5 People Who Allegedly Sold Their Souls to the Devil
If you want to achieve fame and success, the best path is an incredible amount of hard work. Then, after all that hard work, you have to get really lucky and hope someone with power notices how good you are.
This process, to be frank, is for the birds. An opinion I am not alone in sharing, especially when it comes to the folks through history who, according to legend, turned to a power even greater than a CAA agent to achieve fame. The power broker in question is the first to ever exist: the devil.
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Whether they truly signed a pact with Satan himself or it was just a colorful tale is hard to prove, but the success they achieved is undeniable.
Robert Johnson
Maybe the most famous devil-dealer of all is the blues musician Robert Johnson. He was neither the first nor the last musician to reach down under for a boost to his skills. As the story goes, he might have been sent seeking Satan out of embarrassment from fellow bluesmen. When he was 19, he was booed offstage in Mississippi, jeers thrown his way from established musicians Son House and Willie Brown.
So when he showed up again a year later, the crowd chambered boos in their throats, ready to fire. Instead, he pulled out a seven-string guitar, already unsettling to someone in the 1930s, and melted every face in the goddamn Delta. Their only explanation for the change was some downstairs magic. Johnson never confirmed the story, but he did write songs like “Hellhound on My Trail,” which is a problem only someone who sold their soul really worries about.
Niccolo Paganini
Johnson wasn’t the first person to page Satan for a boost to their abilities with a stringed instrument. The same accusations of an otherworldly exchange replacing or at least augmenting the power of practice were leveled at famous violinist Niccolo Paganini as well. It was an accusation that stuck pretty easily, not just because of his incredible skill from a young age.
Violin aside, Paganini had a distinctly un-pious energy. First off was the fact that he kind of looked evil. He was tall, pale and skinny, with long, pointy fingers. Internally, he wasn't much prettier. He was an alcoholic, a gambler and a womanizer with a history of mental breakdowns. Really, the saddest part of the whole saga is that it happened too long ago for him to get a Behind the Music on VH1.
Bob Dylan
Lest you think that the days of Lucifer ladling out musical talent are purely a thing of the past, there’s also a modern musician who is occasionally linked with the Father of Lies. One you’ve probably heard, and still gets regular radio play: Bob Dylan. Some call it a “ridiculous conspiracy theory,” to which I say: Yeah, man, what do you think we’re talking about here?
The speculation largely comes from an interview in which Dylan explained that he “made a bargain long ago, and I’m holding up my end.” When the interviewer asked who he made the bargain with, Dylan responded, “The Chief Commander … in this earth and the world we can’t see.”
It’s up to you whether this is damning evidence or, you know, just Bob Dylan saying weird, ominous shit.
Christoph Haizmann
We move from audio to visual, but stay in the world of art with Christoph Haizmann. Unfortunately for Haizmann, he’s one of the cases where even with the Devil’s supposed assistance, things never really worked out.
He was originally a devout and loyal Christian, but lost his faith after the death of his father. So, when a demon showed up with a contract, he eventually signed, both in ink and blood, in exchange for nine years of success. When those nine years passed, Haizmann still wasn’t an artist of global renown, but what are you going to do, sue Satan for breach of contract?
Suffering seizures, allegedly as a result of his time running out, he begged the church for an exorcism, which he received. The exorcism helped, but the language must have been airtight, because he died of a fever two years later.
Theophilus of Adana
On one hand, you’d think that if there was one thing Satan would have no power over, it would be who is appointed to positions of power in the Church. On the other, the prospect of someone bringing that up might tickle his little goatee, causing him to respond with an enthusiastic, “Oh HELL yeah.”
As the story goes, Theophilus was offered the role of bishop, but handed it instead to a colleague, expecting in return a posh appointment. When his quid-pro-quo didn’t materialize, he was hopping mad, and feeling like the Church had screwed him, decided to see what the other side had to offer. He made a deal with the Devil to get a second chance to accept the role of bishop, and, whether strings were yanked behind the scenes or not, that did materialize. But as soon as he realized the deal might have come through, he repented and confessed.
Lame.
