, he's a demon.
Speaker 1: What do you expect I was gonna sounds like he's dirty.
Speaker 1: Obviously he's gonna do everything dirty because like he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to lose that soul, so he's gonna win any
Speaker 1: way he wants. So.
Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed, Marguerite watches her brother die and hears him
Speaker 2: curse her with her last with his last breath, so
Speaker 2: basically she's holding him in his head or his head
Speaker 2: in her hands, gingerly whispering sweet words to him of
Speaker 2: encouragement and all this. He basically curses her to just
Speaker 2: be damned for her actions. Shit, because he knows that
Speaker 2: she's knocked up out of wedlock, which puts this honor
Speaker 2: on the whole family. Whole reason he's even here, not
Speaker 2: on a battlefield, somewhere, is because of her whole ass,
Speaker 2: and it's a whole thing. So basically, just pouring salts
Speaker 2: in an already open wound and cutting even deeper, Valentine
Speaker 2: healing some type of way.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, shit, he just died for old girl
Speaker 1: being But to be feared like this sounds like a
Speaker 1: whole predatory Oh yeah, just Hey, I'm going to seduce
Speaker 1: you vibe situation Like, I feel like they were right
Speaker 1: in worrying about her being alone or getting stolen or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But a now all boy dies for it.
Speaker 2: So I should also mention faust abandoned her the next morning,
Speaker 2: not out of some there's no way to not be
Speaker 2: a shipbag about this. I understand that he actually left
Speaker 2: out of guilt because he realized that he had ruined
Speaker 2: her innocence. It wasn't because he was like, oh well
Speaker 2: she's damaged goods now and dipped out. He actually felt
Speaker 2: really horrible about deflowering.
Speaker 1: And I agree.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: He's like how old mentally quote unquote yeah sixty ish, Yeah,
Speaker 1: sixty ish, and we're talking she's like at best eighteen, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: like but all real shit.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind he was on his way back to her,
Speaker 2: which is when he and the brother met up. Like
Speaker 2: the fuck up. I'm just saying, it's not like he
Speaker 2: was trying to be like the night Shining arm or
Speaker 2: over here. He still did dirty Like, for sure, he's
Speaker 2: a dirty dog with it, But I just wanted to
Speaker 2: be known that he didn't just like knock her up
Speaker 2: in a pedophile.
Speaker 1: I don't even care which way you slice it.
Speaker 2: We don't know if he was a pedophile.
Speaker 1: Okay, even eighteen, we're gonna call it for what it is.
Speaker 1: He's still being shitty. Yes, yes, yes, and of course
Speaker 1: he doesn't die.
Speaker 2: You know he didn't.
Speaker 1: Force himself upon her. He did not do that. Yes,
Speaker 1: because manipulating an innocent child is good. How are you
Speaker 1: going to try to spin I'm not looked. Fouls is
Speaker 1: a piece of shit.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to spend it in his favor, but
Speaker 2: like I'm just saying, we gotta let the whole story
Speaker 2: play through.
Speaker 1: Okay, he's still a piece of shit, even at the end, Like,
Speaker 1: fuck this guy every way, shape and form, Like not
Speaker 1: feel bad for the brother and this girl.
Speaker 2: Yeah you should, you should.
Speaker 1: I feel bad for everybody involved that.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to defend him either, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: give proper context to the story.
Speaker 1: Rate Ja, I know you're giving condext man.
Speaker 2: He's still a piece of shit and he deserves what
Speaker 2: he got. But fuck anyway, right guy? Yes, fuck faust anyway?
Speaker 1: Moving on?
Speaker 2: Uh? Where are we at here? Distraught, Marguerite goes to
Speaker 2: church to pray for forgiveness. When she hears the voice
Speaker 2: of Mephistopheles telling her that she is damned, she collapses
Speaker 2: in terror. Act five, which also she.
Speaker 1: Falls shows up just to be an asshole because he's
Speaker 1: a demon. Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 2: Also, she collapses out of terror and basically gets arrested
Speaker 2: and put into a scene asylum a fourteenth and fourteen
Speaker 2: hundredth version of one, Oh my gosh, so you could
Speaker 2: tell what's going down here terrible. She then gets like
Speaker 2: set to be executed.
Speaker 1: This is a horrible story, by the way.
Speaker 2: The tragedy, it's it's one of the mostest continuing here.
Speaker 2: Act five, while Purgis Nights, that's a that's apparently a
Speaker 2: celebration that takes place in Germany. Uh Faust and Mefistopheles
Speaker 2: are surrounded by a group of demons. Faust has shown
Speaker 2: a vision of Marguerite and she has been imprisoned for
Speaker 2: infanticide and gone and sane. Yeah, the baby dies.
Speaker 1: Well, hobnestly and clearly infant side.
Speaker 2: With Mefistopheles's help, Faust goes to the prison in an
Speaker 2: attempt to save Marguerite. She seems to recognize her lover
Speaker 2: and recalls the night when he first seduced her, Faust
Speaker 2: is overwhelmed with pity. Marguerite panics at the side of
Speaker 2: the devil, and with a frantic appeal to heaven, she dies.
Speaker 2: Mefistopheles damns her, but angelic voices proclaimed that she is saved.
Speaker 2: So all right, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: They're in.
Speaker 2: They're in the prison cell, and essentially she is in
Speaker 2: her last act declaring that the Lord is her God
Speaker 2: and that you know, stand back Satan, this whole, this
Speaker 2: whole dramatic spiel.
Speaker 1: And as they're leaving, the.
Speaker 2: Demons like, yeah, well you're still going to hell, and
Speaker 2: then Angel's voices come in and say, actually, Marguerite, her
Speaker 2: name is written in the Book of Life. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So she gets to go to heaven. At least she
Speaker 1: gets to go to heaven out of this whole ordeal,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure that she probably gave birth and was
Speaker 1: having postpartum and she was probably you know, dying from
Speaker 1: sepsis because they didn't you know, properly remove the placenta
Speaker 1: and everything else. So yeah, she's probably just suffering this.
Speaker 1: This is a terrible story, by the way.
Speaker 2: So they kind of again, this is a not a
Speaker 2: very good synopsis. They leave out everything about when they
Speaker 2: go back and look at ancient Greece, because he wanted
Speaker 2: to learn everything of human knowledge, which leads them to
Speaker 2: go back to ancient Greece. He starts looking into some
Speaker 2: of these mystery schools of the olden days, which is
Speaker 2: when he sees Helen and the whole shebang that happens there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this whole situation with the prison is after he bangs
Speaker 2: out Helen Detroit too, which it's it's wild now. I
Speaker 2: should also mention this Faust. There's two different versions of
Speaker 2: this story, and there's another version where he's called doctor
Speaker 2: Faustus rather than just Faust. This leads to there's Part
Speaker 2: A and Part B, and there's still scholarly debate over
Speaker 2: which one was written first, and they have two very
Speaker 2: very drastic differences. Option A Faust overcome with grief and
Speaker 2: realizing that his time is up. He basically gets one
Speaker 2: last hour over the twenty four years is almost up,
Speaker 2: and he's got one last hour on earth, and he
Speaker 2: feels like that hour is going slower than the other
Speaker 2: twenty four years combined, and it is dragging on. In
Speaker 2: a last ditch effort, he realizes that he could still
Speaker 2: try to call out to God to save his immortal soul.
Speaker 2: Metastopheles actually snatches him up and is like, who the
Speaker 2: fuck you praying to dog? No, no, you sign on
Speaker 2: the contract. Your soul is mine, Like, I don't know
Speaker 2: who you think you talking to. You talk to me, bitch.
Speaker 2: It's a whole thing. And then as they're dragging him down,
Speaker 2: God intervenes and is like, no, no, I heard the call.
Speaker 2: I heard him. He's mine. He's coming to head with me.
Speaker 1: No, fuck that guy. He doesn't need to go to heaven.
Speaker 2: Option B Forty demons come out from Hell and rip
Speaker 2: his body limb from limb, tear his organs apart, splay
Speaker 2: him all over the room, and bring his screaming, kicking,
Speaker 2: piece by piece soul to hell, part by part.
Speaker 1: I take Option B for this man again.
Speaker 2: The scholarly debate has not been concluded on this because
Speaker 2: there are certain literary elements that would suggest that option
Speaker 2: A was written first, and then other references that are
Speaker 2: made that would suggest.
Speaker 1: Option B was written first.
Speaker 2: We don't know which one is the original, which one
Speaker 2: is fanfic, or if the author himself wrote two different
Speaker 2: versions of the story and just kind of made one
Speaker 2: more popular than the others. There's so many hypotheticals on
Speaker 2: this one, but it was later turned into a play
Speaker 2: for obvious reasons. Certain things of the play were certain
Speaker 2: things of the book, I should say, we're removed from
Speaker 2: the play. Certain themes were rather softened for very obvious reasons.
Speaker 2: If any of you are curious, they do have pretty decent,
Speaker 2: like ten minute long YouTube videos where they break down
Speaker 2: the book. Thug Notes actually did a really good video
Speaker 2: talking about option A and Option B and then talking
Speaker 2: more about the overall.
Speaker 1: Theme of them.
Speaker 2: One of these stories looks like it's more of a
Speaker 2: play on humanity versus human guilt, and the demon in
Speaker 2: the middle of it all is more or less the catalyst,
Speaker 2: but it's more or less a human being dealing with
Speaker 2: his own inherent evil nature that he's born with. Another
Speaker 2: option is showing that like when given the opportunity, human
Speaker 2: beings are going to make the worst decision possible every
Speaker 2: fucking time. When you offer enough money, enough power, basically
Speaker 2: everybody's got a price. Okay, So it's one book looks
Speaker 2: at it more like it's a philosophical tug of war.
Speaker 2: The other one is just showing yeah, people are shit dog.
Speaker 1: I still go with be option B for old boy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that is the overarching themes and again very very
Speaker 2: brief synopsis missing. Well, we're gonna talk about that one
Speaker 2: here in just a bit, but first let's talk about
Speaker 2: Johann George Faust. This is a real dude, that's a
Speaker 2: real person that really walked the earth.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So, and they are those myself included, that believe that
Speaker 2: he was the theme, the inspiration rather for Faust the book.
Speaker 2: Let's get into it here. So Johann George Faust. He
Speaker 2: was born, they argue between fourteen eighty and fourteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: but he died confirmed in fifteen forty one. A d
Speaker 2: also known in England as John Faustus, which is where
Speaker 2: sometimes the term doctor Faustus gets thrown out in some
Speaker 2: of the more English adaptations of the German book.
Speaker 1: Moving on, he was a German.
Speaker 2: Itinerant, alchemist, astrologer and magician of the German Renaissance. By
Speaker 2: all accounts, this guy was a polymath, And for anybody
Speaker 2: who doesn't know what that is, a polymath is somebody that,
Speaker 2: by today's standards we would say has multiple doctorates in
Speaker 2: multiple crazy fields of study. Like if you had a
Speaker 2: guy who was had a doctorate in history, in literature,
Speaker 2: in engineering, and also did some moonlight work as a
Speaker 2: I don't know, a weapons designer, and then also on
Speaker 2: the side is a world class painter, we would consider
Speaker 2: him a polymath. Just so we're all clear here. So
Speaker 2: this guy was, by all accounts a polymath of his
Speaker 2: day and age in the German Renaissance. So Doctor Faust
Speaker 2: became the subject of folk legend in the decades after
Speaker 2: his death, transmitted in chat books beginning in the fifteen
Speaker 2: eighties as and was notably adapted by Christopher Marlowe as
Speaker 2: a tragic hero in his play The Tragic History of
Speaker 2: the Life and Death of Doctor Faust, And that was
Speaker 2: in sixteen oh four.
Speaker 1: What made this guy so special that they did this
Speaker 1: whole play on unless this was really the dude that
Speaker 1: had this whole situation go down.
Speaker 2: So let's learn about that together, right, Because just to
Speaker 2: say that this guy was an alchemist and an astrologer
Speaker 2: and a magician, typically those three things run together, honestly,
Speaker 2: and you know, alchemy, we would consider that a chemist
Speaker 2: by today's standards. Although there was a little bit more
Speaker 2: of the X factor, if you will. Reason for that
Speaker 2: is because by today's standards, we have something called stoichiometry, right,
Speaker 2: we have something called the periodic table of elements. We
Speaker 2: understand the amount of algebra that goes into chemical compositions,
Speaker 2: and when you mix two parts A with one part B,
Speaker 2: you get chemical C.
Speaker 1: I'm terrible at chemistry.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. I am just well, I had a
Speaker 1: terrible teacher, So I'll say that I have a I
Speaker 1: had a terrible teacher, but I do believe that I
Speaker 1: could hopefully learn it one day better.
Speaker 2: Well even still, it's per the day and age. So
Speaker 2: they didn't have help me, is.
Speaker 1: The well they so this guy believed in all of this,
Speaker 1: and so he practiced everything together essentially okay.
Speaker 2: And that's very typical in most true alchemists. They would
Speaker 2: not practice alchemy unless it was in Hebrew. They wouldn't
Speaker 2: do it unless it was in a certain time of
Speaker 2: the year, because the alchemical experiments wouldn't work unless it
Speaker 2: was in a certain month, or at least is what
Speaker 2: they believed. The stars had to be aligned a certain
Speaker 2: way if they were trying to do this incantation. What
Speaker 2: we might call an experiment by today's standards.
Speaker 1: So like the elixir of life, what they're looking.
Speaker 2: For basically, well, not every alchemist was trying their hand
Speaker 2: at getting the Philosopher's Stone. A lot of them were. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Isaac Newton very famously an alchemists who discover gravity. He didn't,
Speaker 2: he just put turn to it. But he actually died
Speaker 2: from drinking mercury because he was in the process of
Speaker 2: trying to create the Philosopher's Stone off of alchemical texts.
Speaker 2: But so, yeah, the whole magician thing as well. A
Speaker 2: lot of what they did in the fourteen hundreds. Think
Speaker 2: about this gunpowder would have seemed like magic to these people.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And like if you add different chemicals together having it
Speaker 1: turned different colors, that can you know, consider magic.
Speaker 2: And then you could also understand why certain church leaders
Speaker 2: would see this guy mix things from glass jar a
Speaker 2: to glass jar B and it just changed colors. And
Speaker 2: now there's smoke. That's not God's work, that's the demons.
Speaker 2: So clearly everything alchemical must be demonic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and definitely got to kill all the women though,
Speaker 1: because like the Mingo.
Speaker 2: There was very few women alchemist. I know, I was
Speaker 2: just kidding, I'm hi.
Speaker 1: Fourteen hundred women read grows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy, but there were a few very prominent
Speaker 2: female alchemist throughout the years. Marry the Jewish or Maria
Speaker 2: the Jewish is one of the more famous ones, but
Speaker 2: that was first century a d. And she was brought
Speaker 2: up in alchemistry from her Hebrew backgrounds in Germany in
Speaker 2: the fourteen hundreds. She well, when we got our ears
Speaker 2: chopped off for such such heresy. But yeah, so anyway,
Speaker 2: moving on here, let's talk about the biography of Old Boy.
Speaker 2: Because of his early treatment as a figure in legend
Speaker 2: and literature, is difficult to establish historical facts about his
Speaker 2: life with any certainty. In the seventeenth century, it was
Speaker 2: even doubted if there even had been a historical Faust,
Speaker 2: and the legendary character was identified with a printer of
Speaker 2: Man's called John Faust or John George Newman excuse me
Speaker 2: in nine. In sixteen eighty three, addressed the question in
Speaker 2: his De Cuistio historica de Fausto prejudice tatur. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: can't read that. Sorry, My eyes ain't the best establishing
Speaker 2: faust historical existence. It's based on contemporary references, possible places
Speaker 2: of origin in the historical John Faust or Johann Faus
Speaker 2: or Johann Faust are Knittingen Hemstadt near Haidelberg or Roda
Speaker 2: Knittingitten Jesus Christ. I can't even see it, sir nit
Speaker 2: nitz Lingen rather today has an archive any museum dedicated
Speaker 2: to Faust, So there are German cities that still reference
Speaker 2: to Guy today. Faust year of birth is either fourteen
Speaker 2: eighty or fourteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that's a big difference, but okay exactly.
Speaker 2: The City archive of Ingolstad has a letter dated on
Speaker 2: the twenty seventh of June fifteen twenty eight which mentions
Speaker 2: a doctor Jong Faustus van Heldeberg or Heldeberg. Other sources
Speaker 2: have Georgias Faustus Heimstel. In the archives Heidelberg University, there
Speaker 2: are records of Georgie Helmsteader inscribed from fourteen eighty three
Speaker 2: to fourteen eighty seven, stating that he was promoted to
Speaker 2: baccalarius in July of fourteen eighty four and a magister
Speaker 2: artium on the first of March fourteen eighty seven. These
Speaker 2: just everybody's clear are ranks associated essentially, Okay, let's say
Speaker 2: you go from a bachelor's degree to a master's degree
Speaker 2: to a doctorate. Okay, that is essentially what these are considered. Now,
Speaker 2: this is like levels of unified understood levels of education. Okay,
Speaker 2: So the Wandering Magician. For the year fifteen oh six,
Speaker 2: there is a record of Faust appearing as a performer
Speaker 2: of magical tricks and horoscopes in Gilhausen or Geinhausen. Over
Speaker 2: the following thirty years, there are numerous similar records spread
Speaker 2: over southern Germany. Faust appears as physician, doctor of philosophy, alchemist, magician,
Speaker 2: and astrologer, and was often accused of fraud. The Catholic
Speaker 2: Church denounced him as a blasphemer in league with the devil.
Speaker 2: Faus was also accused of being a Protestant Christian the
Speaker 2: nerve of this German, which keep in mind, that's where
Speaker 2: the Lutheran Church was founded from. So like the Germans
Speaker 2: have had their Catholics for a while. But yeah uh,
Speaker 2: Johann Trithmus, Jesus Christ Trithemius, yeah uh. In a letter
Speaker 2: to Johannes Verdung dated on the twentieth of August fifteen
Speaker 2: oh seven, warns the latter of a certain Georgias Sibelicius
Speaker 2: a trickster and fraud slying himself Georgias Sibylistus Faustus junior.
Speaker 2: I'm not pronouncing that word, but basically gives all the
Speaker 2: proper monikers to say that this guy is claiming he's
Speaker 2: Faus's kid. According to Trithemius, the Galhausen Wurzburg sub Jesus
Speaker 2: Christ Sibilichus boasted blasphemously of his powers, even claiming that
Speaker 2: he could easily reproduce all of the miracles of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Trithemus alleges that Sebelicius received a teaching position in Stickingin
Speaker 2: in fifteen oh seven when he abused or which he
Speaker 2: abused by indulging in soodomy with his male students, evading
Speaker 2: punishment by a timely escape.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so this guy's he's just as good as
Speaker 1: the other guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, okay, So again, giving the proper historical context here,
Speaker 2: to claim that somebody was guilty of sodomy could just
Speaker 2: mean he was a homosexual.
Speaker 1: Which is totally fine.
Speaker 2: It could also mean that he was raping his students.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Both both are very much possible in the historical context
Speaker 2: of the fourteen and fifteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately you don't know. Also, I was thinking, since his
Speaker 1: birth is like unknown, could it be because he aged
Speaker 1: back in time.
Speaker 2: This is a portion of the reason why they think
Speaker 2: that the actual fouse was. Maybe the story isn't so
Speaker 2: much of a story as much of a retelling of
Speaker 2: true events.
Speaker 1: That'd be wild.
Speaker 2: This that's what some believe. Anyway, let's get in the possibly.
Speaker 2: I mean, granted, the timeframe of his birth was we're
Speaker 2: talking give or take fourteen years, so that's not exactly
Speaker 2: the twenty four years. But afford it fucking close, right.
Speaker 1: Still gonna afford it. We're gonna count for it.
Speaker 2: Small little adaptations here there. Maybe her name wasn't Marguerite.
Speaker 2: Maybe his name.
Speaker 1: Was martinuez I said, Martin, you know, Martin Martini, Martin
Speaker 1: who even knows?
Speaker 2: Yeah, slight little adaptations to make it more palpable for
Speaker 2: the stage of the sixteen hundreds. Who knows, I mean, but.
Speaker 1: They But homosexuality has been around for a very long time,
Speaker 1: so it.
Speaker 2: Was never seen as a positive thing. You'd be put
Speaker 2: to death for such things for the vast majority of
Speaker 2: human history.
Speaker 1: That's sad. By the way, it is what it is.
Speaker 2: So anyway, uh, let's see Conrad Multanus Rufus in fifteen
Speaker 2: thirteen recounts a meeting with a chiromanticus okay, oh, chiromanticus
Speaker 2: very interesting, called Georgis Faustus. I'm not going to pronounce
Speaker 2: those terms. Basically, it means Demi, god of Heidelberg, overhearing
Speaker 2: his vain and foolish boasts and the elfret Inn. On
Speaker 2: the twenty third of February fifteen twenty faust was in
Speaker 2: Bamberg doing a horoscope for the bishop and the town,
Speaker 2: for which he received the sum of ten golden So
Speaker 2: these are actual documented claims of like this dude getting
Speaker 2: paid for his services as a magician or sorcerer and
Speaker 2: alchemist and now astronomer or whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that he gave a horoscope to a bishop.
Speaker 2: I agree like that.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that was a thing that could go down,
Speaker 1: you know, isn't that the devil's work?
Speaker 2: Some would say so, although depending on which section of
Speaker 2: the Old Testament you are quoting, it does say that we,
Speaker 2: as followers of the God of Abraham, should be setting
Speaker 2: our calendars by the stars in the.
Speaker 1: Moon Okay, so if you are, but you're getting your
Speaker 1: horoscope done, like you're still participating in things that are
Speaker 1: not from the Bible. So I agree.
Speaker 2: But there are those I even know Christians that get
Speaker 2: down with horoscopes and they're like, well it sens right
Speaker 2: here in the Bible, we should watch the stars. And
Speaker 2: it's like, no, no, you're you're cherry picking half of one
Speaker 2: sentence of the entire book.
Speaker 1: Do you think that horoscopes are evil?
Speaker 2: Of No, I think they're silly, not necessary. I guess
Speaker 2: it depends on how you use them. Okay, it's like saying,
Speaker 2: do I believe a gun is evil?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Could it be used for evil purposes? Sure? If you're
Speaker 2: using the stars for divination or magic or speaking with
Speaker 2: the dead or something like this, yes, I believe that
Speaker 2: that is satanic.
Speaker 1: Like moonwater is satanically based.
Speaker 2: I don't know, are you speaking to some other deity
Speaker 2: when you're doing moonwater?
Speaker 1: More or less you can charge your crystals. You put
Speaker 1: out some water the moon kind of like re like
Speaker 1: there's a thing about energizing water, like the enzymes inside
Speaker 1: of it, and it helped you know, you could make
Speaker 1: a ritual of it to where it's like wanting positive
Speaker 1: vibes pretty much.
Speaker 2: See. I again, I don't really get down with the
Speaker 2: charging of crystals. I think that is silly. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's I mean scientifically though they hold energy.
Speaker 2: They do so, but they hold electricity, they hold that
Speaker 2: type of energy. The moon has no bearing on electrical
Speaker 2: vibrations whatsoever.
Speaker 1: True. But I mean people, there's still some science based
Speaker 1: that there is energy within everything, and so yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't see the harm in it. I just I don't
Speaker 1: see the harm and horoscopes, I mean, I think it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I actually, you know, there's a lot of I have
Speaker 1: a friend that's super into astrology, and she like does
Speaker 1: all the kids. She's like, when were you born? At
Speaker 1: what time?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: This?
Speaker 2: And this and this, and she is a little star chart.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. She was like, girl, I'm gonna do all
Speaker 1: your stuff. And I was like, look, you can do
Speaker 1: all the legwork and then tell me about me. That'd
Speaker 1: be great because she's she has all of it down
Speaker 1: to the absolute science, which is cool. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of interesting information with it. I'm
Speaker 1: not super huge into it in the sense of I
Speaker 1: don't know enough to be to be like really into it.
Speaker 1: But I don't see how it is of the devil.
Speaker 1: It's not one of those things that I feel that
Speaker 1: it is satanic in any way, shape or form. To me.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting, and I think that if you're
Speaker 2: using it, how could I put this per my believes
Speaker 2: God made the stars, he made the moon. Using these things,
Speaker 2: I don't think is inherently bad. You are using these
Speaker 2: as a replacement for the Word, or for salvation, or
Speaker 2: whatever the case is, then it gets to be blasphemy.
Speaker 2: That's where I'm at with it. It's interesting. Like crystals,
Speaker 2: for instance, I don't have a problem with crystals. I don't.
Speaker 2: I may not think that they are actually doing anything
Speaker 2: on a spiritual level, but I'm not gonna like shit
Speaker 2: on somebody who does believe that. That's fine. I call
Speaker 2: it a difference of opinions. That's cool. I think that
Speaker 2: crystals have memory. I think that they have an insane
Speaker 2: ability to grow, which is inherent to say that they
Speaker 2: might have actual some sort of a life force within them.
Speaker 2: I think that's very interesting and we should have that
Speaker 2: research done into them. We use them in electrical components.
Speaker 2: I got no problems with crystals themselves. But whenever you
Speaker 2: have people that are replacing prayer with rubbing a crystal
Speaker 2: all over their face because it's like cleansing their aura
Speaker 2: or something, it's like, all right, sure, I don't think
Speaker 2: they're going to be damned hell for such. I'm not
Speaker 2: in a position to make that judge them call. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't believe that crystals are inherently satanic. I think
Speaker 2: people can take it and use it to a realm
Speaker 2: that is satanically based, But I don't think they're inherently evil.
Speaker 1: I guess I just don't. As long as it's not
Speaker 1: hurting anybody, it doesn't bother me. I have tons of
Speaker 1: crystals in my house, and I have them, I use
Speaker 1: them in my berth, and I wear a ton of
Speaker 1: bracelets and stuff that have different, you know, different meanings
Speaker 1: for what I'm wearing and stuff I don't. It's the
Speaker 1: same with the tarot deck. I only actually I was
Speaker 1: gifted a tarot deck that's actually a really really nice
Speaker 1: tarot deck. It's not even one that I would even
Speaker 1: consider a full tarot deck. I actually have never owned
Speaker 1: a tarot deck. A lot of my friends have them,
Speaker 1: but I don't. There's certain things I guess that have
Speaker 1: been ingrained in me because I was brought up in
Speaker 1: a Christian household so devoutly. I don't have an issue
Speaker 1: with any of it, and I find it a lot
Speaker 1: a lot of things fascinating. I just am very learly
Speaker 1: when it comes to specific things that could open up
Speaker 1: gateways into bringing in demonic forces that I don't want
Speaker 1: to fuck with. But I like the idea for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. I just know that my experiences, I'm
Speaker 1: just more sensitive to certain things and I don't bring
Speaker 1: that into my life, but I don't mind being around
Speaker 1: people that are doing it, and I like to actually
Speaker 1: listen and see what people are talking about with it.
Speaker 1: It's just it's one of those things that I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not not going to fuck with it for myself.
Speaker 2: So Taro specifically and me and Jonathan always had these conversations.
Speaker 2: If it's something that is trying to tell you your future,
Speaker 2: it is probably satanically based that just right out the rip.
Speaker 2: Any kind of divination, any kind of sorcery, communicating with
Speaker 2: the dead, those that deal in chance by that they
Speaker 2: mean of tongues, No, no dealing in bones and cars,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, chance would be like yeah, yeah, no, speaking
Speaker 2: in tongues that's a that's a gift of the spirit.
Speaker 2: That's the other side of the coin.
Speaker 1: See. And I actually was raised that tongue is demonic.
Speaker 2: How it talks about it multiple times.
Speaker 1: I know it talks about it in the Bible, but
Speaker 1: I was so some of the churches that I went
Speaker 1: to when I was younger, like tongues is that no
Speaker 1: one on earth knows how to speak in tongues now,
Speaker 1: and that what people are talking in is actually demonic.
Speaker 2: That is a claim for the record. No one is
Speaker 2: supposed to know how to speak in tonguese. Not something
Speaker 2: you're taught, it's it's something that.
Speaker 1: But like what they're channeling is not of God, that
Speaker 1: it's actually demonic in presence. And one of my girlfriends
Speaker 1: actually went to a church down here that that they
Speaker 1: were speaking in tongue and she faced himy and I
Speaker 1: was like, mmmm, not today say nine that even though
Speaker 1: I'm like not of like super Christian room, but I
Speaker 1: was like mm mmm. I was brought up like that,
Speaker 1: like if that's happening crazy, Yeah, Like no.
Speaker 2: To think that's demonic, that's like I would love to
Speaker 2: meet the pastor that's giving that sermon, Like brother, that's
Speaker 2: like saying, laying healing hands on somebody is clearly demonic
Speaker 2: because nobody knows how to do that these days, Like
Speaker 2: you don't learn that that's a thing that you do what.
Speaker 1: I do think it's kind of funny though, like the
Speaker 1: whole situation watching it, just like what are you just
Speaker 1: randomly talking some bullshit like that? No, I will say
Speaker 1: that it randomly going going hard for no reason, and
Speaker 1: then I don't know, that's We're not going to get
Speaker 1: on in tangent of religion. But I just think that's
Speaker 1: an interesting I feel.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of people that are doing that are acting,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I'm very honest with you, which at that
Speaker 2: point that is false false grace, which is a form
Speaker 2: of lying in a church. So like, I'm with you
Speaker 2: as far as that goes that, maybe that is demonically based.
Speaker 2: But that's that's a bold claim to say that anybody
Speaker 2: attempting to speak in tongues or get that gift of
Speaker 2: the spirit is channeling a demon at a church service
Speaker 2: while praying to God. That's wild, But okay, God, if
Speaker 2: I's got their interpretations on time, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know that's just the way I was brought up
Speaker 1: with it, and I'm like, I personally, I won't go
Speaker 1: near it. I'm like, hmm.
Speaker 2: But getting back to this though, for the horoscopes, I
Speaker 2: don't think inherently knowing your sign or having your star
Speaker 2: chart read is necessarily evil. However, if you are using
Speaker 2: it as a basis to predict your future, that is
Speaker 2: when it gets to like, no, you're not supposed to
Speaker 2: be predicting your future. You're supposed to be making the
Speaker 2: best choices you can as of this moment. That's that's
Speaker 2: where it goes to the realm of like quote unquote divination.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't see any harm in it, just
Speaker 1: personally for myself, and I think people that participate in
Speaker 1: it aren't doing anything bad. But that's just me.
Speaker 2: I'm not judging anybody. Oh no, I mean, but yeah, so,
Speaker 2: especially in the fourteen hundreds, it is crazy that he
Speaker 2: was giving a.
Speaker 1: Bishop, a bishop of all things. That's why I'm like, way,
Speaker 1: a bishop wanted.
Speaker 2: His horoscope and got paid for it.
Speaker 1: That's even more crazy to me, Like, what is happening?
Speaker 2: He got paid with tithe dollars for that shit?
Speaker 1: Man? Yeah, just be taking shit from people.
Speaker 2: Hear you, the bishop don't just like got money. They
Speaker 2: don't get paid for their services. Yeah, that was tie dollars.
Speaker 2: That's crazy. So anyway, continuing on, it says in fifteen
Speaker 2: twenty eight Faust visited Ingolstadt, where he was banished. Shortly after.
Speaker 2: In fifteen thirty two, he seems to have tried to
Speaker 2: enter Numberg, which I believe is Nuremberg these days, according
Speaker 2: to an unflattering note made by the junior mayor of
Speaker 2: the city to deny free passage to the great neck
Speaker 2: that's supposed to be necromancer. But that's a g and sodomite,
Speaker 2: doctor Faustus. So the junior mayor saw him as a
Speaker 2: necromancer and a sodomite and named him out specifically.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Later records give a more positive verdict. Thus, the Tuebingen
Speaker 2: professor Joachim Camerius in the fifteen thirty six recognition of
Speaker 2: Faus as a respectable astrologer and physician. Philip Bargarti of
Speaker 2: Worms in fifteen thirty nine praises his medical knowledge. The
Speaker 2: last direct attestation of Faus dates to the twenty fifth
Speaker 2: of June fifteen thirty five, when his presence was recorded
Speaker 2: but in Munster during an Anabaptist rebellion.
Speaker 1: Interesting, now do you be making his rounds? He did.
Speaker 2: Now, let's talk about his death some of the more
Speaker 2: controversial things surrounding him. Faus death is dated to either
Speaker 2: fifteen forty or fifteen forty one. He allegedly died in
Speaker 2: an explosion of an alchemical experiment at the Hotel zoom
Speaker 2: Leuen in Staufen, Mbresgau. I can't speak German. My apology, y'all.
Speaker 1: God, you're butchering this, but I can't do any better.
Speaker 2: His body is reported to have been found in a
Speaker 2: grievously mutilated state quote unquote, which was interpreted to the
Speaker 2: effect that the devil had come to collect him in
Speaker 2: person by his clerical and scholarly enemies. Wow. In fifteen
Speaker 2: forty eight, the theologian Johann Gast, in his Sermons Covalates,
Speaker 2: states that Faus had suffered a dreadful death and would
Speaker 2: keep turning his faith to the earth in spite of
Speaker 2: the body being turned up on its back several times.
Speaker 2: So even after they laid him into the grave, he
Speaker 2: kept turning over to go face down.
Speaker 1: Hmm.
Speaker 2: In the fifteen forty eight account. Gass also mentions a
Speaker 2: person meeting with Faus in Basel during the faus Wit
Speaker 2: or excuse Me, during which Faus provided the cook with
Speaker 2: poultry of a strange kind. According to Gast, Faus traveled
Speaker 2: with a dog and a horse, and there were rumors
Speaker 2: that the dog would sometimes transform into a servant. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, shape shifter status.
Speaker 2: Shape shifter status. That would be his servant, that would
Speaker 2: do his bidding. I have very similar to Mephistopheles with Faust.
Speaker 1: Hmm, that's very similar. Definitely. I bet you this could
Speaker 1: be the real guy and the real story.
Speaker 2: There's at least that kernel of truth. Right, There's that thread,
Speaker 2: there's that yarn on the corkboard, right. Authorship of grimoires.
Speaker 2: There were several prints of grimoires or magical texts attributed
Speaker 2: to Faust. Some of them are artificially dated to his lifetime,
Speaker 2: but the prints in fact date to the late sixteenth
Speaker 2: century circa fifteen eighty, the same period of the development
Speaker 2: of the Volksbooch tradition. Variants of the holand Zwog attributed
Speaker 2: to Faust continued to be published for the next two
Speaker 2: hundred years, well into the eighteenth century, it became fashionable
Speaker 2: for occultist in early Europe to list Faust as the
Speaker 2: author of their texts to protect themselves from the wrath
Speaker 2: of the Church under charges of heresy. The practice was
Speaker 2: common throughout the medieval world and mimics the ancient authors
Speaker 2: who remained anonymous by listing King Solomon or Hermis Tresmegistus
Speaker 2: as the author of their text.
Speaker 1: Wow. For two hundred years, this man still continued his
Speaker 1: quote unquote legacy.
Speaker 2: But that's the thing. A lot of it was plagiarized.
Speaker 2: The same with King Solomon and Hermes Tresmegistus. There are
Speaker 2: so many people that think that Hermi's Tresmagistus is Toath
Speaker 2: who made his way to Greece, as Hermes who made
Speaker 2: his way to Rome as Mercury, because it's clearly the
Speaker 2: same guy. It's like, there's like five things that you
Speaker 2: could maybe say connect them all. Maybe one of them
Speaker 2: is like gave humans writing.
Speaker 1: So clearly it's the same guy.
Speaker 2: And I'm like Toath was wearing a coum crown from
Speaker 2: his uncle, Hermes was wearing a winged hat and winged shoes.
Speaker 2: Mercury didn't like, what the f are we talking about here,
Speaker 2: But so many people wrote Hermes Trees mcgistus as the
Speaker 2: author of this grim wire, this magical text that they
Speaker 2: were working off of, so it's it's all written. And
Speaker 2: the same thing with King Solomon. There's so many thing
Speaker 2: about the Lesser and Greater Key of Solomon and all
Speaker 2: the things that he wrote down in his lifetime, and
Speaker 2: that's not true though at all. It was later written
Speaker 2: by occultist who put his name on it. And that's
Speaker 2: how plagiarism used to go back.
Speaker 1: In the day. I mean, everything can changes. It's not
Speaker 1: like they had fact checks. So like whatever you wrote down,
Speaker 1: whatever was spread, is how it's spread so exactly. And
Speaker 1: then it's easy one hundred years all misinformation can you
Speaker 1: It dies out. So whatever you want to make the
Speaker 1: story of the narrative the next hundred years is going
Speaker 1: to be running with it and changing each hand. It's
Speaker 1: the monkey chain pretty much. So the story twists and
Speaker 1: change and the legend becomes more crazier than actually the
Speaker 1: story originated, and then you have all sorts of stuff
Speaker 1: that derives from it.
Speaker 2: It's same thing with right, because in fifteen eighty seven,
Speaker 2: a German chapter book about Fauss sins began the literary
Speaker 2: tradition of the Faust.
Speaker 1: Character to like forty something years later after his death.
Speaker 1: Yeah okay, not.
Speaker 2: Even one whole lifetime away. It was edited and exerbted
Speaker 2: by G. R. Wildman and Nicholas pitt Fitzer excuse me,
Speaker 2: and was finally republished anonymously in modernized form in the
Speaker 2: early eighteenth century as the fausboch Day Christish Maidenden. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't speak German. This edition became widely known and
Speaker 2: was also read by Goth in his youth. Goth is
Speaker 2: the one that read, that wrote the book that we
Speaker 2: would now know today. This is why these two individuals,
Speaker 2: they don't know which version was the correct version that
Speaker 2: Goeth got before he wrote his version that we know
Speaker 2: from the play.
Speaker 1: Then the monkey chain of events and the you know,
Speaker 1: conversations that keep changing, so yeah, so continuous says.
Speaker 2: As summarized by Richard Stretcher, this version is the account
Speaker 2: of a young man called Johann Faust, son of a peasant,
Speaker 2: who studies theology in Wittenberg. Beside medicine, astrology, and quote
Speaker 2: unquote other magical arts. His balanced desire for knowledge leads
Speaker 2: him to conjure the devil in a wood near Wittenberg,
Speaker 2: who appears in the shape of a gray fair who
Speaker 2: calls himself Mephistopheles. Fout centers and packs with the devil,
Speaker 2: pledging his soul In exchange for twenty four years of service.
Speaker 2: The devil produces a familius, Christoph Wagner and a poodle,
Speaker 2: which is a German dog I shouldn't have mentioned as
Speaker 2: a familiar to a company. Faust in his adventures as
Speaker 2: the dog that.
Speaker 1: Has a dog that would follow Okay, yepka.
Speaker 2: Faust goes on to live a life of pleasures. He
Speaker 2: visits the Pope in Rome, the Sultan of Constantinople, and
Speaker 2: the Kaiser in Insbruck. After sixteen years, he begins to
Speaker 2: regret his pack and wants to withdraw, but the devil
Speaker 2: persuades him to renew it, conjuring up Helen of Troy,
Speaker 2: with whom Faus sires a son called Justus or Justice.
Speaker 2: As the twenty fourth year comes to an end, Satan,
Speaker 2: chief of the Devil's appears and announces Faust's death for
Speaker 2: the coming night. Faust, at a quote unquote last supper
Speaker 2: scene in Rimlik, takes leave of his friends and admonishes
Speaker 2: them to repentance and piety. At midnight, there is a
Speaker 2: great noise from Faust's room, and in the morning, its
Speaker 2: walls and floor are found splattered with blood and brains,
Speaker 2: with fouss eyes laying on the floor and his dead
Speaker 2: body in the courtyard. The most famous depiction of Faust
Speaker 2: was Christopher Marlowe's fifteen ninety two play The Tragical History
Speaker 2: of the Life and Death of Doctor Faust. When it
Speaker 2: premiered in London, it was a smash hit, using rudimentary
Speaker 2: special effects to make spirits and demons appear on stage.
Speaker 2: Contemporary accounts stated the play drove spectators mad through the
Speaker 2: conjuring of real ghosts during the performance. Marlow's Doctor Faust
Speaker 2: remains a controversial play more than four hundred years after
Speaker 2: its publication due to its ritual invocation of the devil
Speaker 2: and challenge to religious doctrine.
Speaker 1: That's all I was gonna say. I was like, were
Speaker 1: they performing actual rituals during the play themselves? Did they
Speaker 1: actually draw the correct symbolism and they were actually performing?
Speaker 1: Because that was the whole thing that ties into the
Speaker 1: rest of the industry that we're going to get into,
Speaker 1: is them actually performing rituals that you're listening to continuously,
Speaker 1: and that you're actually summoning the devil or different spirits
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: You ever seen Tombstone the movie of course, remember that
Speaker 2: bar scene when they're watching a play.
Speaker 1: Yes, that was Faust.
Speaker 2: Really, that's why she was wearing the devil's mask and
Speaker 2: she was presenting him with a contract. Yeah, oh that
Speaker 2: was fast.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that.
Speaker 2: Okay, this play in this trope you ever seen shit
Speaker 2: was name not Hell Rider, Nicholas Cage Bike.
Speaker 1: Oh oh yes, yes, oh my gosh, ghost goes right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem There's so many now that I'm sitting
Speaker 1: here thinking about, there's so many movies. So this all
Speaker 1: comes back to this man that, by all accounts, sounds
Speaker 1: like he was actually the real dude that this is
Speaker 1: actually based off of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, huh, And we don't know to what level he
Speaker 2: was a piece of shit. Keep in mind the context
Speaker 2: of the day and age. This guy was doing alchemy, which,
Speaker 2: depending on who was paying you, might have been great.
Speaker 2: And the king knew about it because he brought you
Speaker 2: into Alchemists will be brought into courts of kings to
Speaker 2: do their sciences for the king, because the king wanted
Speaker 2: to have the latest toy. And if you've got a
Speaker 2: guy that's able to produce this crazy magic for you
Speaker 2: that possibly you could use to impress your other royal
Speaker 2: buddies slash cousins from a different country that you're trying
Speaker 2: to marry your daughter to or whatever, maybe he's going
Speaker 2: to develop some new weapon for you, maybe recreate a
Speaker 2: little Greek fire for your army. Alchemists were very sought after. However,
Speaker 2: they had to walk a very very fine line because
Speaker 2: if they ever stepped out of favor with whoever their
Speaker 2: benefactor was, they're clearly conjuring Satan and they need to
Speaker 2: be beheaded.
Speaker 1: That'd be stressful. I mean, it's a really cool practice
Speaker 1: to like look into and all the different back in
Speaker 1: the day ad, you know, doing chemistry and doing that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff and trying to experiment. But I definitely
Speaker 1: feel bad for them because it was just very very
Speaker 1: touch and go every time they actually did any kind
Speaker 1: of experiments.
Speaker 2: That being said, the real faust was he actually a
Speaker 2: massive piece of shit? Maybe is it also possible that
Speaker 2: these sources that we are reading were clerical people themselves
Speaker 2: who saw anything he did as clearly satanic, so they
Speaker 2: only wrote the worst possible things about him, half of
Speaker 2: which aren't even true, and we're made up to make
Speaker 2: him seem even worse.
Speaker 1: That's probably honestly, more or less. I mean, I could
Speaker 1: see him doing, you know, being a man of that
Speaker 1: day and age and whatnot. But it very milt could
Speaker 1: be that there was you know, a bishop, felt some
Speaker 1: type of way or who and whoever, and then just
Speaker 1: ended up changing more and more.
Speaker 2: It's very possible both ways, and that's why I think
Speaker 2: it's so interesting to look at this for the historical
Speaker 2: context of it and the conspiratorial context of it, because
Speaker 2: with this, there have been so many people that have
Speaker 2: claimed that they sold their soul to the devil for fame,
Speaker 2: for fortune, for talent, for power, for position, for whatever
Speaker 2: the case would be.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna get to those in a bit.
Speaker 2: But now as we're talking about the trope itself of
Speaker 2: the Faustian bargain is what it's commonly referred to of
Speaker 2: so Gothic tropes, the Faustian bargain. We all know, never
Speaker 2: to make a deal with the devil, right, The concept
Speaker 2: of engaging in trades or bargains with the demonic figure
Speaker 2: has been a common motif in folklore around the world
Speaker 2: for centuries, but this particular iteration the Faustian bargain derives
Speaker 2: the same from the German folk legend of doctor Faust.
Speaker 2: These legends spring from a real historical figure, a sixteenth
Speaker 2: century itinerant alchemist and astrologer named Johann Faust, who's larger
Speaker 2: than life reputation led to rumors that he had sold
Speaker 2: his soul to the devil in exchange for great knowledge
Speaker 2: and magical abilities. The legend of doctor Faust has been
Speaker 2: directly adapted into works of literature many times, but we
Speaker 2: also see similar bargains being struck by other characters throughout
Speaker 2: Gothic literature. So what exactly is the Faustian bargain in
Speaker 2: the original legend ario We already talked about that. So
Speaker 2: the most famous literary adaptations of Faust legends are Christopher
Speaker 2: Marlowe's play The Tradition, the Tragical History and Life and
Speaker 2: Death of Doctor Faust, and Johann Wolfgang von Goet's closet
Speaker 2: drama Faust, written about or written around fifteen ninety two.
Speaker 2: Marlowe's play predates the advent of the Gothic genre by
Speaker 2: nearly two centuries, but with subject matter that includes supernatural beings,
Speaker 2: dark magic in the occult. It is no wonder that
Speaker 2: why this Elizabethian traditionary or tragedy would influence later Gothic works.
Speaker 2: In Marlowe's version, the scholar doctor Faustus summons the demon
Speaker 2: and signs of contract in blood, which the demon agreed
Speaker 2: to serve him for twenty four years, after which time
Speaker 2: Lucifer will have full claim to Fausus's body and soul.
Speaker 2: Faustus spends these years traveling the world, getting Metastopheles to
Speaker 2: conjure up legendary figures like Helen of Troy, and only
Speaker 2: briefly regretting his bargain. Though faus tries to find a
Speaker 2: way out of his bargain in his final hours, the
Speaker 2: play ends with the devils arriving to drag him to hell.
Speaker 2: So this is the ghoth version, right, and this this
Speaker 2: is the book of it, and we already give it
Speaker 2: a good once sover as far as that goes now
Speaker 2: continuing on here, few Gothic characters who enter such bargains
Speaker 2: are so lucky to end. Wait, I forgot this is
Speaker 2: the other one. Where it actually ends part the other part.
Speaker 2: So that was an A and B. Excuse me, Actually,
Speaker 2: I do want to read this, So publish, says Faust
Speaker 2: part one in eighteen oh eight, and Faust Part two
Speaker 2: in eighteen thirty two. And there's still some debate about this.
Speaker 2: The bargain between Faust and Metastopheles is depicted with some
Speaker 2: key differences. First, rather than the bargain being Faust's own idea,
Speaker 2: Mevaistopheles comes up with the plan and approaches Faust with
Speaker 2: it of his own accord. Mefistopheles offers the following terms.
Speaker 2: He will be fouls servant during his lifetime, using his
Speaker 2: powers to grant faults wishes, if Faust will then serve
Speaker 2: him in the afterlife. Fous degrees and adds an ironic
Speaker 2: twist to the bargain. If he ever experiences a moment
Speaker 2: of transcendent happiness and contentment, he will die then and
Speaker 2: there and begin his eternity as the demon's servant.
Speaker 1: He fucked himself when he put that one in there.
Speaker 2: Possibly Mevastopheles helps Faust win over Gretchen, the woman he loves.
Speaker 2: So what in the the Maiden? Now it's a Gretchen.
Speaker 2: I forget what the other one.
Speaker 1: Her name starts with an M, Marguerite, Marguerite, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't Marguerite now yeah, now it's Gretchen, which I do
Speaker 1: love that name for girls.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest, correct, Gretchen. Gretsch is a solid name.
Speaker 1: I know, Greta.
Speaker 2: I've only met one Gretchen in my life and she
Speaker 2: was cool. I duggar anyway, the woman he loves, though
Speaker 2: his meddling seems to cause more tragedy than happiness. By
Speaker 2: the end of part two, fous or Pince of his
Speaker 2: bargain and is ultimately saved by God's angels. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: Few Gothic characters who enter such a bargain are so
Speaker 2: lucky to backtrack in our timeline slightly. Matthew Lewis's The
Speaker 2: Monk from seventeen ninety six is probably one of the
Speaker 2: earliest instances of a Fausium bargain in Gothic literature, made
Speaker 2: by a character other than Faust himself. While one could
Speaker 2: read the overall story as a Faustian bargain in a
Speaker 2: vague and metaphorical sense, the formerly virtuous monk Ambrosio compromises
Speaker 2: his morals and damns his soul when he begins engaging
Speaker 2: in black magic to satisfy his lust. A more literal
Speaker 2: deal with the devil occurs right at the end of
Speaker 2: the novel. After Ambrosio rapes and murders the object of
Speaker 2: his desires, Antonia, he is captured and imprisoned by the
Speaker 2: Inquisition and sentenced to death. As he should be, Lucifer
Speaker 2: appears in Ambrosio's cell and offers him freedom in exchange
Speaker 2: for his soul. Ambrosio tries to resist, but when faced
Speaker 2: with imminent death, he signs the contract. Unfortunately, Ambrosio falls
Speaker 2: to stipulate airtight terms to his side of the bargain.
Speaker 2: Lucifer frees him from this prison cell, only to immediately
Speaker 2: subject him to a slow and painful death as a
Speaker 2: prelude to the eternity he'll spend in hell.
Speaker 1: At the first the beginning part, I was like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: this is like one of the first dark romances created.
Speaker 1: And then and then as we were like read on,
Speaker 1: I was like, in a dark.
Speaker 2: Romance, I don't want to dark romance has got all
Speaker 2: kinds of that ship up in them.
Speaker 1: First of all, there is not.
Speaker 2: A lot of I'm gonna go ahead and let you
Speaker 2: finish your sentence, but go ahead and think about it.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of murder.
Speaker 2: There, you go, there's not a lot of murder, because
Speaker 2: that's the takeaway from that one.
Speaker 1: There's not anyway, depends on the book.
Speaker 2: Sure, Sure. The Fallacian Barget plays a more central role
Speaker 2: in Charles Martine's eighteen twenty Gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer.
Speaker 2: The titular character of this story is a scholar who
Speaker 2: has sold his soul to the devil in exchange for
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty years of extended life.
Speaker 1: That makes more sense, much better, one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: instead of twenty four.
Speaker 2: But still it's an eternity in hell. Even one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty seems like a that's a drop in the bucket.
Speaker 1: I would be like, cool, we'll do like one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand years then like maybe we'll talk, but like eternity
Speaker 1: versus one hundred thousand, Oh, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe there's like a bargain, like how many people can
Speaker 1: I like bring to you?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you would damn other people sold a
Speaker 2: hell to live longer. Okay, Jack Sparrow, I would not
Speaker 2: do such a thing. I would not.
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, maybe maybe like a bounty hunter. Ooh,
Speaker 1: like if I could like bounty hunt like the bad Ghostwriter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, hey, if I bring like the really
Speaker 1: bad people to you, can we like knock off a
Speaker 1: hundred year each one. I'll even do fifty seventy five
Speaker 1: fifty to.
Speaker 2: Be like ghost Writer. I think that would be a
Speaker 2: solid bargain honestly, but even still, like you remember that
Speaker 2: movie he made me deal with the devil to save
Speaker 2: his dad's life, only for his dad to die in
Speaker 2: the very next race. Oh yeah, because that's how the
Speaker 2: devil does business.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, because he didn't like fine print laid it out.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying, like if I was gonna have
Speaker 1: to go down that route, which I would not do this,
Speaker 1: but if I had to, I would definitely try to
Speaker 1: find a loophole in like, can I bring all the
Speaker 1: bad people to you? Like what if I hit every
Speaker 1: war and like just like reap souls like a valkyrie
Speaker 1: and just be like, hey, if I bring you like
Speaker 1: X amount of time, we just keep knocking off that chip.
Speaker 2: Valkyries weren't reapers.
Speaker 1: They were escorts.
Speaker 2: They were escorts, I know, but I was talking not
Speaker 2: of the prostitution type. I mean they were they.
Speaker 1: Well they cleared the battlefield, and so I was just
Speaker 1: simply saying, like if I cleared the battlefield, like that'd
Speaker 1: be cool. Dude. This book, though, that we're looking at,
Speaker 1: for those of you that cannot see it, is like
Speaker 1: some wild out faces. It reminds me of the Vampire movie.
Speaker 2: It's oh God, oh you mean Twilight.
Speaker 1: No, the amount of shit on TikTok with Twilight is
Speaker 1: just because it's deserved.
Speaker 2: It's so good. It's so good. God. Anyway, anyway, moving
Speaker 2: on here, Uh every word I leave off in an
Speaker 2: ironic twist. Rather than enjoying the longevity he paid such
Speaker 2: a dear price for, Melmuth spends most of his years
Speaker 2: trying to find someone who will take over the pact
Speaker 2: so he doesn't have to fulfill his end. Portions of
Speaker 2: Morton's novel are told from the perspectives of various people
Speaker 2: that Melmoth has tried to tempt, but none of these
Speaker 2: ventures are successful. When Melmoth's one hundred and fifty years
Speaker 2: are up, he must succumbed to the fate he brought
Speaker 2: upon himself when he made the bargain.
Speaker 1: I feel like you could easily find somebody to take
Speaker 1: that over. You ever seen Drag Me to Health? Yes,
Speaker 1: it's just like that.
Speaker 2: The gypsy woman cursed her and said in one year
Speaker 2: she's gone, so she kept trying to find who to
Speaker 2: give it to.
Speaker 1: I feel like you could easily find somebody.
Speaker 2: I feel like in the moments, I might be like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: as soon as they molded over for a minute, be like, ugh,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna like take super.
Speaker 1: Finding super desperate people, drug addicts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but even drug addicts don't want to spend a
Speaker 2: life an eternity and torment.
Speaker 1: I would make it sound really nice. I like there's
Speaker 1: a sauna and the whole sales pitch for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a sauna, like like it's it's nice and toasty warm,
Speaker 1: like you know, so czy. There's like, you know, the
Speaker 1: ambiance in the background to put you to sleep.
Speaker 2: The screams and the mashing of teeth.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say screams. I would just say the ambiance
Speaker 1: music in the background.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I make it look real nice and like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a great place to go. The last example.
Speaker 2: The last example of a more subtle Thausian bargain is
Speaker 2: Oscar Wilde's The Picture of.
Speaker 1: Dorian Gray from ah Acty Know This. Indeed.
Speaker 2: Indeed, while no demonic figure appears directly in the novel
Speaker 2: and forces Dorian to sign a literal contract, some unholy
Speaker 2: power is implied to be the cause of Dorian's supernatural
Speaker 2: link with his portrait. Dorian unwillingly, unwittingly makes a bargain win.
Speaker 2: Upon seeing the completed portrait for the first time, he
Speaker 2: murmurs to himself, if it were who I was, to
Speaker 2: be always young in the picture, that was to grow
Speaker 2: old for that, for that, I would give everything. Yes,
Speaker 2: there is nothing in this whole world I would not give.
Speaker 2: I would give my soul for that. Though no one
Speaker 2: but Basil or Basil and Lord Henry is around to
Speaker 2: hear this pronouncement, Dorian's wish is granted over time. As
Speaker 2: Dorian leads an increasingly immoral life, his portrait reflects not
Speaker 2: only his age, but his cruelty and moral corruption, while
Speaker 2: the living Dorian remains young and beautiful. Toward the end
Speaker 2: of the novel, Dorian tries to repent and turn his
Speaker 2: life around, but finds that the portrait is indeed his
Speaker 2: own morals or and indeed his own morals are already
Speaker 2: too far gone. In a fit of defiant rage, Dorian
Speaker 2: stabs the portrait, which results in his own death. While
Speaker 2: Dorian's fate in the afterlife is unstated, the youthful body's
Speaker 2: transformation into an ugly, withered corpse suggests that the consequences
Speaker 2: of his bargain have been visited upon him in death,
Speaker 2: as with his literary predecessors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's really nasty looking by the end of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's another very famous trope, the whole Dorian
Speaker 2: Gray thing. Yeah. So anyway, moving on, there are other examples,
Speaker 2: real life examples of people who allegedly sold their soul
Speaker 2: to the devil for creative power, special abilities, wealth, fame, fortune.
Speaker 1: Is it alleged though?
Speaker 2: Some of these yes, some of these know you be
Speaker 2: the judge. One of these, as are still sticking to
Speaker 2: the historical side of things, is Niccolo Paganini. I might
Speaker 2: be mispronouncing the name of my apologies. Again, I speak
Speaker 2: American English, not Italian. Was such a gifted violinist. People
Speaker 2: thought he sold his soul to the devil. Born on
Speaker 2: October twenty seven, seventeen eighty two, in Genoa, Italy, Niccolo
Speaker 2: was an incredibly gifted musician and is widely considered one
Speaker 2: of the greatest violinists of all time. He started playing
Speaker 2: the mandolin at age five, before taking up the violin
Speaker 2: at age seven and giving his first public performance at
Speaker 2: age eleven in Genoa. He started playing the mandolin aged five,
Speaker 2: before taking up the violin at age seven and giving
Speaker 2: his first public performance at age eleven in Genoa. At
Speaker 2: the age of fifteen, the talented teenager started playing solo tours.
Speaker 2: The nineteenth century produced a number of extraordinary violinists, but
Speaker 2: none like Paganini. His talent was beyond or it was
Speaker 2: so beyond that of his peers that people started to
Speaker 2: believe that he had made a pact with the devil.
Speaker 2: It was even rumored by his mother or that his
Speaker 2: mother had sold his soul to the devil so he
Speaker 2: could become the greatest virtuaso in history violin player. So basically,
Speaker 2: there was rumors that he sold his soul, and there
Speaker 2: was rumors that his mom sold his soul for him.
Speaker 2: In all these things, there was actually a movie that
Speaker 2: was made about this. We're actually gonna watch the trailer
Speaker 2: here in a moment, but I want to give the
Speaker 2: whole script first. Age thirteen, Paganini was sent to study
Speaker 2: with the famous violinist and teacher Alessandro Rola. Rola quickly
Speaker 2: saw Paganini's talent and decided there was nothing else he
Speaker 2: could teach him, so he passed him on to his
Speaker 2: own teacher, Fernando Pierre or friend nan, Yeah, Ferdinando Pierre,
Speaker 2: who later referred him to his teacher Gespardo Gerretti. And
Speaker 2: if you don't know who these names are, they were
Speaker 2: fucking gangsters of their day and age. As far as
Speaker 2: musical performance goes, the young Paganini was clearly a child prodigy.
Speaker 2: When he was fifteen years old, Paganini embarked on solo
Speaker 2: tours and he had a breakdown and turned to alcoholism.
Speaker 1: Can we just talk about his nose? He was Italian
Speaker 1: and his chin. Look, he looks like a witch in
Speaker 1: that photo. He looks one hundred percent like a witch
Speaker 1: that you would find out in the middle of a forest.
Speaker 2: So there may be some things so why that is,
Speaker 2: but we'll talk about that. But yes, to your point.
Speaker 2: He does have a certain look about him. But also
Speaker 2: notice how large his hand is.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it was like his hand looks
Speaker 1: monstrous compared to the violin in his hand. His cheekbones
Speaker 1: are super intense, his jawline is like the most it's
Speaker 1: a look reminds me of that old boy that Inbread
Speaker 1: the King Old Habsburg. Dude. Yeah, but the jaw line, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, no, it's it's definitely for those of you
Speaker 1: that can't see it, Like his nose is an actual
Speaker 1: like witch hook and it is. It's pretty intense like
Speaker 1: angles going on.
Speaker 2: So this picture, as a matter of fact, says at
Speaker 2: the bottom, Nick Paganini or not, this is a famous fake,
Speaker 2: derogatory deragatype or early photograph of the violinist.
Speaker 1: So they think this might be him. So they pretty
Speaker 1: much probably you know, over exaggerated all of his features. Maybe.
Speaker 2: I mean, photoshop was a thing even back then, but
Speaker 2: it was a lot more difficult to pull off. So
Speaker 2: this very well, maybe him, This very well, maybe somebody
Speaker 2: who was a favor medals and awards.
Speaker 1: Okay, I was wondering because I was like, those look
Speaker 1: like medals and awards for stuff. But I'm certain what
Speaker 1: they are.
Speaker 2: Very interesting, very astute of you, ravenly to see that.
Speaker 2: So the one around his neck we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about in a minute. He was actually a Knight of
Speaker 2: the Order of the Golden Spur, which is a Catholic knighthood. Okay,
Speaker 2: so there's okay, as far as knighthoods go, there are
Speaker 2: those that are given by kings and queens. Okay, there
Speaker 2: are papal bulls, popes that pope will make an edict
Speaker 2: for lack of better words, there are orders of knighthood
Speaker 2: within the Catholic Church. The Order of the Golden Spurs
Speaker 2: is like the second highest order of knights within the
Speaker 2: Catholic Church. And somehow they still thought that this dude
Speaker 2: was had sold us, sold to the devil. The only
Speaker 2: wil out maybe the only order of knighthood higher, if
Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken, is the Supreme Order of Christ. I
Speaker 2: think I'm not a Catholic. I'm faintly familiar with some
Speaker 2: of these orders.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's worse Tony when we need him.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, right, Well he's he's a Knight of Columbus,
Speaker 2: so I know.
Speaker 1: But he has like so much knowledge, Yeah, he does
Speaker 1: I will say I feel very stupid a lot of
Speaker 1: times when I listen Tony, I'm like, I go read
Speaker 1: a book.
Speaker 2: The dude is just his brain is like an encyclopedia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wild thing reminds me of Luke too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh my god. Luke's brain operates at levels that
Speaker 2: I hope I can get to one day, but like,
Speaker 2: I just know it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk to Luke and like point
Speaker 1: me in the direction and then I'll watch a lot
Speaker 1: of YouTube videos and read and then like maybe I'll
Speaker 1: feel somewhat intelligent when I talk to you.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, alright to getting back to it. The violinists
Speaker 2: fame slowly turned him into a heavy gambler, drinker, and
Speaker 2: a serial womanizer, As fame and fortune has been one
Speaker 2: to do to many a dude with a lot of
Speaker 2: extra spending money. A rumor even spread that Paganini had
Speaker 2: murdered a woman, used her intestines as violin strings, and
Speaker 2: imprisoned her soul within the instrument. Women's screams were said
Speaker 2: to be heard from his violin when he performed on stage.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wait, that's a bull claim, Cotton, Mike. You also know.
Speaker 2: That's the difference between a violin and a fiddle.
Speaker 1: Is the intestines, right is yeah.
Speaker 2: Cat intestines. Yeah yeah, I can't believe that they were
Speaker 2: actually using that as string, but like that is the thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've never heard of a woman's intestines being
Speaker 2: used before. But all right, we got a we got
Speaker 2: against up in here or gain whatever his name was,
Speaker 2: ed Gainst against the serial murderer, that being furniture out
Speaker 2: a cloat of skin and shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, so we don't know if that's true or not.
Speaker 2: That is a claim. One thing was for sure. Paganini's
Speaker 2: skill in the violin was unparalleled. He was one of
Speaker 2: the first solo violinists to perform publicly without sheet music,
Speaker 2: choosing instead to memorize everything known, particularly for his fiendish
Speaker 2: twenty four caprices for solo violin. Paganini helped popularize certain
Speaker 2: string techniques such as bo bounces, as well as left
Speaker 2: handed and harmonics, which was crazy for the day and
Speaker 2: age because there's only right hand and demonic hand in
Speaker 2: the Middle Ages. Oh, they used to beat kids for
Speaker 2: writing left handed.
Speaker 1: Man, I would have been so fucked in so many ways.
Speaker 2: You've never heard like the left hand path, because the
Speaker 2: devil's path.
Speaker 1: No, I know, yeah, I'm also left handed, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, yeah, And it's actually like a treat in
Speaker 1: my family. We have a lot of left handed people
Speaker 1: in my family.
Speaker 2: Back in the Middle Ages, y'all would have just been
Speaker 2: a hole. They just would have blasted all as Satanists.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I'd probably make it to
Speaker 1: even adulthood. Like, let's be really honest, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think that would have been your face.
Speaker 2: Fuck man, Maybe you don't know really, maybe maybe your
Speaker 2: dad would have like made a deal with the wealthy
Speaker 2: aristocrat and married you off early, and like he would
Speaker 2: have just treated you amazingly. I could see that going
Speaker 2: well for you. You know, we're talking to Middle Ages, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is not today.
Speaker 1: I mean I would have me being like Countess to Winter,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, for those of you that don't know
Speaker 1: three Musketeer reference. She But to be fair, she had
Speaker 1: a reason why she killed her husband, so it was
Speaker 1: at least a decent reason. We're gonna go back. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go but like, I'm not gonna be imprisoned by
Speaker 1: no man.
Speaker 2: Back in the day, it didn't have to be prison.
Speaker 1: It could be because they were so great to their women.
Speaker 2: There are examples, not a lot of them, but there
Speaker 2: are examples of men who have treated their wives amazingly
Speaker 2: throughout the course of history. There are more examples of
Speaker 2: men who were absolute bastards to their women throughout the
Speaker 2: course of history. I'm not gonna say that it's like
Speaker 2: an even fifty to fifty spread here by any stretch,
Speaker 2: but like, you may have been lucky. You may have
Speaker 2: got a shot.
Speaker 1: Sure maybe with my left handed ways you would have
Speaker 1: had to hide that in my mouth of my opinions.
Speaker 2: Some men found that fetching in their women.
Speaker 1: Oh man, good cult members. Thank god. We are in
Speaker 1: the day and age, thank god where we can have.
Speaker 2: Wow, what God?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty Jesus and shit, you know the female
Speaker 1: members who call their like you know, you might be
Speaker 1: a tadbit sexist. Oh come, it's clear that this is
Speaker 1: all in Yes, it totally is.
Speaker 2: But yeah, now, in the Middle Ages, I don't know
Speaker 2: how that would have worked out for you. To be honest,
Speaker 2: I don't know how that would have worked out for
Speaker 2: me either.
Speaker 1: Really, what you'd be like, I am a knight.
Speaker 2: I wasn't born into it. I know I would have
Speaker 2: been a part of the peasantry, to be fair.
Speaker 1: Out of the two of us, technically, lineage wise, I'm
Speaker 1: more aristocratic than you.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, I said your dad might have married you
Speaker 2: off to a wealthy aristocrat to strengthen ties.
Speaker 1: I don't know that's fair. I probably would have been
Speaker 1: married off, y'all.
Speaker 2: I would have been lucky to get an apprenticeship with
Speaker 2: the local blacksmith guild.
Speaker 1: Yes, if you're gonna be very shoving some whole shit,
Speaker 1: very possibly, maybe you could be an old boys what's
Speaker 1: his name? Old boys next to victim or something. Oh, oh, paginie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh my god. He was after women, not men.
Speaker 2: Good God, who knows? I get don't fuck it anyway,
Speaker 2: So going on, it says we talked about that one.
Speaker 2: It is said that he could play twelve notes per second,
Speaker 2: a feat later achieved by violinist David Garrett, who played
Speaker 2: Panini on The Devil's Violinists, a twenty thirteen film based
Speaker 2: on the composer's life story. So keep in mind, this
Speaker 2: dude was doing things that could not be matched until
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: That's insane. Yeah, that's insane. I would have honestly wanted
Speaker 1: to see this guy yeah perform.
Speaker 2: So the devil incarnate Pagini or Paganini whatever, was a
Speaker 2: striking man with hollow cheeks, pale skin, and thin lips.
Speaker 2: He was very tall and thin, and often dressed in black.
Speaker 2: He also had very long, thin fingers, and without a
Speaker 2: restriction of performing with the sheet music, he flailed about
Speaker 2: on stage, earning him the nickname rubber Man. It is
Speaker 2: now believed that Paganini's unusual finger length, which allowed him
Speaker 2: to play three octaves in one handspan, which is fucking insane,
Speaker 2: was due to Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder. Equally, his
Speaker 2: ability to play in it critical speeds could be attributed
Speaker 2: to Elser's Dan Louis syndrome, a disorder which caused increased
Speaker 2: flexibility and lack of coordination, which also might so he
Speaker 2: had like balance issues and shit, I don't know. The
Speaker 2: violin was also regarded by some as the Devil's instrument,
Speaker 2: So all in all, it's not surprising that rumors about
Speaker 2: a deal with the devil started circulating. Some even thought
Speaker 2: Paganini could, or yeah, Paganini could be the devil himself.
Speaker 1: I man, this guy can't win for losing. He's just
Speaker 1: like an epic artist and they're just like Yep, the Devil, clearly,
Speaker 1: clearly the Devil.
Speaker 2: And I could also envision a world where this might
Speaker 2: be the basis for the Devil went down to Georgia.
Speaker 2: It had a playoff with fiddles.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Adam love violin. I think it's such
Speaker 1: a beautiful instrument.
Speaker 2: Same. Uh. One of the first rumors came out of
Speaker 2: a concert in Vienna, where one audience member said they
Speaker 2: thought they had seen the Devil helping Paganini play. People
Speaker 2: soon began claiming to have doppelgangers of Paganini with horns
Speaker 2: and hooves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously, because he looks so different compared to other people,
Speaker 1: and he's off balance and everything else and anything that
Speaker 1: was out of the realm of perfection or normal. He
Speaker 1: was considered of the Devil.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. He was even said that the Devil once made
Speaker 2: lightning strike the end of Paganini's bow during a performance.
Speaker 1: That's a bold claim.
Speaker 2: It's a very bold claim that bow would have been
Speaker 2: blown apart, but sure anyway, So how did he die?
Speaker 2: He was sickly for much of his later life. He
Speaker 2: contracted syphilis in eighteen twenty two, you know, as one does,
Speaker 2: who's a prolific womanizer. Yeah, which was treated with mercury,
Speaker 2: leading to further health problems. Again, these people, they really
Speaker 2: loved their mercury. In eighteen thirty four, he caught tuberculosis
Speaker 2: and recovered shortly after, but later that year he found
Speaker 2: himself getting weaker and decided to retire from public performance
Speaker 2: aged fifty four, and spent his last year's teaching the violin.
Speaker 2: Paganini died of larynx cancer on the twenty seventh of
Speaker 2: May eighteen forty in Nice, France. Before his death, he
Speaker 2: turned away a priest offering him last rites, the final
Speaker 2: prayers Catholics receive at the end of their lives, which
Speaker 2: of course would tie into them believing that he was
Speaker 2: possessed by a demon. Why would you turn away a
Speaker 2: priest who's trying to pray for you, you're Satanist.
Speaker 1: Paganini said.
Speaker 2: He turned the priest away because he thought he was
Speaker 2: going to die, or he thought he wasn't going to die,
Speaker 2: So he's like, no, don't be even my last rites, brother, I'm.
Speaker 1: Gonna be fine here.
Speaker 2: But those that believe he was in league with the
Speaker 2: devil didn't buy this explanation. A week later, Paganini died
Speaker 2: without receiving last rites, and his local church refused to
Speaker 2: bury his body or or body on consecrated grounds, even
Speaker 2: though he was a member of the Order of the
Speaker 2: Golden Spur. That's insane, Like you're such a level of
Speaker 2: knighthood with the Catholic Church and the only way you're
Speaker 2: getting that is if you have done so much for
Speaker 2: either a the faith or b the Catholic Church. And
Speaker 2: it's not like he was.
Speaker 1: Paying completely devout and they still wouldn't even bury his
Speaker 1: body on consecrated ground, which is such a thing.
Speaker 2: Well for a bit anyway, Over the next four years,
Speaker 2: his corpse would be transported to an extraordinary tour of Europe.
Speaker 2: His involved body was later left on a deathbed in
Speaker 2: Nice for two months before it was transferred to the
Speaker 2: cellar house or the cellar of the house, where it
Speaker 2: remained for over a year. After his local church refused
Speaker 2: to bury him. His body was later taken to an
Speaker 2: abandoned lepper house before being moved to a cement vet
Speaker 2: in an olive oil factory and later to a private house.
Speaker 1: Your niece, my God, he got around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh you think that's crazy. You ever looked at
Speaker 2: what happened to Abe Lincoln's corpse? No, he moved the
Speaker 2: body nine fucking times.
Speaker 1: Oh, I had no idea.
Speaker 2: That they like re exumed it. They had people open
Speaker 2: up the casket just to see if it was really
Speaker 2: Lincoln in there. And it's like, brother, why what.
Speaker 1: The going all around?
Speaker 2: After four years, or almost four years after his death,
Speaker 2: Pope Gregory the sixteenth allowed the Violinist's body to be
Speaker 2: transported to Genoa, and he was finallylaid to rest at
Speaker 2: La Villetta Cemetery in Parma, Italy, some two hundred kilometers
Speaker 2: from his birthplace in Genoa.
Speaker 1: Wow, at least somebody finally let the old boy rest.
Speaker 2: I mean finally. That being said, I do want to
Speaker 2: go ahead and play this clip, this movie clip of
Speaker 2: this uh, this movie The Devil's Violinist. And I'm gonna
Speaker 2: be honest, I didn't even know this movie existed. I
Speaker 2: really want to see it, like you'll you'll see why
Speaker 2: here in a moment.
Speaker 1: But let's let's check it out together.
Speaker 2: You are an innovator. In your hands is an orchestra.
Speaker 1: He can play an entire concerto just on the grain.
Speaker 2: Commit to me and I would have you top of
Speaker 2: this billet. Brown to London, smash this world to bets.
Speaker 1: The press are obsessed with the Italian mastro. I'm looking
Speaker 1: for the right person to sing this area.
Speaker 2: Would you do me the honors and try it? Please?
Speaker 1: Deep? Who is surreal you? I don't want many people
Speaker 1: to know me. I left your music sweep everything I feel.
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 2: I want to be I put into music.
Speaker 1: This trainy is a notorious seducer. How he worships together.
Speaker 2: Lose it? To my eyes, I have not the devil.
Speaker 2: I serve the devil. Are my masters? Your life, it's
Speaker 2: my life.
Speaker 1: I totally want to watch it.
Speaker 2: I really want to watch that movie.
Speaker 1: It actually looks really good. Like right, it does look
Speaker 1: really good. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: And that the actor is the violinist who was able
Speaker 2: to actually match his record. Really yes, so the actor
Speaker 2: himself can actually produce that same Uh? What was it?
Speaker 2: I want to get the numbers wrong here, but it
Speaker 2: was like twelve something twelve notes per second. Twelve notes. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's insanity. God given talent, or by some people's account,
Speaker 2: the devil gifted talent I don't know, but anyway, anyway,
Speaker 2: So now we shift over to another musical genius, at
Speaker 2: one point in time apparently sold his soul to the devil.
Speaker 2: This is the story of Tartini. Let's talk about him now.
Speaker 2: On the night one night in seventeen thirteen, an Italian
Speaker 2: violin maestro Giuseppe Tartini had the strangest dream he dreamt,
Speaker 2: the devil appeared and offered to be both his servant
Speaker 2: and master. Seduced by such a prospect, Tartini had no
Speaker 2: hesitation in selling Satan his soul. The devil asked Tartian
Speaker 2: to give him a music lesson, which the maestro did,
Speaker 2: demonstrating the evil one, or demonstrating to the evil one
Speaker 2: the magnificent skill he'd built through the years.
Speaker 1: Of learning, practice, and performance.
Speaker 2: Tartini then passed the devil his violin to see if
Speaker 2: the fiend could reproduce any of what he'd been taught.
Speaker 2: The devil confidently took up the instrument, and Tartini was
Speaker 2: astounded when he began to play with incredible virtuosity wow,
Speaker 2: delivering a performance which was powerful and intense, but exquisitely
Speaker 2: tasteful and executed with the most breathtaking precision. The Devil's
Speaker 2: playing easily surpassed even Tartini's brilliance. Tartini stared at the fiend,
Speaker 2: his mouth dropped open. Time seemed to halt as the
Speaker 2: most amazing music poured from the violin. This story is
Speaker 2: recounted in Giuseppe Tartini's own words in Jerome Landell's book
Speaker 2: Voyage du Francais and Atli in seventeen sixty nine, the
Speaker 2: book was written this is a direct quote. One night
Speaker 2: I dreamed I made a pact of the devil for
Speaker 2: my soul. Everything went as I wished. My new servant
Speaker 2: anticipated my every desire. Among other things, I gave him
Speaker 2: my violin to see if he could play it. Basically
Speaker 2: is direct quote from what we literally just read now.
Speaker 2: But how does this nocturnal vision affect Giuseppe Tartini. Was
Speaker 2: his experience of soul selling merely a bizarre dream or
Speaker 2: did it spill over into his waking life, adding a
Speaker 2: sulfurous tinge to his music? And is there any evidence
Speaker 2: Tartini genuinely entered into a diabolical pact bartering his soul
Speaker 2: for success, fame, and musical mastery. Let's see the moment
Speaker 2: he woke up, Tartini reached for the violin lying by
Speaker 2: his bag, eat, eager to recreate the Devil's Tomb. Tartini
Speaker 2: was probably in that state in which the worlds of
Speaker 2: wakefulness and dreams mingle, in which sleep's fantastical logic floats
Speaker 2: above the solid and pross prosaic prosaic. With the devil's
Speaker 2: notes echoing faintly in his head. Tartini drowsily fingers fumbled
Speaker 2: the strings as he strove to delve back into his dream. However,
Speaker 2: as Tartini puts it, his attempts were in vain. The
Speaker 2: music which I at this time composed is indeed the
Speaker 2: best I ever wrote. But the difference between it and
Speaker 2: that which so moved me so great that I would
Speaker 2: have destroyed my instrument and said farewell to music forever,
Speaker 2: if it had been possible for me to live without
Speaker 2: the enjoyment it affords me. Out of his efforts to
Speaker 2: remember the diabolically brilliant Tomb, Tartini did produce an impressive
Speaker 2: and technically demanding piece of music, his violin Sonata in
Speaker 2: G minor, otherwise known as the Devil's Trill. Sonata, which
Speaker 2: is kind of a cool name for a song the
Speaker 2: Devil's Trill.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, that is actually pretty cool. I've dreamed that some
Speaker 1: crazy dreams, and I've tried to recreate like artwork that
Speaker 1: I've seen in my dreams and I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: even do it. And I was trying to like go
Speaker 1: back into the dream to see it more vividly, and
Speaker 1: it just didn't happen or I'd have a picture of it. Oh. Man,
Speaker 1: I have wild dreams, so I don't have just like
Speaker 1: calm dreams. I have different types of dreams, dreams that
Speaker 1: I know that I'm dreaming. Inception is definitely a fantastic movie.
Speaker 1: When I watched it, I was like, man, I have
Speaker 1: been there where I've dreamed insteade of a dream instead
Speaker 1: of another dream, and I knew I was dreaming, and
Speaker 1: I would try to wake myself up in each section
Speaker 1: and it's like damn, some of them were They're so vivid,
Speaker 1: Like I wake up and I feel like I've I was.
Speaker 1: I have like the taste in my mouth of like
Speaker 1: what I was actually dreaming about. Like it's just yeah,
Speaker 1: some of them are insanely intense. Where I've died, been
Speaker 1: in battles. I mean, you name it, some crazy a shit.
Speaker 1: I dream really intensely so and have been that way
Speaker 1: my whole life must be nice. Sometimes, yes, sometimes waking
Speaker 1: up in a panic attack because like you legitimately feel like, well,
Speaker 1: you're in a dream where like you're in a battle
Speaker 1: and you get stabbed in the throat and you wake
Speaker 1: up thinking that you're actually gonna die is not a vibe.
Speaker 1: I will say, that's fair, that's it is. It is terrifying.
Speaker 1: I've died millions of ways, so my god, yeah yeah, uh.
Speaker 2: You know. From my one to two dreams per year
Speaker 2: that I do get, they're never like super cool. I
Speaker 2: think in the last two years that I had one dream
Speaker 2: that was like actually kind of dope. But then looking
Speaker 2: back when I woke up, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a dream. It clearly like the logic finally
Speaker 2: sets in and it's like, damn it.
Speaker 1: But I dream like deja Vou's stuff too.
Speaker 2: I've heard of people doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so I walk at least, so there's a
Speaker 1: lot of times when I I don't even know, I'm
Speaker 1: not I don't not really good with the dreaming world.
Speaker 1: But it's like I walk. I walk the walk pretty much,
Speaker 1: and there's like two roads, and I pick both routes,
Speaker 1: so I go down both routes and I see what happens.
Speaker 1: And then in the waking world, eventually it will come
Speaker 1: to pass and I will be I know my options
Speaker 1: laid out, and I know what the outcome is, and
Speaker 1: it's like hmmm. And it's like an internal feeling of like, hey,
Speaker 1: remember this happened to you already in your dream and
Speaker 1: I remember it, and I at least remember the feeling
Speaker 1: of like I need to do this and not this,
Speaker 1: and that's what I need to do, and it's it's
Speaker 1: something that I've had my whole life, and it's just
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've met other people kind of like
Speaker 1: that before.
Speaker 2: I'm jealous, honestly. I maybe one day I'll figure out
Speaker 2: how to dream. I don't know, We'll see how it goes.
Speaker 2: But yeah, for the longest time, I thought it was
Speaker 2: because I was like drinking myself to sleep, and I thought,
Speaker 2: maybe the alcohol is killing that.
Speaker 1: But even I know I dream like that too, I thought.
Speaker 2: But now that I'm living the life that I'm living,
Speaker 2: I'm still not dreaming. It's like, well, all right, cool.
Speaker 2: Now I talk to my dad. He's the same way.
Speaker 2: He doesn't dream.
Speaker 1: I wonder what the I wonder what the science behind
Speaker 1: that is. Actually, I wonder what the why certain people
Speaker 1: dream and certain people do not.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's like a chemical thing in your brain.
Speaker 1: I wonder. I don't actually know enough about it. That's
Speaker 1: something I'm gonna have to look into, because there's a
Speaker 1: like my friend has like a dream book, and I
Speaker 1: would tell him some of my dreams and she's like,
Speaker 1: hang on, we gotta like look up honestly, some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that I've seen in the dream books. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess that's gonna happen. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: I really want to know it, because like, but I've
Speaker 1: definitely had some deja vous moments where it's so profound,
Speaker 1: like it to my core like shook me, and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, h I really don't want to go through
Speaker 1: with what I'm going to be going through because I
Speaker 1: know this is not going to turn out very great
Speaker 1: for me either way I look at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I know when I went to the
Speaker 2: VA and got my brain scan done for a sleep study.
Speaker 2: I'm basically in a coma outside of like the what's
Speaker 2: it called involuntary body functions like my heart beating and breathing.
Speaker 1: You're just deep in rim.
Speaker 2: I'm basically in a fucking coma because rim sleeps where
Speaker 2: you dream. Yeah, I'm I'm whatever is beyond that, where
Speaker 2: like this person is borderline brain dead, like his brain's
Speaker 2: functioning enough to keep his heart beating and his lungs inflating,
Speaker 2: but other than that, like homeboys down, you know, not me.
Speaker 1: I've dreamed. There's I've dreamed of lives that I believe
Speaker 1: that I've lived past lives, so I've dreamed them since
Speaker 1: I was very young. I can tell you everything about
Speaker 1: the lives that I feel like I've lived before.
Speaker 2: I would love to see if Jonathan was to try
Speaker 2: to hypnotize you, well you, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: can be hypnotized, Honestly, I don't. I don't know to
Speaker 2: do a past life regression, I would be very curious
Speaker 2: where you would end up.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've thought about having Jonathan do you
Speaker 1: a past life regression on me. I don't know personally
Speaker 1: if I could relax enough to be hypnotized. Fair point. Uh,
Speaker 1: I am way too much of a control freak. I
Speaker 1: will say I did use hypnosis for my burse and okay,
Speaker 1: but that took a lot. You're talking months and months
Speaker 1: of listening to it every single night going to sleep.
Speaker 1: So I got to the point where like I never
Speaker 1: actually meditated on any of it, because I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: honest with you, I can't meditate. It's I'm too I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this needs to hurry the fuck up. I have way
Speaker 1: too much stuff to get done.
Speaker 2: And still doing.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm just like I'm like, wow, do people
Speaker 1: I've taken actual courses like in urates and I've gone
Speaker 1: and and like everyone's quiet and like it's so peaceful.
Speaker 1: And then I'm like okay, but like can we hurry
Speaker 1: up please? It's like I got I can't sit still
Speaker 1: this long, like and I and I see the beauty
Speaker 1: in it, and there's so much information to like begin
Speaker 1: and self like you know, self exploration, and me, I'm
Speaker 1: just like this is really really intense. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, Maniel's like what's going on with that?
Speaker 1: Like and I'm like I'm like, ooh, this guy the bird. Okay,
Speaker 1: close my eyes, close my eyes. It's just I struggle
Speaker 1: a lot everyone I t I.
Speaker 2: I can't even do the meditation shit, Like I can't
Speaker 2: find two hours to go outside and enjoy a cigar
Speaker 2: on a regular occasion. Like I'm gonna sit there and
Speaker 2: just do nothing for an hour. What kind of fucking
Speaker 2: fantasy are we living in right now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But I'm also on those people that have to like
Speaker 1: listen to music while reading while like doing something else,
Speaker 1: Like I can't physically just do one thing, even though
Speaker 1: the science behind it proves that technically multitasking most people
Speaker 1: can't do. And if you are doing it, you're not
Speaker 1: doing each task efficiently. Because I had a whole argument
Speaker 1: about being multitasking, but I would just say that I
Speaker 1: can I better focus if I'm doing more than one
Speaker 1: thing at It's like it's calming parts of my brain
Speaker 1: down to where I can hyper fixate on what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do. Like I have to listen to music
Speaker 1: while I'm writing papers so that way I can focus
Speaker 1: in on what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: I try doing that, but I end up accidentally writing
Speaker 2: the song lyrics I'm listening to.
Speaker 1: Oh No, I only fuck well I can't listen to
Speaker 1: actual music like with song lyrics, but I actually listen
Speaker 1: to like, yeah, instrumentals, so I'm very I actually listen
Speaker 1: to Irish music. Certain ones are like Celtic music. I
Speaker 1: get like really into them, and then I just like
Speaker 1: hyper fixate. There's one in particular that I listen to
Speaker 1: you all the time. If I'm writing massive papers like
Speaker 1: forty plus pages, I will listen to it on repeat
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. I'm just like la
Speaker 1: la la, le mean, just keep diving. See.
Speaker 2: I love listening to Bach and Mozart.
Speaker 1: But that's I grew up with that, and I used
Speaker 1: to listen to it. At like six years old, I
Speaker 1: had a collection of CDs that was like Beethoven's always
Speaker 1: been my favorite, and so I would listen to it
Speaker 1: on repeat for hours and hours and hours.
Speaker 2: Young Beethoven, I like at the end of his life
Speaker 2: when he went deaf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't like some of his older stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like and I understand, like, and I'm not
Speaker 2: knocking the amazing genius that went into him, like basically
Speaker 2: was like sticking a pole to his sternum and playing
Speaker 2: a note on the violin to see how it vibrating,
Speaker 2: and that's how he still composed mad respect, but you know,
Speaker 2: you kind of need your ears to be able to
Speaker 2: compose good music. That's just my own hot take. I
Speaker 2: know there's tons of music snobs out there that think
Speaker 2: that I'm just evil for making such an assumption.
Speaker 1: But there is deaf people that I've actually made beautiful
Speaker 1: music really by vibrations. Yeah. I worked at a deaf
Speaker 1: and blindness living and I got taught so much about
Speaker 1: the deaf community working there. When I did, I was nineteen,
Speaker 1: and it was probably one of the most informative jobs
Speaker 1: I've ever experienced in my life, learning the different types
Speaker 1: of how people go deaf, how they communicate, how deaf
Speaker 1: and blind people will communicate what they can and can't
Speaker 1: feel the vibrations they could feel you moving from across
Speaker 1: the hall.
Speaker 2: Although I will say, actually, wow, I bet that a
Speaker 2: deaf person could probably be a really sick, nasty edm
Speaker 2: DJ there.
Speaker 1: I think there is a pianist that's deaf really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm fairly positive there is one that's like, actually
Speaker 1: a really amazing composer that's legit. Yeah, you learned something
Speaker 1: new every day.
Speaker 2: Good cult members Anyway, moving on here out of his
Speaker 2: efforts to remember the diabolically brilliant tune Tartine. We already
Speaker 2: read about that one, The Devil's Trill. But while from
Speaker 2: the hundreds of compositions he wrote in his lifetime, this
Speaker 2: piece would remain Tartini's favorite. He felt it was so
Speaker 2: inferior or yeah, he felt he it was so inferior
Speaker 2: to what I heard that we're jumping into like a
Speaker 2: direct quote. Again, sorry they didn't put the quotations. He
Speaker 2: felt it was quote so inferior to what I heard
Speaker 2: that if I could have subsequently been subsisted by other means,
Speaker 2: I would have broken my violin and abandoned music forever. Wow.
Speaker 1: Dramatic munch well, you know, tortured artist type.
Speaker 2: Yeah, last around sixteen and a half minutes. The Desert
Speaker 2: The Devil's Trill sonata contains three movements and both haunting
Speaker 2: and expressive melodies. He quite a solo here. The sonata
Speaker 2: is below, So if you dare, you can have a listen.
Speaker 2: As someone relatively unschooled in classical music and knowing next
Speaker 2: to nothing about the violin, I'm going to try to
Speaker 2: describe how this piece strikes me on a simply emotional level.
Speaker 2: It's sixteen minutes, and if you want to look it up,
Speaker 2: it's called The Devil's Trill. It starts off with some
Speaker 2: somber tones, evoking beautiful desolation, sweeping chords, mournful yet bewitching,
Speaker 2: resonates soulfully. Then there's some heartbreaking here in sweet bitter nostalgia.
Speaker 2: But but now there's a fast, high spirited playing, like
Speaker 2: notes are springing, jumping, twisting in the air. We hear
Speaker 2: a certain hope, a lightness, the joy of expectation has
Speaker 2: notes skip and dance around one another. Yet darker shades
Speaker 2: creep in. Perhaps there's more foreboding or feel, a fear
Speaker 2: of failure amongst the longing and glee. Wow.
Speaker 1: Anyway, it's best beautifully written, to be honest, very much
Speaker 1: is actually.
Speaker 2: As The Devil's Trill sonata goes on. Emotions conflict, dark
Speaker 2: tones intrude upon wishful memory, wistful memories, Sinister surges overwhelm
Speaker 2: sweet recollections. The desponcies. Uh yeah, the dispundencies getting deeper,
Speaker 2: as if there's sometimes an acceptance of some dolorous fate,
Speaker 2: as if the violin's sobbing, but an echo of thunder
Speaker 2: now grows something gathering energy, mounting chaotically to a discordant
Speaker 2: peak before taking a plunge into melancholy. It's heartrending, as
Speaker 2: if you know something wonderful has been lost and can
Speaker 2: never be recovered.
Speaker 1: Now I really have to listen to this piece. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have to make that happen. This sounds wonderful. That's
Speaker 1: a very long article, it is. This is long story short.
Speaker 2: Let's see the suspiciously successful career of Tartini. As well
Speaker 2: as pinning the Devils traul Sonata by any judgment and
Speaker 2: incredible piece of music, Tartini had a very successful life
Speaker 2: and career. He was born in sixteen ninety two in
Speaker 2: the town of Pirano in the Republic of Venice. After
Speaker 2: moving around between several Italian cities, he withdrew for a
Speaker 2: number of years of solitary study devoted to the violin,
Speaker 2: emerging with new thoughts on strings, the bow, and Boeing techniques,
Speaker 2: ideas which would have enormous influence on generations of violinists.
Speaker 2: The Tartini's playing emphasized both technical and mastery, technical masters
Speaker 2: and poetic emotional nuances. It was claimed Tartini produced a
Speaker 2: magical impression on his audiences, helping his fame spread across Europe.
Speaker 2: At just twenty nine years old, Tartini was appointed director
Speaker 2: of the orchestra at the Basilica of Saint Anthony m Padua,
Speaker 2: a position he retained for the rest of his working life.
Speaker 2: He played for emperors and nobles, composed for the Pope,
Speaker 2: and set up a violin school which drew students from
Speaker 2: many countries. Proclaimed by the Italians as the finest musician
Speaker 2: in the world, he was referred to by the French
Speaker 2: as the lawgiver to the box, and it was said
Speaker 2: he doesn't play, he sings on the violin. That's wild.
Speaker 2: In addition to his musical achievement, Tartini seems to have
Speaker 2: been seems to have burned with Fausian desire for knowledge.
Speaker 2: He owned an impressive library containing books on many subjects,
Speaker 2: and was intensely curious about philosophy, religion, harmonics, acoustics, mathematics.
Speaker 2: Tartini died in seventeen seventy.
Speaker 1: Wow. So anyway, so.
Speaker 2: Let's see here, how might Tartini fit into the history
Speaker 2: of devil inspired musicians and soul sellers. Other characteristics of
Speaker 2: musical history have been linked with soul swapping legends. One
Speaker 2: individual alleged to have been struck or struck a demonic
Speaker 2: deal was the We already talked about Pagini, and we
Speaker 2: talked about him a good bit here, according to famous
Speaker 2: soul seller or. Another famous soul seller was American bluesman
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson, who, according to legend, walked the Mississippi Crossroads
Speaker 2: with a guitar on his back to meet the devil
Speaker 2: at midnight. We're gonna read another article about him actually here,
Speaker 2: coming up in a moment.
Speaker 1: But he is definitely featured on a lot of things.
Speaker 1: He came up on a couple of my searches as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, when you're talking about selling your soul
Speaker 2: to the devil for musical genius, especially us being Americans,
Speaker 2: you're gonna hear about these types of people. But talking
Speaker 2: about the Crossroads reference, I think it's a good time
Speaker 2: to jump into the folklore s the crossroads itself, because
Speaker 2: while we hear this, we all think, because again we're Americans,
Speaker 2: most of our listeners are American. We think of the
Speaker 2: crossroads in Mississippi where allegedly so many musicians got their start.
Speaker 2: They sold their soul to the devil in exchange for
Speaker 2: being able to play the guitar like nobody else has
Speaker 2: ever done on the face of the earth. But apparently
Speaker 2: the crossroads conversation and having mythical ties goes way farther
Speaker 2: back in folklore, even into ancient religions. Do you want
Speaker 2: to read this part?
Speaker 1: Oh? No, No, you read a lot better than I do.
Speaker 1: I can like summarize at least the ancient religion aspects
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: You read books so frequently.
Speaker 1: I read very well. To myself. I have a bit
Speaker 1: of a steamer when I read out loud. I get
Speaker 1: really anxious about it and fumbling words all up. So
Speaker 1: I actually practiced in the Marine Corps to get better
Speaker 1: at reading. I would read romance novels out loud to
Speaker 1: everybody because we would be sitting around waiting, and so
Speaker 1: we would have romance novels. And I definitely was not
Speaker 1: the best at reading out loud. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: to the ten thousand people that might listen to this,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I feel like making a complete
Speaker 1: ass of myself, unlike you know, Day three of the job.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, okay, fine, So let's talk about the crossroads
Speaker 2: in folklore. In folk lore, crossroads may represent a location
Speaker 2: between the worlds, and as such a site where supernatural
Speaker 2: spirits can be contacted and paranormal events can take place. Symbolically,
Speaker 2: it can mean a locality where two realms touch and
Speaker 2: therefore represents liminality, a place where literally neither here nor there,
Speaker 2: or betwixt and between. Very interesting, So let's talk about
Speaker 2: some ancient religions and the context there. In Greek mythology,
Speaker 2: crossroads were associated with both Hecate and Hermes, with shrines
Speaker 2: and ceremonies for both taking place there. The herm pillar,
Speaker 2: associated with Hermes, frequently marked these places due to the
Speaker 2: god's association with travelers and role as a guide. Though
Speaker 2: less central to Greek mythology than Hermes, Hecata's connection to
Speaker 2: crossroads was more cemented in ritual. Suppers of Hecata were
Speaker 2: left for her at crossroads at each new moon, and
Speaker 2: one of her most common titles was Goddess of the Crossroads.
Speaker 2: In her later threefold depictions, each of the three heads
Speaker 2: or bodies is associated is often associated with one of
Speaker 2: three crossing roads.
Speaker 1: M that's very fascinating. Yeah, you can see the picture.
Speaker 2: That she has the three goddesses. Yes, got you, got you. Yes.
Speaker 1: They were also about the crossroads as well, and then
Speaker 1: they would have a fea scroll down there's a pillar
Speaker 1: and that, so they would have a pillar at the crossroads.
Speaker 2: So I also think it's very interesting that both Greeks
Speaker 2: and Romans did this when there was a god, not
Speaker 2: a goddess, a god and there was like a mile marker,
Speaker 2: they only included two things on it, very very famously,
Speaker 2: their head and their dick.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And the rest of it would just be a big
Speaker 2: statue with some words on or whatever. The head would
Speaker 2: be a traditional bust like you would normally have, and
Speaker 2: then it'd just be a square pillar with a dick
Speaker 2: hanging out of it, and pauls and pubes and always
Speaker 2: very small, yes, because they thought the big dicks were
Speaker 2: brutish and if you had a big dick, you must.
Speaker 1: Be dumb mm hm. And you know, men are really
Speaker 1: attached to their penises, so it does grow on them,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, they are pretty obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't shock me that like those are the
Speaker 1: two things that are included in everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could imagine such and then also I could
Speaker 2: see that too, and I don't know this for a fact.
Speaker 1: They say that the larger.
Speaker 2: Penises were for the brutish and the unrefined and the
Speaker 2: dummies of the world. I could also envision a world
Speaker 2: where penis in me was a thing and they were
Speaker 2: basically like, look, i've got a three incher over here.
Speaker 2: That's more than Hermes. Clearly, you've seen all the statues,
Speaker 2: a hong bigger than a god, and you're still unsatisfied.
Speaker 1: Woman.
Speaker 2: I could see it going that route as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I'm not really sure why they
Speaker 1: felt so you know, inclined.
Speaker 2: It is. It is what it is.
Speaker 1: I guess there is some statues though, as like time
Speaker 1: changes that are more well endowed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that didn't come around until like the Renaissance.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it was like the Renaissance era.
Speaker 2: Even the medieval depictions of things like that, nude photos
Speaker 2: and photos, nude paintings and stuff that would be still
Speaker 2: very very small. Of all things considered, it's it's actually
Speaker 2: pretty hilarious.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess because they're always soft, so okay,
Speaker 1: fair like they're I mean that could be it's cold
Speaker 1: outside and they always there was always a draft happening.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, but you're a stone statue, the pool man,
Speaker 1: the Renaissance. So their sculptures are like beautiful. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've ever seen them in person. I have,
Speaker 1: I've done I've gone to a lot of art stuff
Speaker 1: and then in a statue of David. But even that
Speaker 1: one very small. I mean, I guess that's just a vibe.
Speaker 1: I guess they didn't want to take away from the
Speaker 1: statue's beauty. They just wanted to include it and just
Speaker 1: be like, well, Bam, here it is. But they gave
Speaker 1: him the cheeks though. Oh yeah, their butts be popping
Speaker 1: like I'm like, no, we're.
Speaker 2: Gonna we're gonna short change him on the dick. We're
Speaker 2: gonna make sure he's carrying a whole bakery with all
Speaker 2: that cake. You know what, You're so off topic.
Speaker 1: We're just trying to anyway, trying to talk about good
Speaker 1: old hectic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's learn, let's learn about her and Hermes. According
Speaker 2: to the fourth century historian phili Chorus, at Athens, offerings
Speaker 2: also were sent to the crossroads on the sixteenth of
Speaker 2: the month i e. Half a month after the new
Speaker 2: moon offering at the time of the full moon. In
Speaker 2: the Greco Roman society, rituals of protection were done at
Speaker 2: crossroads and purification ritual remains were left at the crossroads.
Speaker 2: The Greeks and Romans believed doors, gates, rivers, frontiers, and
Speaker 2: crossroads helped spiritual meaning or hailed spiritual meanings regarding transit,
Speaker 2: transitioning leaving one area and going somewhere else, a change
Speaker 2: in directions physically and spiritually. Therefore, rituals of protection and
Speaker 2: rituals regarding change or transition were done at crossroads. And
Speaker 2: eleventh century homily called de Faustus Diaz tells us that
Speaker 2: Mercury or Odin were honored at crossroads. How interesting they're
Speaker 2: making an Odin to Mercury connection. Usually you would hear
Speaker 2: Odin to Zeus connection be made.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that was going to be about
Speaker 1: in this. That's very interesting.
Speaker 2: There's actual, you know, lines that are written in I'm
Speaker 2: assuming Greek or Latin.
Speaker 1: I don't see the ritual incantation.
Speaker 2: It actually gives the modern English text. It says there
Speaker 2: once lived a man named Mercury, who was very deceitful,
Speaker 2: and though quite wise in speech, was treacherous in actions
Speaker 2: and lies. The Pagans, in their account, also made him
Speaker 2: their great God, and often and frequently offered him sacrifices
Speaker 2: at crossroads through the teachings of the devil, and to
Speaker 2: the high hills they often brought various offerings of praise. Okay,
Speaker 2: that was from the eleventh century, so that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Is after the Christianization of Europe, So fair enough. So
Speaker 2: now let's talk about some medieval folk. In Great Britain.
Speaker 2: There existed a tradition of burying criminals and suicides at crossroads.
Speaker 1: Very interesting. I actually didn't know that until I was
Speaker 1: reading that earlier.
Speaker 2: I've never heard this before. I mean, as far as
Speaker 2: suicides and criminals, you don't want to bury them on
Speaker 2: hollow ground right outside of a church, so you would
Speaker 2: have to bury them somewhere. But why crossroads, let's read
Speaker 2: it says this may be due to the crossroads marking
Speaker 2: the boundaries of the settlements, couple with the desire to
Speaker 2: bury those outside the law, outside the settlements, or that
Speaker 2: many roads would confuse the dead.
Speaker 1: They didn't want them to wander back, the spirits to
Speaker 1: wander back into town, so they would bury them at
Speaker 1: the crossroads, so it'd be confusing for them.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, especially if those are like the markers between settlements.
Speaker 2: So they basically put them. They didn't want to bury
Speaker 2: them on some other people's land because then that spirit
Speaker 2: might haunt them. But they wanted to get as far
Speaker 2: away from them as they possibly because they would bury
Speaker 2: it on the borderline. That's crazy. Were commonly used as
Speaker 2: a place of criminal punishment and execution by gibbet or
Speaker 2: duel tree any idea what those are?
Speaker 1: The dual tree It should be.
Speaker 2: Like a hanging tree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it should be the hanging tree.
Speaker 2: Or let's read the dual tree or dual trees in
Speaker 2: Scotland were used as gallows for public hangings.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: They were also used as gibbets for displays of the
Speaker 2: corpse for a considerable period of time. Gibbets or gibbets.
Speaker 1: Oh like they used to do pirates like a case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you would hang a body from Okay.
Speaker 1: So you actually didn't know the name of that. To
Speaker 1: be honest with you, I hope.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's a hard or soft g
Speaker 2: to be honest with you. Gibbet or gibbet, which may
Speaker 2: have also been a reason for it being a side
Speaker 2: of suicidal burial, as suicide was considered a crime right.
Speaker 2: This ritual of crossroads burials dates back to Anglo Saxon
Speaker 2: times and continued until being a bo in eighteen twenty three.
Speaker 1: Wow, lasted a really long time.
Speaker 2: That made a good run. How about that While they
Speaker 2: became a place of burial for suicides and other unable
Speaker 2: to be given proper burials in the Middle Ages, the
Speaker 2: crossroads were once a burial place for a second only
Speaker 2: to the consecrated church for Christians. In Western folk mythology,
Speaker 2: a crossroads can be used to summon a demon or
Speaker 2: devil in order to make a deal. How interesting that
Speaker 2: that was a Western europe thing before it became an
Speaker 2: American thing.
Speaker 1: This legend can be seen in many stories.
Speaker 2: For example, we talked about Faust describes the character fouls
Speaker 2: inscribing magic circles at a crossroads in order to summon
Speaker 2: the devil in freeze Freeshoots folk tale often similarly involves
Speaker 2: summoning the devil at crossroads in order to cast magic bullets.
Speaker 2: By bullets, I think they might mean decrees or like
Speaker 2: a spell. Okay, I don't know. I don't know a
Speaker 2: should know either. In eighteen eighty five historical Essays Transylvanian
Speaker 2: Superstitions by Emily Girard describes how crossroads are often avoided
Speaker 2: as a matter of course, and described a Romanian belief
Speaker 2: that a demon could be summoned at a crossroad by
Speaker 2: drawing a magic circle, offering copper coin as payment, and
Speaker 2: reciting an incantation. Wow, that's pretty fascinating as well. So
Speaker 2: then we get into who doo in conjure root work
Speaker 2: and who do Okay. I've never heard of root work before,
Speaker 2: but okay, And I've also never heard conjure be used
Speaker 2: as a adjective. Usually it's used as a verb.
Speaker 1: But okay.
Speaker 2: A form of African magical spirituality practiced by African Americans
Speaker 2: in the United States. The crossroads originates from the Congo
Speaker 2: cosmogram in Central Africa. It represents the rising and setting
Speaker 2: of the sun, the human life cycle of death and rebirth.
Speaker 1: Very interesting.
Speaker 2: The center of the crossroads is where the communication with
Speaker 2: spirits takes place. During the Transatlantic slave trade, the Congo
Speaker 2: cosmogram was brought to the United States by African slaves.
Speaker 2: Archaeologists unearthed representations of the Congo cosmogram on slaves plantations
Speaker 2: in South Carolina on clay pots made by enslaved Africans.
Speaker 2: The Congo cosmogram is also called the Ba Congo cosmogram
Speaker 2: and the Yawa cross. Interesting the Yowa cross Congo cosmogram
Speaker 2: is a fork in the road or even a forked
Speaker 2: branch can allude to this crucially important symbol of passage
Speaker 2: and communication between worlds, the quote unquote turn in the
Speaker 2: path II. The crossroads remains an indelible concept in the
Speaker 2: Congo Atlantic world as the point of intersection between the
Speaker 2: ancestors and the living. It's at the crossroads where many
Speaker 2: Africans believe one will witness the powers of God and
Speaker 2: emerge from the waters spiritually renewed. Other African origins of
Speaker 2: the cross roads in who Doo are found in West
Speaker 2: Africa among the Araba people. For example, the Arobo trickster
Speaker 2: deity called a shoe Allegba, which that is also where
Speaker 2: it gets its roots into voodoo with Papa Alegba, I
Speaker 2: would assume and the Aroba people living leave offerings for
Speaker 2: a shoe Allgba at the crossroads, and who do there's
Speaker 2: a spirit that resides at the crossroads to give, to
Speaker 2: give offerings for. However, the word a shoe alegba does
Speaker 2: not exist in who Do because the names of the
Speaker 2: African deities were lost during slavery. Folkloris new Bell Niles
Speaker 2: Pucket recorded a number of crossroad rituals in who Do
Speaker 2: practices among African Americans in the South and explained its meaning.
Speaker 2: Pucket wrote, quote, Possibly this custom of sacrificing at the
Speaker 2: crossroads is due to the idea that spirits like men,
Speaker 2: travel highways and would be more likely to hit upon
Speaker 2: the offering at crossroads than elsewhere. African crossroads spirits were
Speaker 2: brought to the United States during the Transatlantic slave trade.
Speaker 1: In the Voodoo tradition, Papa Legba look at right there,
Speaker 1: I called it.
Speaker 2: Uh, Papa Legba is the Iowa or Iwa of the
Speaker 2: crossroads or the guardian or deity of crossroads and a
Speaker 2: messenger to the spirit world. Yeah, we actually have a
Speaker 2: buddy of ours, that is a practitioner of Santaia or
Speaker 2: resident Santuria. Correspondent. I might add shout out Mario, and
Speaker 2: uh that is his patron, Saint.
Speaker 1: Legba. Excuse me, yeah, oh yeah, I forget like and
Speaker 1: he he's talked about it a couple of times on
Speaker 1: the Cult.
Speaker 2: So in that tradition you usually get a patron saint,
Speaker 2: but whenever you sacrifice something to them, you also have
Speaker 2: to give a sacrifice to Papa Legba so that it
Speaker 2: will make its way to the the god figure that
Speaker 2: they worship. But he actually doesn't have to because this
Speaker 2: patron saint is Baba Legba.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he went into this whole practice that he does
Speaker 2: every day. It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he came on your show like two years ago,
Speaker 1: two or three years ago, talked about it. I know
Speaker 1: that he talked about it the other day on the
Speaker 1: Cult when because he was getting better from his tumor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every day he lights the cigar and he takes
Speaker 2: the whiskey a shot of it, switches in his mouth
Speaker 2: and spits it on his altar and it's a whole thing.
Speaker 1: Anyway, it's fascinating.
Speaker 2: It is really crazy, Like not in a bad way, Mario,
Speaker 2: I love you to death, but yeah, it's very interesting
Speaker 2: to see the cultural differences for sure.
Speaker 1: I love I love hearing all the different practices people do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in who Doo, there has been a practice that
Speaker 2: is believed to be who Doo in origin, such as
Speaker 2: selling your soul to the devil at the crossroads in
Speaker 2: order to acquire facility at various manual and body skills
Speaker 2: such as playing a musical instrument, throwing dice, or dancing.
Speaker 2: It is believed that one may attend upon a crossroads
Speaker 2: a certain number of times, either at midnight or just
Speaker 2: before dawn, and one will meet a quote unquote black
Speaker 2: man whom some call the devil, who will bestow upon
Speaker 2: one the desired skills. This practice is believed to have
Speaker 2: originated from an African American blues musician by the name
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson. In Oral History of Hudoo, it is said
Speaker 2: that Robert Johnson became a skilled blues musician after he
Speaker 2: sold a sold to the devil at the crossroads, and
Speaker 2: and because of this, people began going to a crossroads
Speaker 2: at midnight to sell their soul to the devil, to
Speaker 2: acquire a skill or to become better at a skill. Again,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get more into these people, specifically Robert Johnson
Speaker 2: and Tommy Johnson here in a bit so now. In
Speaker 2: Brazilian mythology, crossroads are very important both in Brazilian mythology
Speaker 2: related to the Headless Mule, the Devil, the best of Farah,
Speaker 2: and the Brazilian version of the were Wolf. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Interesting. The were wolf.
Speaker 2: Shape shifting is a thing that has brought up in
Speaker 2: a lot of devil circles, so to say that the
Speaker 2: devil was also in this mix makes sense.
Speaker 1: But wow, I just didn't think it was gonna be
Speaker 1: associated with crossroads the.
Speaker 2: Same, but I guess here we are and religious us
Speaker 2: as the favorite play of the manifestations of the left
Speaker 2: hand entities left hand entities such as exis look they
Speaker 2: said it, not me. I'm just reading the thing here.
Speaker 1: But I like how you had a pause for that one, Like, hmm, yeah,
Speaker 1: five five to seven percent of the world is left handed.
Speaker 1: Shout out to all my left handed homies. Five to really, yes,
Speaker 1: it's very very small because most people try to force
Speaker 1: people to be right handed because.
Speaker 2: I mean correct handed.
Speaker 1: I'm joking. I'm joking, okay, but no, because they consistently
Speaker 1: tried to hand it to their right hand, and it's
Speaker 1: hard for most left handed people to actually stay left handed. True,
Speaker 1: So I'm amidextrious in almost everything I do. I've also
Speaker 1: broken my wrist quite a few times, but I'm amidextrious
Speaker 1: because I had two right handed parents and they would
Speaker 1: consistently try to hand me things or show me in
Speaker 1: a right handed way, and so I I like learn
Speaker 1: how to do it that way. But my dominant hand
Speaker 1: is left hand.
Speaker 2: So can you write with your right hand? I can?
Speaker 1: I can write with both hands.
Speaker 2: I'm jealous of people like you. I remember in school,
Speaker 2: I'd see my buddy, who was left handed, be in
Speaker 2: the middle of it, and this teacher would be on
Speaker 2: a long, wintered rant and we'd be taking notes, and
Speaker 2: then he'd just swap over to his right hand like
Speaker 2: it was no big deal, and his hands started cramping, mean,
Speaker 2: while the rest of us are just sucking high tit
Speaker 2: over here, and it's like, man, fuck you, nick.
Speaker 1: I don't write as good with my right hand because
Speaker 1: I don't practice it often. But I can, in fact,
Speaker 1: write with both hands. I can cut things with both hands.
Speaker 1: I can throw with both hands, catch with both hands.
Speaker 2: You're right eye dominant, though, aren't you left? You're shooting eye?
Speaker 1: It would be my left, my left right, yeah, she
Speaker 1: was my Yeah, I hold on your right hand. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I shot with my gun. I shoot right handed like
Speaker 1: I hold it because that's the only way. They they
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out. They were like, eh, we're not going
Speaker 1: to teach you the other way. So that hard, I know.
Speaker 1: But they were like, no, you're the only one. And
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, hi, so all right then I've
Speaker 1: only shot with my left hand, like with my you know,
Speaker 1: holding it that way like two times. Ever, Wow, I
Speaker 1: wonder if I'm better at it that way.
Speaker 2: I'd be very curious to find out. You have to
Speaker 2: make a range day happen one of these things? Hell yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2: Left hand entities such as Exis and where to find
Speaker 2: offerings to the arishas Issue and Legba derive from the
Speaker 2: same African deity, although they are viewed in markedly different
Speaker 2: manners among traditions. For example, Papa Legba is considered by
Speaker 2: Haitian Boodoo practitioners to be closest to Saint Peter, although
Speaker 2: in Brazilian Quimbonda Quimbonda I don't speak Portuguese, it is
Speaker 2: not uncommon to see Exu closely associated with demonic entities
Speaker 2: such as Lucifer Cladden, Mephistophelean attire and bearing a trident. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Mephistopheles is also he was dressed in the tradition like
Speaker 2: a jesh okay red though everything was red top to bottom,
Speaker 2: the little wispy mustache curled up the little like the old.
Speaker 1: So the old school, like the really old school version
Speaker 1: of a devil.
Speaker 2: That was taken on because of Mephistopheles.
Speaker 1: Okay, so in.
Speaker 2: Modern fiction, and also bearing a trident that also came.
Speaker 1: Around to them. The modern we'll talk about good old
Speaker 1: Robert Johnson, so you don't have to read that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: So, as we see crossroads.
Speaker 2: Hold a lot of significance to a lot of cultures
Speaker 2: throughout the course of human history. This is not a
Speaker 2: modern construct by any means. So as we're talking about
Speaker 2: people making a deal with the devil for their soul
Speaker 2: in exchange for you know, better playing abilities, money, power, knowledge,
Speaker 2: whatever the case it be. Now we cut to the
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1: So now we're gonna.
Speaker 2: Cut from the older stories of the crossroads and these
Speaker 2: deals with the devil and bring it more to the
Speaker 2: modern day, or closer to the modern day anyway, because
Speaker 2: we have all heard these stories of these musicians and
Speaker 2: these old blues players, and we've heard a couple of
Speaker 2: references to Robert Johnson who sold a soul to the
Speaker 2: devil at the crossroads. But believe it or not, there
Speaker 2: is a predecessor to that Johnson, another gentleman named Tommy Johnson, who,
Speaker 2: according to the legend in the myth and his own omission,
Speaker 2: sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in
Speaker 2: Mississippi to become an excellent blues player before Robert Johnson
Speaker 2: was ever a thing. Let's learn about this together. Tommy
Speaker 2: Johnson the first blue star to sell his soul to
Speaker 2: the devil. This is actually written in June of this year.
Speaker 2: Musical prowess and Satan's supposed a diabolical influence predates rock
Speaker 2: and roll by a long stretch, while it takes a
Speaker 2: forbidden diabolis in musica cord indulged by rebellious composers in
Speaker 2: the Middle Ages are likely apocryphal. Italian violinist Pagini or
Speaker 2: Paganini centuries later, was deemed so grippingly brilliant only a
Speaker 2: fausy impact with a dark power could have granted the
Speaker 2: Genoese vertuasso violin player Jesus with electrifying technique. One concert
Speaker 2: at Indian Vienna reported to witness loose for himself, guiding
Speaker 2: Paganini's frenzied arm bowing. By the time popular music arrived,
Speaker 2: many rock stars knew the marketed capital to be had
Speaker 2: from winding winding up American pastors and cozying up to
Speaker 2: the evil one. Yeah, I know, you said that you're
Speaker 2: bad at reading soul line. So they saw the marketing
Speaker 2: capital of, you know, just getting all these pastors all
Speaker 2: gassed up and getting all cozy up to the devil.
Speaker 2: They saw this as a big marketing potential, right, big
Speaker 2: photo op, or at least expressing ambivalence to the church,
Speaker 2: while tongue in cheek preacher knickers were nonetheless twisted when
Speaker 2: the Rolling Stones dared to offer sympathy for the devil
Speaker 2: on the nineteen sixty nine s Let It Bleed Sacrilegious.
Speaker 2: John Lennon's Bigger Than Jesus quip resulted in mountains of
Speaker 2: the Beatles records and merchandise lit in flames across the
Speaker 2: state's Bible belts, and led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page was such
Speaker 2: a fan of the occult he bought the esoteric poet
Speaker 2: Alistair Crowley's old home in Scotland's lock Ness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: All of these statements are very, very true. The Devil's
Speaker 2: deal that shaped Mississippi blues mythology before the Three Temple
Speaker 2: ov psychic Youth's industrial quote unquote magic with a K,
Speaker 2: or even Black Sabbath's bedeviled notations that birthed heavy metal
Speaker 2: Handshakes with Beel's above were associated with the Delta blues
Speaker 2: musicians playing the juke joints and small clubs across Mississippi.
Speaker 2: Between the world wars cemented into American lore is Robert Johnson,
Speaker 2: the Hazelhurst guitar player whose raw and urgent blue style
Speaker 2: was said to have been shaped by Old Nick at
Speaker 2: midnight meeting. At a midnight meeting, Yeah, old Nick, I've
Speaker 2: heard Satan be called that too by some European cultures,
Speaker 2: tuning the guitar himself with his black magic. Yet this
Speaker 2: tale is lifted from another Delta Blues pioneer who cultivated
Speaker 2: a similar deal with the devil myth those years previously. Allegedly,
Speaker 2: he's said to have sold his soul by the Dockery
Speaker 2: Plantation Crossroads in exchange for his masterful blues technique. Crystal Springs.
Speaker 2: Tommy Johnson no relation to Robert Johnson, I might add,
Speaker 2: would further his eerie excentricity by carrying a rabbit's foot
Speaker 2: with him as a spooky talisman prop oh and earned
Speaker 2: a reputation for volatile performances, including playing the guitar between
Speaker 2: his legs and tossing his instrument in the air.
Speaker 1: How volatile perform.
Speaker 2: Gandalus playing the guitar between his legs. Ah, my God,
Speaker 2: how promiscuous of the devil. Clearly Johnson would stay and
Speaker 2: as one of the day's most influential bluesman if eclipsed
Speaker 2: by Robert Johnson's captivating mystique, if not by rather taught
Speaker 2: by his older brother Laddel Johnson's siblings, tutor would regale
Speaker 2: for years how the curious young blues enthusiast ran away
Speaker 2: from home for two years and returned with a god
Speaker 2: given or from some other supernatural being, knack for blues
Speaker 2: guitar and effortlessly falsetto vocals. This legend would be told
Speaker 2: for years, becoming a key feature of the local culture
Speaker 2: lore that surrounded the fascination with Johnson's work. Johnson spent
Speaker 2: the rest of his life in Crystal Springs, playing a
Speaker 2: popular acclaim throughout the nineteen forties and dying of a
Speaker 2: heart attack in nineteen fifty six just after playing a show,
Speaker 2: and was later buried in Warm Springs Methodist Church cemetery.
Speaker 2: Yet the litany of primitive recordings Johnson cut would leave
Speaker 2: an indelible legacy, influencing everybody from Howling Wolf to Houston
Speaker 2: Stackhouse and reaching for the old master spirits of raw
Speaker 2: and gripping blues Showman Ship rested from the clutches of
Speaker 2: another world. See a couple of songs by him you
Speaker 2: may have not heard before. Cool Drink of Water Blues,
Speaker 2: Big Road Blues, Bye Bye Blues, Maggie Campbell Blues, Canned
Speaker 2: Heat Blues, Lonesome Home, Big Fat Mama. I wondered to myself,
Speaker 2: sliding Delta. Yeah, he had quite a repertoire, to be
Speaker 2: honest with you, alcohol and Jake Blues.
Speaker 1: So he disappears for two years. He had no talent
Speaker 1: beforehand and comes back just like epic.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he had no talent before or not,
Speaker 2: because he was taught by his brother beforehand, at least
Speaker 2: the basics of how to play.
Speaker 1: But so you know, he could come back and have
Speaker 1: actual talent.
Speaker 2: But you know, and by his own emission. He claims
Speaker 2: that he sold his soul to the devil to play good.
Speaker 1: Oh so he admitted to it. Yeah all right, you
Speaker 1: helped him out then.
Speaker 2: Right right. And if you've ever seen O Brother were
Speaker 2: Art thou I have, of course fact because you have culture.
Speaker 2: And if you live in the Southern states of the
Speaker 2: United States and you haven't seen that movie, then you
Speaker 2: need to fix yourself. It is, in fact a part
Speaker 2: of your culture.
Speaker 1: Damn. Yeah, no, I absolutely I will. I will fuck
Speaker 1: with that song so hard. I listened to it at
Speaker 1: least once a month. I feel like I'm not joking.
Speaker 1: I'm like evening, you know.
Speaker 2: George Clooney actually didn't sing it. Yeah, I voiced over.
Speaker 2: He was pissed about it because like he went to
Speaker 2: the recording studio one day and like sang it out
Speaker 2: and he thought he did great, and he comes out
Speaker 2: and everybody's.
Speaker 1: Like, mm hmmm great, So that was great.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: So here's the guy that's gonna be singing the song.
Speaker 1: He just pulled up and he's like.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, fine, okay, never mind, Sorry, George Clooney, don't
Speaker 2: get all the fun.
Speaker 1: Have you ever actually heard like a voice recording you like,
Speaker 1: you're thinking you're just slaying it, and then you actually
Speaker 1: hear yourself singing and how offbeat. Like, at least for me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I'm doing so good. And then I
Speaker 1: heard myself and I was like, this is why I
Speaker 1: do not perform music.
Speaker 2: So I can sing. I'm not saying I'm like the
Speaker 2: songbird of a generation ninety fucking means, but I can sing.
Speaker 2: It depends on the song, depends on if it's in
Speaker 2: my octave or not. Uh, but yes, to your point,
Speaker 2: I've listened back later on and been like, oh, I
Speaker 2: did not like that. But the microphone does things to
Speaker 2: your voice. It sounds different in a mic than it
Speaker 2: does in your own head. And that's yeah, that's something
Speaker 2: that took me a good long while to.
Speaker 1: Cause I've heard my voice when we were playing like
Speaker 1: back on episode and I'm like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: sound like that because in my head I have a
Speaker 1: lot deeper voice, yeah, than what I have on the mic.
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, I sound really ultra girly
Speaker 1: on the microphone than any more in fact a girl though,
Speaker 1: I know, but my voice in my head is way deeper,
Speaker 1: and like I have a deeper girl voice than most
Speaker 1: girls that I know of.
Speaker 2: Oh you do you do? It's not like way deeper,
Speaker 2: it's low. Oh my god, stop, No, it's not gravel.
Speaker 2: You don't smoke to Carton to day, but like it's uh,
Speaker 2: you definitely have a lower octave voice than most females.
Speaker 2: But what I can't stand. And I've seen men do
Speaker 2: very similar things.
Speaker 1: You ever see him do?
Speaker 2: Take a phone call and all of a sudden, what's
Speaker 2: going on? Yeah, like you drop your voice on the
Speaker 2: phone for no reason whatever. Girls do the flip opposite.
Speaker 1: Hey, how's it going?
Speaker 2: What I answer?
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, Hi, how's going?
Speaker 2: It's I've never understood it.
Speaker 1: I don't either, But my kid does that when he
Speaker 1: answers the phone, He's.
Speaker 2: Like, Hey, is it going on? Oh my god?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I was like, you haven't even hit puberty.
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? Like, I have a deeper
Speaker 1: voice than you. What are you talking? Big? Don't let
Speaker 1: him hear this emotion on DA anyway anyway.
Speaker 2: So yes, apparently this guy claimed himself Tommy Johnson that
Speaker 2: he sold his sold of the Devil, the character of
Speaker 2: Tommy Johnson in O Brother, where Art thou is literally
Speaker 2: based after this guy. Everybody thinks it's based off of
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson. His name was Tommy Johnson. In the movie
Speaker 2: Tommy Johnson is the guy who sold a sord of
Speaker 2: the Devil.
Speaker 1: I don't think I would be telling people I sold
Speaker 1: my soul to the devil. I don't think i'd be like, Hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, did you know, like over some tea, Hey,
Speaker 1: did you know that I sold my soul to the
Speaker 1: devil to become famous?
Speaker 2: No, it's not like something he just like randomly brought up.
Speaker 2: He was asked about it. That being said, I agree
Speaker 2: with you, but he also saw the capital potential in
Speaker 2: saying that, because if nothing else is going to get
Speaker 2: your notoriety.
Speaker 1: How old was he when he died?
Speaker 2: Let's see here, I don't really know if he even
Speaker 2: said when he was born.
Speaker 1: I didn't think it said when he was born. It
Speaker 1: said when he died, but I didn't see. I'm just
Speaker 1: wondering if he's a part of the twenty seven club
Speaker 1: that I'm going to get too laid off.
Speaker 2: I know he died rather young. Now you got me
Speaker 2: worried on. Yeah, we're looking this up in real time.
Speaker 2: Good cult members let's see, he was born in eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety six and died in nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: So no, nope, Now.
Speaker 2: He lived at least a decently moderately good life.
Speaker 1: All right, alongevity skiles.
Speaker 2: Now let's talk about Robert Johnson, who sold his soul
Speaker 2: to the devil in Rosedale, Mississippi. Oh God, the script
Speaker 2: is small. Im have to zoom in. Good cult members,
Speaker 2: if you would like to see what the hell we're
Speaker 2: talking about here, then you're so small. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 2: not letting me zoom in because they're being ridiculous. Oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, there we go.
Speaker 1: Hey, old people tell me about it.
Speaker 2: So this is actually written in two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: this article. Last month, while I was driving down the
Speaker 2: Mississippi River on a magazine assignment, I had a curious
Speaker 2: experience in Rosedale, Mississippi. As I was eating lunch in
Speaker 2: a place called Leo's Market, a waitress mentioned that Rosedale
Speaker 2: is the place where the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson sold
Speaker 2: his soul to the devil in exchange for a musical genius,
Speaker 2: an event alluded to in, among other places, the Coen Brothers.
Speaker 2: Actually they're Coen sisters now movie, Oh brother, we're art thou. Yeah,
Speaker 2: both of them transitioned quote unquote to women who the
Speaker 2: Coen brothers who directed that and the Matrix and all
Speaker 2: the stuff. They both identify as women. Now they're not
Speaker 2: postop or anything. They just be identifying. But yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that was a vibe. I was like,
Speaker 1: who are we talking about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a two thousand and four So I
Speaker 2: don't want to be dead naming nobody because I'm a
Speaker 2: person of the people or whatever. The fuck. I feel
Speaker 2: your eyes from here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my face is speaking very loudly, being so loud
Speaker 1: right now to those that can't see my face. I'm
Speaker 1: giving him a look of like, okay, yeah, now has that.
Speaker 2: No, I'm about the culture, but not that dumb shit.
Speaker 2: As if to prove it, the waitress handed me a wrinkled,
Speaker 2: typewritten transcript of a quote unquote vision about Johnson's fateful
Speaker 2: moment that it appeared to blues mean Henry Goodman as
Speaker 2: he was traveling the road from Rosedale to Anguilla. For
Speaker 2: the sake of posterity and because I have never seen
Speaker 2: it elsewhere, I am publishing Goodman's vision in full below,
Speaker 2: as well as a PostScript by Rosedale's Crossroad Blues Society. Interestingly,
Speaker 2: there are other contenders to the myth of Robert Johnson's
Speaker 2: devil Purchase Soul at the crossroads of US sixty one
Speaker 2: and US forty nine in Clarksdale is where most blues
Speaker 2: tourists pay their respects. A news Romantics album called sixty
Speaker 2: one forty nine for this reason. Of course, as with
Speaker 2: ancient Roman tourists setting off to find quote unquote sites
Speaker 2: from Greek myths, the location of Johnson's crossroad is not
Speaker 2: exactly something that can be proven. He was born in
Speaker 2: Hazlehurst and is supposed to an I suppose grave is
Speaker 2: in Queto near Ida, Benham. But Rosedale did figure in
Speaker 2: the lyrics for one of Johnson's most famous songs, Traveling
Speaker 2: Riverside Blues is a direct quote from the song and says, Lord,
Speaker 2: I'm going to Rosedale, gonna take my rider to by
Speaker 2: my side. Traveling Rosedale Blue or Riverside Blues has a
Speaker 2: huge influence on rock and roll and was remade as
Speaker 2: Cross Crossroads by Eric Clapton, which mentions Rosedale with the
Speaker 2: same phrase. Johnson uses. It was also covered by Led Zeppelin,
Speaker 2: whose more well known Lemon song famously steals a lyric
Speaker 2: from that same Johnson tomb. You can squeeze my lemon
Speaker 2: until the juice runs down my leg. Apparently that is
Speaker 2: a lyric from this. None of this proves much about
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson's Crossroads, of course, but I, for one, like
Speaker 2: the notion that had happened in Rosedale. The text of
Speaker 2: the quote unquote vision follows, So now hear about this
Speaker 2: vision meeting with the devil at the crossroads, a vision
Speaker 2: told by Henry Goodman. Robert Johnson been playing down in
Speaker 2: Yazoo City and over a bellow beluah sure, trying to
Speaker 2: get back up to Helena Rode left him out on
Speaker 2: the road next to the levee, walking up the highway,
Speaker 2: guitar in his hand, propped up on his shoulder. October,
Speaker 2: cool night, full moon, filling up the dark sky. Robert
Speaker 2: Johnson thinking about or Sunhouse, preaching to him. Put that
Speaker 2: guitar down, boy, You driving people nuts. Robert Johnson needing
Speaker 2: as always a woman in some whiskey, big trees all around,
Speaker 2: dark and lonesome road, A crazed, poisoned dog howling and
Speaker 2: moaning in a ditch alongside the road, sending electrified chills
Speaker 2: up and down. Robert Johnson's spine coming up across roads
Speaker 2: just south of Rosedale. Robert Johnson, feeling bad and lonesome,
Speaker 2: knows people up the highway and Gunnison can get a
Speaker 2: drink of whiskey and more up there. But man sitting
Speaker 2: off the side of the road on a log at
Speaker 2: the crossroad says you're late, Robert Johnson. Robert Jonson drops
Speaker 2: to his knees and says maybe not. The man stands up,
Speaker 2: tall barrel, chested and black as forever closed eyes of
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson's stillborn baby, and walks out the middle of
Speaker 2: the crossroads of Robert Johnson. Kneels, he says, stand up,
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson. You want to throw that guitar over there
Speaker 2: in that ditch with that hairless dog and go on
Speaker 2: back up to Robinsville and play the harp with Willie
Speaker 2: brown AND's son, because you just another guitar player, just
Speaker 2: like all the rest or You want to play that
Speaker 2: guitar like nobody has ever played it before, make a
Speaker 2: sound nobody's ever heard before. You want to be the
Speaker 2: King of the Delta plus and have all the whiskey
Speaker 2: and women you want. That's a lot of women. Excuse me,
Speaker 2: that's a lot of whiskey and women. Devil man, I
Speaker 2: know you, Robert Johnson says. The man, Robert Johnson feels
Speaker 2: the moonlight bearing down on his head and back of
Speaker 2: his neck, as the moon seems to be growing bigger
Speaker 2: and bigger and brighter and brighter. He feels it like
Speaker 2: the heat of a noonday sun bearing down, and the
Speaker 2: howling and moaning of the dog in the ditch penetrates
Speaker 2: his soul coming up through his feet and the tips
Speaker 2: of his fingers, through his legs and arms, settling in
Speaker 2: that big empty place beneath his breastbone, causing him to
Speaker 2: shake and shudder like a man with palsy. With the palsy.
Speaker 2: Good lord, Robert Johnson says, that dog gone mad. The
Speaker 2: man laughs, that hound belonged to me. He ain't mad,
Speaker 2: He's got the blues, He's got his soul in my hand.
Speaker 2: The dog lets out a low, long, soulful moan, a
Speaker 2: howling like never heard before, rhythmic sincopagate, sincopated yeah, syncopated grunts, yelps,
Speaker 2: and barks, seizing Robert Johnson like a grand mall and
Speaker 2: causing the what this is crazy descriptions?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. The man said, I got his
Speaker 1: soul in my hand, and the dogs yeah I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, got that dog get him as it were, and
Speaker 2: causing the strings of his guitar to vibrate, hum and
Speaker 2: sing with a sound, dark and blue, beautiful, soulful chords
Speaker 2: and notes, possessing Robert Johnson, taking him over, spinning him around,
Speaker 2: losing him inside his own self, wasting him, lifting him
Speaker 2: up into the sky. Robert Johnson looks over in the
Speaker 2: ditch and sees the eyes of the dog reflecting the
Speaker 2: bright moonlight, or, more likely so it seems to Robert Johnson,
Speaker 2: glowing on their own, a deep violet, penetrating glow. Indeed,
Speaker 2: and Robert Johnson knows and feels that he is staring
Speaker 2: into the eyes of a hell hound. As his body
Speaker 2: shudders from head to toe. The man says, the dog
Speaker 2: game for sale, Robert Johnson. But the sound can be yours.
Speaker 2: That's the sound of the Delta Blues. I gotta have
Speaker 2: that sound, devil man, that sound is mine. Where do
Speaker 2: I sign? The man says, you ain't got a pencil,
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson, Your word is good enough. All you got
Speaker 2: to do is keep walking north. But you better be prepared.
Speaker 2: There are consequences. Prepare for what devil man. You know
Speaker 2: where you are, Robert Johnson. You are standing in the
Speaker 2: middle of the crossroads at midnight. That full moon is
Speaker 2: right over your head. You take one more step, you'll
Speaker 2: be in Rosedale. You take one you take this road
Speaker 2: to the east and you'll be back over to Highway
Speaker 2: sixty one in Cleveland. Or you can turn around and
Speaker 2: go back to Belua, or just go to the west
Speaker 2: and set up on the levee and look at the river.
Speaker 2: But if you take one more step in the direction
Speaker 2: you're headed, you're going to be in Rosedale at midnight
Speaker 2: under this full October moon, and you are going to
Speaker 2: have the blues like never known to this world. My
Speaker 2: left hand will forever be wrapped around your soul, and
Speaker 2: your music will possess all who hear it. That's what's
Speaker 2: going to happen. That's what you'll be prepared for. Your
Speaker 2: soul will belong to me. This is not just any crossroads.
Speaker 2: I put this X here for a reason, and I've
Speaker 2: been waiting on you.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson rolls his head around, his eyes upwards in
Speaker 2: their sockets, and stares at the blinding light of the moon,
Speaker 2: which has now completely filled the pitch black Delta night,
Speaker 2: piercing his right eye like a bolt of lightning. As
Speaker 2: the midnight hour hits, he looks at the big man
Speaker 2: squarely in the eyes and says, step back, devil man,
Speaker 2: I'm going to Rosedale. I am the Blues. The man
Speaker 2: moves to one side and says, go on, Robert Johnson,
Speaker 2: you the king of the Delta Blues. Go on home
Speaker 2: to Rosedale, and when you get up in town you
Speaker 2: get a play of some hot Tomali's because you're going
Speaker 2: to be needing something on your stomach where you're headed. Wow.
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: In the postcrip, you're not gonna read the entire thing,
Speaker 2: but I did want to make a mention of this.
Speaker 2: People say that the crosswords where Robert Johnson made the
Speaker 2: Pack of the Devil is in Clarksdale, where Highway forty
Speaker 2: nine intersects with Highway sixty one, But as can be
Speaker 2: seen from the events described above, that's not the case.
Speaker 2: The crossroads on the one and only cross roads where
Speaker 2: the Delta Blues emerged as it manifested entity in the
Speaker 2: person and music of Robert Johnson, is at the south
Speaker 2: end of Rosedale, where Highway eight intersects with Highway one.
Speaker 2: This will be disputed as some people will dispute that
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson ever even made a deal with the devil.
Speaker 2: But the preacher man Sonhouse knew even though he wasn't
Speaker 2: a preacher, and if Son House were alive today, he
Speaker 2: would tell the story right.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting.
Speaker 2: It's it's wild, and I hope that everybody appreciated my colorful.
Speaker 1: Retelling of the tale. I was like, you're you got
Speaker 1: into it right there. I was trying.
Speaker 2: I was trying to read it as best I could
Speaker 2: because the way it was written, I can't just read it.
Speaker 2: You're going to sell your soul to me, Robert Johnson,
Speaker 2: What do you mean, devil man? I didn't want to.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to.
Speaker 1: Go to you like blue voices on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Try So anyway, there's multiple cases, like we said,
Speaker 2: of people selling their souls to the devil for fame
Speaker 2: and fortune. Up Nesta blah blah blah blah. Words are hard. Up. Next,
Speaker 2: I have a list of ten celebrities who claim to
Speaker 2: have sold their souls to the devil.
Speaker 1: They claim it, so they actually admit openly that this
Speaker 1: is this is a vibe.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, one of them being Bob Dylan, the folk legend.
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan, the legendary folk rock icon, has long been
Speaker 2: at the center of rumors and speculations regarding his persona
Speaker 2: and musical prowess. While we can't say whether he actually
Speaker 2: sold his soul to the devil, his life and career
Speaker 2: have been shrouded in mystique.
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 2: Some even suggest that his Highway sixty one revisited album
Speaker 2: cover featuring an eerie crossroad sign, is a subtle nod
Speaker 2: to the classic blues legend of the Devil's Pack.
Speaker 1: Well, they're all about their symbolism, so I wouldn't doubt it.
Speaker 2: They are lil uzi Vert the rap enigma. First of all, No,
Speaker 2: he's not. No, he is not a rap enigma. He
Speaker 2: is a trash rapper.
Speaker 1: But you know what, who the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Lil uzi Vert.
Speaker 2: People think that he is a artists. He is trash
Speaker 2: and I'm being very generous with that for the record
Speaker 2: to anybody who listens to rap.
Speaker 1: Any artists associated.
Speaker 2: With the fucking Freshman Cipher of twenty sixteen are all shit.
Speaker 2: I'm just throwing that out.
Speaker 1: I literally don't even know what you're I know you.
Speaker 2: Don't lil Yachty, litl Uzi Vert twenty one, Savage, No,
Speaker 2: none of them. Uh uh, Kodak Black, They're all just trash. Okay,
Speaker 2: they're not artists, they're not lyricists. Hell, they ain't even hood.
Speaker 1: But moving on, this is why rock will always be superior.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: I agree apparently with his distinctive style and enigmatic persona.
Speaker 2: By that, they mean he carries a purse and wears
Speaker 2: a pearl necklace and calls himself manly. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Oh these are all the yeah, oh now I get it.
Speaker 1: These are the memes that that I watch from the other.
Speaker 2: I'm It's no wonder people are fascinated by him. Born
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Samir Woods, Yes, lil uzi Vert aka
Speaker 2: his given name, Samir Woods, the artist game fame with
Speaker 2: his debut album Love Is Rage two, featuring a mega
Speaker 2: hit XO tour life. However, little Uzivert statement about making
Speaker 2: a pack with the Devil.
Speaker 1: Have raised eyebrows. Oh very interesting.
Speaker 2: Actually, it says up here Little Uzivert, a rapper who's
Speaker 2: taken the music world by storm. No he hasn't. Has
Speaker 2: made headlines not just for his chart topping hits, but
Speaker 2: also for his intriguing claims. In the ever bizarre celebrity world.
Speaker 2: Little Uzivert has been at the forefront of the quote
Speaker 2: sold their soul to the devil rumors. The rapper has
Speaker 2: openly mentioned his affiliation with Marilyn Manson and even hinted
Speaker 2: at having sold his soul for success. While these claims
Speaker 2: may be a part of the mystique he's cultivated, they
Speaker 2: certainly add an element of intrigued who has already captivated
Speaker 2: to some people, captivating persona there it is.
Speaker 1: I have had my own experience with Marilyn Manson.
Speaker 2: So yeah, no, he's also a trash human being.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean he's just it was. It was
Speaker 1: the weirdest concert I've ever been, and he was like
Speaker 1: he like took a personal offense that I was not
Speaker 1: participating in the clearly yeah, clear ritual that was happening.
Speaker 1: I was there for the music, obviously, I was in
Speaker 1: the front row. He was like eating a Bible at
Speaker 1: one point, and I mean it was very like all
Speaker 1: the symbols, all the stuff, okay, cool whatever. It was
Speaker 1: him himself that was really disturbing. I've met tons of
Speaker 1: rock artists and like they are nowhere near like that.
Speaker 1: But him though, Like he at one point came down
Speaker 1: off the stage and I have videos of it. He
Speaker 1: is like this close you and I this close to
Speaker 1: me and like steering into my soul and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: there's like nothing staring back at me but like the
Speaker 1: abyss of just pure darkness, and like I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not budgeting, bro, Like we can have this fight,
Speaker 1: because whatever's going on with you, I ain't fucking with
Speaker 1: like at all. And I actually really like Marilyn Manson's music.
Speaker 1: I like grew up on it and I vibe with
Speaker 1: it a lot. And I was like, man, I love
Speaker 1: Marilyn Manson. And then I met him, yeah, and then
Speaker 1: I was like, who you are? Whatever is wrong with
Speaker 1: you or whatever is going on is like truly evil.
Speaker 2: I used to like his music, but I gotta say
Speaker 2: after so many, not like one or five, tons of
Speaker 2: allegations have been brought up against him.
Speaker 1: And him and Johnny Depp having the child pornography situation
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, And I actually did look at
Speaker 1: his tattoos on his arms, in his hands.
Speaker 2: The symbols of that world, and it's, yeah, I can't
Speaker 2: separate art from artists when it comes to that.
Speaker 1: I haven't listened to Marilyn Manson's since that day. It's
Speaker 1: been like five years. And I'll tell you, like I've
Speaker 1: I've met a lot of people, and because I'm a
Speaker 1: huge concert goer for those of you that don't know,
Speaker 1: I love concerts. It's my jam. It always has been.
Speaker 1: So I've met a ton of people. But he there's
Speaker 1: something about him and the way that he looked at me.
Speaker 1: It was like he was pissed that I wouldn't participate
Speaker 1: in this ritual that was happening around me, and like
Speaker 1: it just was like there was no soul, I believe
Speaker 1: his body, Like there was no nothing. It was just
Speaker 1: really strange, and I was like, oh, man, I am
Speaker 1: not fucking with this.
Speaker 2: He's on also that if he makes the list on
Speaker 2: one of these, I wouldn't be surprised. Hint hint, wink wink.
Speaker 2: Let's keep going here, Lady Gaga, the go Goa, the
Speaker 2: eccentric pop.
Speaker 1: Star Mariam Bramovich's like shining people.
Speaker 2: Yep, Lady Gaga, the flamboyant pop sensation, is no stranger
Speaker 2: to controversy. Her eccentric style, provoca performances, and outlandish fashion
Speaker 2: choices that's an understatement of the century have left people
Speaker 2: speculating about the origins of her creative genius. Some have
Speaker 2: gone as far as to suggest that she made a
Speaker 2: deal with the devil for her unparalleled success. But let's
Speaker 2: separate fact from fiction. Born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanada.
Speaker 1: Germanyst Stephanie. Her name is Stephanie. What I said, Stefani,
Speaker 1: It's Stephanie.
Speaker 2: That's one way to spell it.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: Lady Galgat is renowned for her chart topping hits, including
Speaker 2: poker Face and Bad Romance. She has won numerous Grammy
Speaker 2: Awards and has celebrated for her vocal prowess. Moving on here, however,
Speaker 2: attributing her success to a pact with Satan might be
Speaker 2: a stretch. In reality, Lady Goga's devilish image is a
Speaker 2: part of her artistic expression. She's known for her provocative costumes,
Speaker 2: catchy tunes, and boundary pushing videos that challenge social norms.
Speaker 2: God has always been about, has always been open about
Speaker 2: using her art to address issues like identity, fame, and
Speaker 2: self empowerment. I'm sorry, though, when you get in tight
Speaker 2: with Marina Abramovich, I'm just gonna assume that you're like
Speaker 2: catching some some strays on the demoutonic realm, just because.
Speaker 1: I actually really love Lady Gaga. But I could think
Speaker 1: of like multiple videos just off the top of my
Speaker 1: head that have heavy symbolism into satanic stuff, and they
Speaker 1: definitely is a lot that she talks about. I mean,
Speaker 1: her song Judah, for example, is pretty clear in and
Speaker 1: of itself of where she kind of stands with stuff.
Speaker 1: I enjoy her music, I enjoy having like visually, she
Speaker 1: has a lot of artistic stuff, but there is a
Speaker 1: lot of heavy symbolism, and there's a lot of conversation
Speaker 1: about her stuff being on a frequency that is attracting,
Speaker 1: you know, paranormal stuff to people or at least giving
Speaker 1: more energy, kind of like K pop Demon Hunter situation
Speaker 1: where they give energy when they're like, you know, seeing
Speaker 1: along with the Demon band and stuff. For those of
Speaker 1: you that don't have kids and haven't seen the movie,
Speaker 1: I still suggest it it's too a great movie.
Speaker 2: I think it is, but.
Speaker 1: There is a lot that it's actually based in Christianity
Speaker 1: and like fighting against the devil and stuff. But you
Speaker 1: wouldn't really know it because they actually hold true to
Speaker 1: their Korean correct Yeah, their Korean Korean, so they have
Speaker 1: a lot of Korean folklore in it and it's actually fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did their homework on that one too. We
Speaker 2: talked about that the Saja Boys, which is the boy
Speaker 2: band of demons that are going against the hunters. Saja
Speaker 2: in the Korean culture is more like what we would
Speaker 2: call the Grim Reaper in our culture. They're not a
Speaker 2: inherently evil thing. They're more or less kind of just
Speaker 2: they're doing their job for the underworld and in this realm,
Speaker 2: for the demonic side of things. These guys are seen
Speaker 2: as like bringing the souls to the underworld and stuff.
Speaker 2: I think they did a pretty good job of respecting
Speaker 2: the Korean culture while giving a good movie to show
Speaker 2: that demons are bad and how love and friendship will
Speaker 2: like get you through.
Speaker 1: The hard times. The Cat's even a part of their
Speaker 1: folklore too. Yeah, and the Bird and the Bird too.
Speaker 1: The Bird's great. The bird has like side eye glarious people,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yeah, oh my god, I like the
Speaker 1: bird man and the bird in the category.
Speaker 2: All right, oh, good old Oprah, Oprah winfree.
Speaker 1: I don't even they need to read that, because we
Speaker 1: all know about Oprah and how she is attached.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, if you don't know, it's it's literally a
Speaker 2: quick Google search away Oprah. Some some speculate that she
Speaker 2: has sold her soul to the devil for her success.
Speaker 2: Moving on, Nicki Minaj, the rap Queen, I could see it.
Speaker 2: I could absolutely see it. Continuing. Snoop Dog, the hip
Speaker 2: hop icon uh, the legendary rapper and culture icon, is
Speaker 2: no stranger to the spotlight. Known for a smooth flow
Speaker 2: and laid back style, he's also been at the center
Speaker 2: of intriguing rumors about his pact with the Devil. While
Speaker 2: it's easy to dismiss such claims as pure sensationalism, some
Speaker 2: curious aspects of Snoop's career have fueled this speculation. One
Speaker 2: of the most famous instances of his is his name
Speaker 2: changed from Snoop Doggie Dog to Snoop Leon in twenty
Speaker 2: twelve after his spiritual awakening in Jamaica. Yeah, it's spelled
Speaker 2: Snoop Lion, but it's Snoop Leon because he went on
Speaker 2: records saying that he believes that he is the reincarnation
Speaker 2: of Bob Marley, even though Bob Marley was alive when
Speaker 2: Snoop was a child. So like, that's cool, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, him and Martha Stewart, which Martha Stewart has
Speaker 1: a lot of symbolism into the occult as well. They
Speaker 1: are like buddies. Yeah, I mean he's buddies though with
Speaker 1: so many people that you've seen attached to the occult
Speaker 1: and that have their hands in Satanism, Like, yeah, all
Speaker 1: of them are in on this. It's not just one person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So now let's let's see even further here. Some
Speaker 2: conspiracy theorists argue that the transformation was a sign of
Speaker 2: his deal with the devil and a nod to the
Speaker 2: infirm feline figure. Moreover, Snoop's lyrics, content, lyrical content, and
Speaker 2: explicit themes in his music have raised eyebrows. He's a
Speaker 2: rap artist, no shit. Some argue that his lyrical references
Speaker 2: to the dark side in his unapologetic embrace of a
Speaker 2: hedonistic lifestyle are all a part of a sinister bargain Again,
Speaker 2: most rap artists are on that same vibe, all right,
Speaker 2: but let's not forget Snoop has dismissed these claims as
Speaker 2: mere speculation. He's been vocal about his belief in a
Speaker 2: higher power and spirituality, which makes it hard to buy
Speaker 2: into the sinister conspiracy theory, or does it.
Speaker 1: Next up is.
Speaker 2: Kim kay, Oh god, I you know what I hate.
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna read it because there's no point.
Speaker 1: What was the point of it?
Speaker 2: I believe Kim Kardashian has absolutely sold her sold of the.
Speaker 1: Devil, the entire Kardashian family, but all of them, they
Speaker 1: were put.
Speaker 2: On the map because of her daddy being Ojy's lawyer.
Speaker 2: That being said, she got put on the map with
Speaker 2: her sex tape, right, yes, I remember, And from that
Speaker 2: sex tape, the entire family got their come up.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, they probably sold her into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you look at the marrying track record
Speaker 2: of the family as well, they Yep.
Speaker 1: There's actually a video when I was doing my research,
Speaker 1: it was talking about the Kardashians and it was talking
Speaker 1: about their heavy Satanic presence and that if you're married
Speaker 1: to one of them, they pretty much like it's a
Speaker 1: ritual in and of itself, and they pretty much destroy
Speaker 1: the men that they're with for like reasons and stuff.
Speaker 1: I forget it said a whole bunch of stuff, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they really do.
Speaker 2: It's crazy. Next up is Damson Idris h. When it
Speaker 2: comes to Hollywood, there is always whispers of fauscian bargains
Speaker 2: and sinister packs. One name that has been floating around
Speaker 2: in this intriguing conversation is none other than Damson Induriss.
Speaker 2: The rising star has been setting the screen on fire
Speaker 2: with his talent and devilish good looks, leaving us wondering
Speaker 2: if there's more to his success than meets the eye.
Speaker 2: Born in London, damn some Indrist burst onto the scene
Speaker 2: with his breakout role in the critically acclaimed series Snowfall.
Speaker 2: His portrayal of Franklin Saint, a young drug dealer navigating
Speaker 2: the treacherous world of the nineteen eighties crack Epidemic, earned
Speaker 2: him accolades and legions of fans. But could there be
Speaker 2: something more sinister at play behind this meteoric rise to fame.
Speaker 2: Rumors about Damson might have made a deal with the
Speaker 2: devil to achieve his current level of success. Some claim
Speaker 2: that his efforts, his effortless charm and mesmerizing performances are
Speaker 2: too good to be true, suggesting a supernatural influence. Okay,
Speaker 2: fair enough, fair enough. Next up is Santana, Carlos Santana,
Speaker 2: the supernatural guitar. Wow, I haven't heard anything about him
Speaker 2: selling a soul to the devil, But like.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm just gonna assume that anybody that makes
Speaker 1: it big period is a part of this at this point,
Speaker 1: Like I wouldn't even see why not, Like it's been
Speaker 1: so heavily talked about for decades like that at this point,
Speaker 1: there's no denying it.
Speaker 2: But are we also having a Paganini conversation that the
Speaker 2: guy was so naturally talented and gifted that everybody's like, oh,
Speaker 2: clearly it's Faustian and it's like or he's.
Speaker 1: Just a gangster. M I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I know that like Santana, for instance, has saw in
Speaker 2: Black Magic Woman. Okay, I get it, But even still,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've seen any of his imagery
Speaker 2: or her.
Speaker 1: I've only seen a couple of his videos. To be
Speaker 1: honest with you, I haven't heard him in a long time?
Speaker 1: Who's the number one? Number one?
Speaker 2: Ozzy Osbourne, Prince of Darkness?
Speaker 1: Ri ip.
Speaker 2: Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness himself, has long been
Speaker 2: associated with the darker side of fame. His decades in
Speaker 2: the music industry have fulfilled or have been filled with
Speaker 2: tails and wild antique drug field adventures, and a penchant
Speaker 2: for biting the heads off of bats, among other things.
Speaker 1: I might add, not just bats, but.
Speaker 2: What's that's Ozzie apart on this list of his willingness
Speaker 2: to embrace the myth of selling his soul to the devil. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because it adds to his metal mystique. And I know
Speaker 2: people that saw the concerts in the eighties and early
Speaker 2: nineties when he was biting heads off a bat. It
Speaker 2: was fake, It's not It wasn't a real bat. That
Speaker 2: How could he train a bat to fly around the
Speaker 2: stadium onto his hand on stage and then bite the
Speaker 2: head off?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was basically a glorified gummy bear.
Speaker 1: I saw him in concert before.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a hot wreck.
Speaker 2: I mean that's how he lived.
Speaker 1: He was pretty terrible, to be honest with you, as
Speaker 1: it was not very good performance, but I still would have.
Speaker 2: Loved to have seen him. Anyway, let's move on to
Speaker 2: this next list, and we're not going to read all
Speaker 2: the stories on these just twenty famous people who definitely
Speaker 2: sold their souls. This is from crack dot com.
Speaker 1: So is that old boy from Bigfoot from Littlefoot James Corden?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, nobody in history has done so much with
Speaker 2: so little, which is very true. He's what is his
Speaker 2: thing being British?
Speaker 1: His laugh, he can actually sing, not bad. Small Foot
Speaker 1: was great. I did like small mother foots great.
Speaker 2: Hear me out. Before he quote unquote made it big,
Speaker 2: there was a British guy in the comedic space that
Speaker 2: was the voiceover for every role that required a British voice.
Speaker 2: That was Russell brand Well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he also turned like crazy Christian and crazy
Speaker 1: Republican and like kind of like lost his shit so exactly,
Speaker 1: so he lost in their sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they needed some sort of like comically British
Speaker 2: guy to take that role, and James Corden again with
Speaker 2: practically no talent. I don't know about his singing capabilities,
Speaker 2: but like he's not a very good actor metrosexual British
Speaker 2: dude or is he gay? Mmm?
Speaker 1: I don't actually know, but but yeah, anyway, so I
Speaker 1: don't mind him that much.
Speaker 2: According to Cracked dot Com, James Cordon absolutely sold his
Speaker 2: soul to the devil. Uh. Moving on, Let's see run
Speaker 2: dmc mm, which is crazy because isn't he a pastor?
Speaker 1: Now wasn't he always a pastor?
Speaker 2: Right? So yeah, okay, James Cordon, ariana Grande.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we all all know that.
Speaker 2: I believe that. Chris Brown yep, yep, Madonna, Oh my god, shocker. Uh,
Speaker 2: Travis Scott, Yes, we talked about the Astra World episode
Speaker 2: when that played out. Ryan Seacrest, Yeah, I can see it.
Speaker 2: How the f can that man work like four jobs?
Speaker 2: He's definitely visiting the Secret Island.
Speaker 1: Dude, there's like four of them, four of him because
Speaker 1: he's on everything out at the same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He just has really good I'm not even gonna
Speaker 2: say time management. He has good handlers and make sure
Speaker 2: he gets from point A to point B and has
Speaker 2: enough drugs to make it through.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Meryl Streep, Yeah, I could see it.
Speaker 2: Armie Hammer. He eats children to quell the demon's desire.
Speaker 1: I have no idea who that is.
Speaker 2: I'm curious. I feel like we're gonna know once we
Speaker 2: see him.
Speaker 1: M hm Armie Hammer.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, I recognize his face.
Speaker 1: Yeah I don't. I don't know. I actually don't know
Speaker 1: who that is. Huh Nope, okay, cool, just a ran
Speaker 1: mass celebrity.
Speaker 2: Okay, he's an actor, Mark Wahlberg, because he's only the
Speaker 2: dupious celebrity men.
Speaker 1: No, he's like devoutly catholic. No, not not Markie Mark.
Speaker 2: I okay, this list is already starting to poke holes.
Speaker 1: This is Joe Rogan.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, clearly.
Speaker 1: I wrote I can see Adam Levine one percent.
Speaker 2: I can see old boy Joseph Kennedy. I think he
Speaker 2: made a deal with the devil and curse his family
Speaker 2: in the process. Talk about Daddy Kennedy. Yo, he was
Speaker 2: he didn't make a deal with the devil. He got
Speaker 2: out of the stock market before the crash happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what they did to their sister is disgusting,
Speaker 1: absolutely disgusting and ambooring.
Speaker 2: I agree. So you know, hey, you're the one with
Speaker 2: the botomy set.
Speaker 1: First off, that is a part of his story history
Speaker 1: and pretty cool.
Speaker 2: But u Kim Kardashian's mom watched her sex tape and
Speaker 2: then leaked it to the public for fame. Yeah. Even
Speaker 2: in the article we just read about Kim k leaked
Speaker 2: was quote unquote.
Speaker 1: They've never leaked anything. They've given everything to the press,
Speaker 1: and they've they've been open about that before. Yeah, Kanye, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we could see that one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Kanye goes back and forth with his religious beliefs too.
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift is like of the devil, oh God, Tay,
Speaker 1: I hate Tay.
Speaker 2: There's never been an artist that has made enough money
Speaker 2: in one year to account for America's total GDP. Like that,
Speaker 2: that's insanity. I was having to explain this to Jacob
Speaker 2: the other day. I'm like, do you understand the amount
Speaker 2: of money that that is. He's like no, I'm like,
Speaker 2: you realize in one year she made more than any
Speaker 2: artist period in history in one year.
Speaker 1: Well, her nosebleed tickets for New Orleans were like anywhere
Speaker 1: between one thousand to like fifteen hundred for a nosebleed ticket.
Speaker 1: The floor ones were like five k.
Speaker 2: And that was after she had a movie that got released.
Speaker 2: Then she went on tour to promote the movie. So
Speaker 2: it was just money on money with money. It's insane.
Speaker 2: And now she's with Travis Kelsey. That poor boy there.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't like any I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: mind some of her music, but like I like some.
Speaker 1: But there is no way I'm a Tale Swift fan. No,
Speaker 1: sorry to disappoint everyone, j Lo not Jenny from the block.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 2: Oh man. Uh Steph Curry, ok okay, Steph Curry just
Speaker 2: be throwing shit up from wherever and nobody smell the
Speaker 2: solfur come off the net. That that is a claim.
Speaker 1: This is a wildless that you found. Yeah, Steve Martin,
Speaker 1: Steve Martin, Okay, Okay, who's number one? Then? Damn Steve Martin.
Speaker 2: I'll make you rich and famous beyond your imagination, but
Speaker 2: you'll have completely silver hair by the age of twenty three.
Speaker 2: That's fucking hilarious. Okay, number one, Kenneth Copeland, it's kind
Speaker 2: of obvious. Yeah, no, I I could see that one.
Speaker 2: I don't think he sold his sold to the devil.
Speaker 2: I think he sold a sold to greed. But I
Speaker 2: mean it's a free using air changeable dialogue. At that point,
Speaker 2: you know that is that's the pastor with like nine planes. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 2: Texas Megachurch pastor televangelist, scumm of the Earth type of guy.
Speaker 2: All right, So now we're gonna shift over to the
Speaker 2: satanic origins of Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal, which is also
Speaker 2: pretty interesting. Okay, let's just dive in here. Michael Jackson's
Speaker 2: Smooth Criminal is satanic. It's not a song about Satan
Speaker 2: or the occult, but it's a song about a Satanist.
Speaker 2: The King of Pop worried this could cause controversy for
Speaker 2: multiple reasons. Smooth Criminal wasn't one of the biggest hits
Speaker 2: of that era of Jackson's career, but it pronounced a
Speaker 2: hit cover or it produced.
Speaker 1: A hit cover. I don't like any of his music.
Speaker 1: I do like the alien An Farm cover. You haven't
Speaker 1: heard any of you? Okay? From Yeah, I have. I
Speaker 1: just don't like anything. I don't like Michael Jackson in particular,
Speaker 1: like in just his music. I'm just not a fan.
Speaker 2: I get it. I get it. So let's let's dive
Speaker 2: in here, because I've heard this story before, but it's
Speaker 2: been so long, I honestly forgot. Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal
Speaker 2: was inspired by a killer who worshiped Satan. Jermaine Jackson
Speaker 2: was a member of the Jackson five. In his twenty
Speaker 2: eleven book You Are Not Alone Michael Through a Brother's Eyes,
Speaker 2: Jermaine noted that al capone theme of Smooth Criminal video,
Speaker 2: which it's very much Michael Jackson as far as the
Speaker 2: music video is concerned, Smooth Criminal was actually inspired by
Speaker 2: a serial killer who spread fear throughout Los Angeles and
Speaker 2: San Francisco between nineteen eighty four and nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2: Jermaine wrote, Richard Ramirez, a self confessed devil worshiper, was
Speaker 2: the night stalker who took fourteen lives. In most cases,
Speaker 2: he forced his way into people's homes before brutally murdering
Speaker 2: them with a knife, hence the appearance of a flashing
Speaker 2: blade in the video Wow. Jermain mentioned some of the
Speaker 2: lyrics in his song that were inspired by Ramirez. It
Speaker 2: was the sound of a crescendo. He came into her apartment.
Speaker 2: He left the bloodstains on the carpet underneath the table.
Speaker 2: He could see she wasn't able. She ran into the bedroom.
Speaker 2: She was struck down. It was her doom. It took
Speaker 2: a lot for me to read that. Rather than sing that,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to.
Speaker 1: Be noted I sing it in my head.
Speaker 2: I was like right, So Jermaine said Michael didn't want
Speaker 2: to talk about the song's origins, partly for religious reasons.
Speaker 2: For context, Michael was a Jehovah's Witness, which is a cult.
Speaker 1: We should mention that he was a Jojo.
Speaker 2: He was a j W, which is crazy because they
Speaker 2: didn't even accept black people for the for a good
Speaker 2: long while.
Speaker 1: What do you mean now he looks white?
Speaker 2: You know this is a Mandela effect for you. Some
Speaker 2: people claim that Michael Jackson used to be black. Gotta
Speaker 2: be honest with you, Jacob can't verify these claims. Jacob
Speaker 2: was born in ninety two. Michael Jackson was only white
Speaker 2: when Jacob was alive. I'm just going off of people
Speaker 2: in blind faith that Michael Jackson used to be black
Speaker 2: at one point.
Speaker 1: What he was?
Speaker 2: It says, who photoshop pictures? I mean the media.
Speaker 1: Our parents saw him black. Yeah, but they are parents.
Speaker 2: Our parents and grandparents also believe that Vietnam was like
Speaker 2: probably for good reasons too.
Speaker 1: Wow, your logic is so sound have I'm I'm highly
Speaker 1: impressed by it. Yeah, it's very intelligent of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I use the same logic whenever people were like, well, look,
Speaker 2: if I wasn't there to see it, how do I
Speaker 2: know what really happened. I'm like, I feel you Apparently
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson used to be black. I don't know that's
Speaker 2: a true statement or not. Oh it's great. Oh now
Speaker 2: it's your co hosting. You're gonna meet some of these people.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have guests on the show, and they're gonna
Speaker 2: talk about how they don't believe nuclear bombs exist. They
Speaker 2: don't believe any history before nineteen fifty for reasons. And
Speaker 2: it's like, well, how can we trust the history books.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't there. It's like, I feel you do allegedly.
Speaker 2: They say they're lying to us, but they say Michael
Speaker 2: Jackson used to be black.
Speaker 1: I don't know. To be fair, history books are written
Speaker 1: and change consistently, and the Smithsonian is a great example
Speaker 1: of hiding knowledge, destroying knowledge, and keeping so much knowledge
Speaker 1: from the public. I understand people's reservations and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what is true and what is not. Hell,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do that. But I have held in
Speaker 1: my hands ten thousand year old artifacts like carbon dated
Speaker 1: they they are ten thousand years old, and like they
Speaker 1: are real I held them, I saw them. I dug
Speaker 1: them up in very disgusting, smelly, waste filled bacteria dirt
Speaker 1: stuff that we had to wear like special stuff over
Speaker 1: because I was poisoning people. But like, no, that's it's
Speaker 1: a real thing. Yepple people be people in But I
Speaker 1: get questioning everything around you because it's easy to fall
Speaker 1: into this whole what is actually true? I get that
Speaker 1: is the main tricks real and I mean the movie
Speaker 1: itself poses a lot of questions. The concept I think
Speaker 1: is fantastic. Yeah, I wonder if we're in a simulation,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we're not. Like there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: to speculate. So I don't mind listening to people and
Speaker 1: their their thought processes, you know, if that's going to
Speaker 1: be a vibe or not. I will healthily disagree right
Speaker 1: in certain areas and we can have that talk. But
Speaker 1: I don't mind listening to it. And I don't mind, Hey,
Speaker 1: prove me wrong. I'm all for that, Like show me information.
Speaker 1: I can admit when I'm wrong, and I can admit
Speaker 1: when I don't know everything because I do not. There's
Speaker 1: so much to know in this life.
Speaker 2: So no, no doubt. But you'll hear people make some
Speaker 2: pretty bold claims. Bold is a very kind word to
Speaker 2: use for some, not all. We have people that make
Speaker 2: very wild claims sometimes, but they're not baseless. At least
Speaker 2: you could see the line of thinking that led them
Speaker 2: to this conclusion, and I can respect that. I might
Speaker 2: disagree with it, but I can respectfully disagree and like
Speaker 2: it's all good.
Speaker 1: You're gonna hear.
Speaker 2: People just doing the mostess and it's like, yeah, bruh.
Speaker 1: I need a diagram. I need you to draw it
Speaker 1: out on whiteboard for yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a visual learner. People,
Speaker 1: I'm a visual learner. Bring your white boards if you're
Speaker 1: gonna teach me some shit. So continue.
Speaker 2: It says there were two reasons not to reveal this
Speaker 2: inspiration at the time, First, so that the media didn't
Speaker 2: accuse him of glorifying such a heinous crime, and second,
Speaker 2: he didn't want the Jehovah's Witness elders to know that
Speaker 2: a worshiper of the occult partly inspired this song wow.
Speaker 2: Even though again, the Jehovah's Witness is in fact a
Speaker 2: recognized cult. They are known for making their into the
Speaker 2: world predictions. I think they're on their sixth one, right,
Speaker 2: now like as a congregation.
Speaker 1: It's been anyway, That's fun.
Speaker 2: Another version of Smooth Criminal was also a hit. Smooth
Speaker 2: Criminal reached number seven in the Billboard Hot one hundred,
Speaker 2: staying in the chart for fifteen weeks. The tune appeared
Speaker 2: in the out Bad. If Smooth Criminal was on any
Speaker 2: other album peaking at number seven, it would be impressive. However,
Speaker 2: Bad produced five number one singles, it's title track, Okay
Speaker 2: this is going down some I just can't stop loving
Speaker 2: you the way you made me feel Man in the mirror,
Speaker 2: Dirty Diana. With that in mind, the performance of Smooth
Speaker 2: Criminal was underwhelming. In the meantime, the album was a
Speaker 2: huge hit. The record top Billboard two hundred for six weeks.
Speaker 2: It lasted on the chart for one hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: one weeks in total. Wow, It's stay at the top
Speaker 2: of the chart longer than any other of Jackson's records, which,
Speaker 2: with the sole exception of thriller That is Pretty Insane.
Speaker 2: Smooth Criminal received a second life when the rock band
Speaker 2: alien Ant Farm covered it. It reached number twenty three
Speaker 2: on the Billboard Hot one hundred, lasting on there for
Speaker 2: twenty weeks. It remained one of the most well known
Speaker 2: covers of a song by the King of Pop. The
Speaker 2: cover appeared on the record Anthology, which peaked at number
Speaker 2: eleven and stayed on the chart for six four weeks. Okay,
Speaker 2: so anyway, as far as all of this goes, a Satanist,
Speaker 2: a self proclaimed Satanist was the inspiration for one of
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson's songs, which is pretty crazy to me too.
Speaker 1: That is pretty crazy, especially if he was a devout jojo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I know that.
Speaker 1: It's I know that we have barely touched on the
Speaker 1: surface of everything there is to do with the occult
Speaker 1: and Satanism and all of that, and to dive into
Speaker 1: what I was going to it would take us a
Speaker 1: good long while.
Speaker 2: We're gonna an episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we might do a whole episode on him in
Speaker 1: and of itself, and because talking about the occult and
Speaker 1: talking about Satanism and the symbolism of the music industry,
Speaker 1: it is such a multifaceted thing, and once you pull
Speaker 1: on one string, it's like fifteen in ravel and you
Speaker 1: got to go down all of the different ways they
Speaker 1: all connect and how they all intersect and stuff. And
Speaker 1: so we definitely are going to do a different episode
Speaker 1: on that, because that would lead another like three or
Speaker 1: four hours of conversation just in and of itself.
Speaker 2: It very much will. I know that for a fact,
Speaker 2: there is no shortage of people who the public have
Speaker 2: believed has sold their soul to the devil for fame
Speaker 2: and fortune and talents and all these things. But we
Speaker 2: did want to take this episode good cult members and
Speaker 2: show the historical precedent for this. And of course faus
Speaker 2: is not the first claim of something along these lines, however,
Speaker 2: it is one of the most popular oldest claims that
Speaker 2: we could find at this time. I'm sure we could
Speaker 2: dive way back into ancient Greece and ancient Rome and
Speaker 2: find people who sold their soul to darker forces for
Speaker 2: such a similar outcome, so to speak. But that being said,
Speaker 2: Faust was an interesting caricature, right, not just the play,
Speaker 2: not just the book, but the amount of inspiration that
Speaker 2: was derived from him in so many popular cultural references
Speaker 2: that we still reference today.
Speaker 1: M hm, you know, I mean there was a lot
Speaker 1: that you just pulled up quickly with just a few
Speaker 1: articles them referencing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's so many basically any one of these
Speaker 2: tropes that you can think of, either through literature or
Speaker 2: movies or songs where somebody has to uh. And there's
Speaker 2: a couple of different ways this can shake out. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it is out of desperation and these people are signing
Speaker 2: their soul a way to get themselves out of a jam.
Speaker 2: Sometimes these people are signing their soul a way to
Speaker 2: elevate their status or abilities or whatever the case is.
Speaker 2: There's different ways that this goes But every single time
Speaker 2: this goes down, they believe that the ends are justifying
Speaker 2: the means, and every step of the way the devil
Speaker 2: is screwing them over in weird ways they didn't perceive
Speaker 2: on the onset, And we brought up the Brendan Fraser
Speaker 2: movie but Dazzled that is an excellent and comical interpretation
Speaker 2: of the Faustian trope essentially. But yeah, it does date
Speaker 2: back all the way to the fourteen hundreds in Germany,
Speaker 2: which is wild to me.
Speaker 1: Well, the next thing we talk about the rest of this,
Speaker 1: it will do a full circle of how the selling
Speaker 1: of the souls and all this stuff, and we'll bring
Speaker 1: up quite a few celebrities, some stuff that happened in
Speaker 1: the eighties, how it all ties and plays together even today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited. It's gonna be a good one. So yeah,
Speaker 2: on the next one, as a matter of fact, we're
Speaker 2: going to be talking about Jean Jean Michael Bestquette, best Guett,
Speaker 2: best Guett, that's his name. Famous artist, Yeah, if anybody
Speaker 2: doesn't know him, famous graffiti artist. His one of his
Speaker 2: paintings sold for one hundred and ten million dollars and
Speaker 2: pretty much every step of his success and why so
Speaker 2: many very specific artists reference him as such inspiration I E.
Speaker 2: Jay Z and Beyonce and many others, and then the
Speaker 2: whereabouts of his death and all that. Yeah, Jean Michael
Speaker 2: Bisquette gets his own episode. That's probably gonna be the
Speaker 2: next one that we do. As a matter of fact. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean what you being the more literary red one
Speaker 2: between us. I don't know how many books you've read
Speaker 2: where there has been some sort of a deal struck
Speaker 2: in this regard.
Speaker 1: There's so many, yeah, so many, Like just sinking because
Speaker 1: I'm a movie buff too, and so like just the
Speaker 1: amount of movies, television shows and books that have some
Speaker 1: type of contract that is that has been signed in blood,
Speaker 1: that has been used in blood. I mean blood is
Speaker 1: blood is what gives ritual's power and gives the practitioners power.
Speaker 1: And so it is pretty much in like everything under
Speaker 1: the sun that you could think of is gonna be
Speaker 1: has referenced that in some way, shape or form. I'm
Speaker 1: surprised that I've never actually heard the original story until
Speaker 1: tonight of this. I've heard the name, and that's why
Speaker 1: when you brought it up, I was like, man, I
Speaker 1: know that name, but like I couldn't tell you couldn't
Speaker 1: pinpoint where I had actually heard it from. But now
Speaker 1: knowing the full story, and I've been sitting here through
Speaker 1: this episode thinking of all the different things that I've
Speaker 1: seen throughout my life of like movies and television and
Speaker 1: books and stuff where this in particular has come up
Speaker 1: in some way, shape or form. It's wild to me.
Speaker 2: So I had heard of Faust, and I had heard
Speaker 2: of the Faustian Bargain and all these things. I had
Speaker 2: no idea that it was actually based on a German
Speaker 2: alchemist had all these historical claims behind it. I mean,
Speaker 2: and same like we said ghostwriter, for instance, I knew
Speaker 2: that that was a trope. There's an old Disney movie
Speaker 2: HG Double hockey Sticks where it was another faustian bargain
Speaker 2: that was struck to be a world last hockey player.
Speaker 2: And they've done this in a very comic way, they've
Speaker 2: done it in a very horror way and tragedy way,
Speaker 2: all these things. Before we started doing research, I had
Speaker 2: no fucking clue that there was actual historical backgrounds to it,
Speaker 2: not just on the stage or on screen or in script.
Speaker 2: So yeah, this was pretty much. This is a mind
Speaker 2: blowing episode for all of us. I think, in one
Speaker 2: way or.
Speaker 1: Another, that's pretty cool. And I learned a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff tonight that I didn't know about. So good cult members,
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you.
Speaker 2: I do want to apologize for all the butchering of
Speaker 2: pronunciations and the stammering through the scripts. A lot of
Speaker 2: these names are from countries of origin that I do
Speaker 2: not speak the language or the dialect and don't know
Speaker 2: how they pronounced their words.
Speaker 1: But I did better than I would, so I.
Speaker 2: Made it through. I made it through. So apologies in advance,
Speaker 2: or I should say postmark for that, because you've already
Speaker 2: heard me stammering like a babbling buffoon all night. But
Speaker 2: that's fine, it's fine, we're here.
Speaker 1: So good Cult members.
Speaker 2: We want to hear what you have to say about
Speaker 2: this before I give you all these things. We do
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Speaker 2: to hear what you think about the fauctium bargain.
Speaker 1: Do you know somebody that may have made that bargain yourself?
Speaker 2: Do you think this is all just literary hoopla and
Speaker 2: it's just an artistic troupe. Do you think that there
Speaker 2: is some sort of a basis of reality to this.
Speaker 2: We want to hear from you. In the best place
Speaker 2: to let us hear that.
Speaker 3: Would be too Please hit the five stars at the
Speaker 3: shares the Like, subscribes comments, leve a postly review.
Speaker 2: And shares a defensive family shares everywhere.
Speaker 1: Here's the deal.
Speaker 2: The more activity the algorithm sees across all of our
Speaker 2: listening platforms, the more we get promoted to more potential
Speaker 2: listeners who could that become potential cult members like dress
Speaker 2: you Finally's and gentlemen, why are.
Speaker 1: You ready to go?
Speaker 2: Check out menimistics jobs this the other show and give
Speaker 2: them the same lover respect over there with the five
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Speaker 3: Come check out the Cage to Night and come join
Speaker 3: each of us for our individual patroon lines that we
Speaker 3: host every Wednesday night in nine pm Central.
Speaker 1: Links to those are in the description as well, and
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