Deals with the Devil Aren't What They Used to Be

I'll just say, it starts out deconstructing the way "magic" in the modern world has given way to "engineering" and thus mythological things like 'deals with the devil' are no longer believed.

But, in my view, a significant part of the appeal of the 'deal with the devil' is that it isn't mysterious. A Faustian bargain works according to exactly the letter of the deal, and the devil always keeps his end of it. Part of what makes it interesting, enticing even, is that it looks like there might be ways to outwit the devil. The devil then is a force of nature to be engineered just like any other branch of engineering in modern times, not an arbitrary fact of life beyond our comprehension.

It's a shame. Something a little trenchant about the vacuity of "forward unto the past" would've made a better read than this.

As this book review explains, with the enlightenment and industrial revolution, this fear of knowledge receded. But the myth is still there.

For example, take the "Terminator" movies. They're about the dangers of technology: what if we create machines that are intelligent enough to turn on their creators and seek to destroy them? There is a parallel between gaining forbidden knowledge and making artificial creatures. Today, we are afraid that corporations and governments will use our inventions to control us, but I think that fear has an echo of the old myth that it is dangerous to learn forbidden knowledge, or create artificial life, because that would be entering the realm once reserved for the Almighty.

My favorite is the Brazillian "Grande Sertão: Veredas"

In apocryphal Bible texts, it's claimed corrupted angels called "The Watchers" gave humans various technologies, in exchange for their women.

> In the Book of Enoch, the watchers are angels dispatched to Earth to watch over the humans. They soon begin to lust for human women and, at the prodding of their leader Samyaza, defect to illicitly instruct humanity and procreate among them, arriving on a mountain called Hermon. The offspring of these unions are the Nephilim, savage giants who pillage the earth and endanger humanity.

> Samyaza and his associates further taught their human charges arts and technologies such as weaponry, cosmetics, mirrors, sorcery, and other techniques that would otherwise be discovered gradually over time by humans, not foisted upon them all at once. Eventually, God allows a Great Flood to rid the earth of the Nephilim, but first sends Uriel to warn Noah so as not to eradicate the human race. The watchers are bound "in the valleys of the Earth" until Judgment Day (Jude verse 6 says, "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.").

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watcher_(angel)#Rogue_watchers...

In the past, building a radio, the primary tool for real-time information, was within reach of anyone with basic components like wire, a speaker, a capacitor, and a coil. Today, however, technology has become so advanced that it is incomprehensible to most, controlled by experts who can seem like modern-day wizards.

I fully agree with the conclusion of the article.

* We’re all Faustians now. These days [...] we write our contracts not in blood but in silicon—both figuratively, insofar as we sign away our identities and privacies for all the short-term benefits of material ease, and literally, whenever we scroll rapidly through one of those unreadable online contracts, eager only to assent.*

We don't call it magic, but there are other incantations for it. The adherents to the True Way of economics and law elevate themselves to positions of power and influence.

Hard disagree. Though playing them on a golden fiddle certainly doesn't help.

If you want to go back the age of magic, try the 900s, or better yet, prehistory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29sd4IneEm4&pp=ygUZaSBvZiBuZ...

I haven't seen him in many years and it's hard not to miss him, but with some distance and respect I'm good with that. If you don't believe me and maybe think I'm insane, it doesn't matter either. If you ever want to prove it to yourself and find him, all you need to do is want for the material things in this world a bit more than others for whatever reason, and I guarantee he will find you. Bye old friend, you're missed, and may we never meet again.

I know, welcome to the new internet. Apple sells me discounted access via their app because in doing so Apple can monetize my eyeballs. I hate it.