SPOOKTOBER 2021 ep3: "The Man in the Black Suit" by Stephen King

One of the most recognized tales in American folklore has Mississippi roots. The story has many names, including “The Delta Legend,” “The Deal with the Devil,” and “The Deal at the Crossroads,” among others. Yet each tells a similar story that centers on a midnight meeting between a frustrated guitarist and Satan himself

Scholars disagree over the origins of the Crossroads myth. Some maintain that the story originated in Africa, with Satan representing an African trickster deity such as the Dahomean Legba or Yoruba Eshu. This interpretation places the tale in a broader cultural context and elevates the musician to spiritual status. Other folklorists argue that the tale possesses many Western elements and reflects slavery’s impact on African American life. Regardless of its precise origins, the myth has become most associated with early twentieth-century bluesman Robert Johnson.

But take the bluesman and the Mississippi Delta out of the story, and you’re left with a familiar and repeating myth that has echoed throughout modern human history… drawing its closest western parallel to the German myth about Faust… who is a highly successful man yet is dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. 

The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have recycled and reinterpreted the basic story through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain.  But if you take another step back, you can see that all these Faustian myths share similar structure with the Theophilus legend, recorded in the 13th century, in which a saintly figure makes a bargain with the keeper of the infernal world, but is rescued from paying his debt to society through the mercy of the Blessed Virgin… which itself can be traced back to Saint Theophilus the Penitent or Theophilus of Adana, who was a cleric in the sixth century Church and is said to have made a deal with the Devil to gain an ecclesiastical position.   His story is significant as it is one of the oldest popular stories of a pact with the devil and was an inspiration for the Thelphilus legend, which inspired Faust legend… which in turn may have inspired the crossroads myth of the Mississippi Delta and cemented the legacy of one Robert Johnson.

Except… this explanation of western religion says nothing about the similarities existing for centuries within the previously mentioned myths stemming from African folklore... Could it be that 6th Century historians simply appropriated this piece of African cultural heritage?  It wouldn’t be the first time… or perhaps we’re digging too deep and the answer is something simpler… something more… sinister… the Devil is in the details… and perhaps we’ve been witness to the same story, the same Satan, playing the same con on unwitting men throughout all of recorded history… This is… The Man in the Black Suit… by Stephen King...

INTRODUCTION AND NARRATION BY: Eric R Hill