Seven Heads, Ten Horns: The History of the Devil

"The only true mystery is that our very lives are governed by dead people." Kazanian, InfernoGreetings from the Beyond. We are back for Halloween, having watched the following in preparation:-Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)-The Evil (1978)-The Beyond (1981)-City of the Living Dead (1980)-Rosemary's Baby (1968)-Inferno (1980)The Guardian on the Pelicot trial

Back from the dead to share that we were interviewed on NPR's It's Been A Minute about the devil in cinema.We are also gearing up for a Halloween episode and are assigning the following films as homework (you can find most of these online one way or another...)-Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)-The Evil (1978)-The Beyond (1981)-City of the Living Dead (1980)-Rosemary's Baby (1968)-Inferno (1980)

This week we interview Dr. Beverly Mayne Kienzle about the visionary preacher and medieval abbess, Hildegard of Bingen. Join us to learn more about the tone-deaf devil from the 12th century as we explore the sermons, art, and visions of Hildegard.

What is the secularized, capitalistic, art-world equivalent to being torn limb-from-limb by the devil? Find out in our concluding episode on Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus. -English translation of Mann's Doktor Faustus-Danny Riley, “Interpreting Joy: A Guide to Interpreting Beethoven's Ninth”

In observance of the spooky season we're posting our conversation with historian Matthew J. Cressler on the relationship between Catholicism and horror cinema. We explore the sub-genre of Catholic Horror through our analysis of two recent films centering on the Italian exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth (1925-2016): William Friedkin's (!) documentary The Devil and Father Amorth (2017) and Julius Avery's horror/dramedy/superhero film The Pope's Exorcist (2023). The conversation was enlightening and just a delight. Please be on the lookout for all of Matthew's great work on Catholicism and horror:“The Netflix Series That Should Make Religious People Uncomfortable” The Atlantic, 10/25/21 (on Midnight Mass)“Exorcists, Abusers, and When Catholic History is Horror” The Revealer, 05/10/22“You Can't Have a Catholic Imagination without Horror” U.S. Catholic, 10/28/22And the man's making comics about this at Bad Catholics / Good Trouble !

This episode: we can't leave well enough alone — another literary elaboration of the Faust legend by a member of the Mann family, Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus (1947.) We discuss: why learning is actually interesting to young people, the problems with studying theology and the humanities, why the devil owns music, whether committing yourself to creative excellence always means a deal with the devil, and what you're not allowed to say about hell. English translation of Mann's Doktor FaustusThe “Jeremy Brett” version of Love's Labor's Lost.

Three Klauses walk into a bar…This episode centers on literary wunderkind/prodigal son Klaus Mann's attack on Nazi Germany (and an ex-lover, and possibly his dad, the canonical novelist Thomas Mann), in the form of the 1936 novel Mephisto. We discuss the film adaptation, what it means to compare demons to the Nazis, the book's relationship to Goethe's Faust, and the politics of race in the novel/film. -Klaus Mann, Mephisto: Ein Roman einer Karriere-Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark-Farayi Mungazi and Olivia Marks-Woldman “Black people were Hitler's victims too – that must not be forgotten” -“Nazi Persecution of Black People in Germany,” Holocaust Encyclopedia (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum-Colm Tóibín: “I Could Sleep With All Of Them” (On Mann family dynamics in London Review of Books)

Hilary Mantel's 2005 novel Beyond Black is the topic of discussion for this episode, continuing our series on devil-themed novels. This one's about psychics and their demons in neo-liberal Britain on the eve of Brexit.-An interview Mantel did on this novel for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.-The Guardian's obituary for Mantel from September 2022.-Etymology of "Old Nick"

Summer is for trashy beach novels and Dennis Wheatley's 1934 The Devil Rides Out definitely qualifies. We discuss problematic genre fiction, fake rituals, the rhetorical trap of being asked "do you believe in evil?" and racial demonology of the late British empire.Some useful scholarship: Timothy Jones, "The Black Mass as Play: Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out" M/C Journal, 17(4).

The boys are back to discuss Frank E. Peretti's 1986 Christian supernatural thriller This Present Darkness.

Back to discuss the historical Faust, "Faustian science," Sylvia Federici, Sycorax and Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Martin Heidegger's anti-Semitism, The Devil's Miner, and the future of the podcast.

Klaus and Travis go the distance to close out Goethe's Faust cycle.One video playlist for the Peter Stein 2001 production of Goethe's Faust II.

In this first episode of 2023 we discuss the 2017 film "First Reformed," written and directed by Paul Schrader, starring Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried. A Protestant minister experiences personal and planetary crisis, making sense of his rage and despair with apocalyptic scripture and radical environmentalism.As is always the case when we do a film episode, there are spoilers. So go check out the film first if you want the best listening experience.

This episode is the second installment in our series of conversations on Dante's Inferno with Dr. Akash Kumar.

This week we are blessed to be joined by Dr. Akash Kumar for a lively discussion of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century Divine Comedy, and, of course, the Inferno in particular, with all its demons, mythological monsters, personal enemies of Dante, and other tragic figures.Digital DanteAkash Kumar, "Teddy Roosevelt, Dante, and the Man in the Arena"Interactive (hilarious) map of Dante's hell

This episode we finish up Faust 1!Faust 1 (German text)Faust 1 (English translation)Faust 1 (video of performance dir. by Peter Stein, 2000 with English subtitles)

Scenes discussed from Faust 1: Studierzimmer (study) - Hexenküche (witches' kitchen.)------------------Faust 1 (German text)Faust 1 (English translation)Faust 1 on the stage (Peter Stein, 2000) (no subtitles but better video quality)Faust 1 (same version, with English subtitles)

Part 4 of our Faust series brings us to Goethe (1749-1832) and the way he reinvented the legend for his own time, or, in as he has Faust say, “take what you have inherited from your forefathers and make it your own.” In this episode, Klaus introduces the work, the author, and the first few scenes. Faust 1 (German text)Faust 1 (English translation)Faust 1 on the stage (Peter Stein, 2000) (no subtitles but better video quality)Faust 1 (same version, with English subtitles)

Celebrating Halloween this year with the seasonally atmospheric 1960 film City of the Dead (released as Horror Hotel in the USA) starring Christopher Lee and Venetia Stevenson, directed by John Llewellyn Moxey.

Amazing special guest Dr. Katherine Walker takes us through Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (ca. 1592) in part 3 of our Faust-cycle-series. Check out her book Instinct, Knowledge and Science on the Early Modern Stage out soon!Note: we were being attacked by aliens and ghosts during the recording of this episode and this impacted the audio quality but we carried on heroically nevertheless.Along the way we discuss the lush 1968 Richard Burton / Elizabeth Taylor film version of Dr. Faustus.Reach out to us on Twitter @heads_ten & Dr. Walker @KatieNWalker

Getting warmed up for Halloween with the 1973 Hammer Studios film The Satanic Rites of Dracula (dir. Alan Gibson), starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

Faust is back, ready to party, and hopefully get things squared away with the hosts of hell.

This is the first episode of a mini-series-within-a-season devoted to the legend of Faust, a guy who was too clever for his own good and got mixed up with the wrong people--the kind who make you sign a contract in blood. The text discussed here is the anonymously composed 1587 Historia Von D. Johann Fausten.

This episode we close out the Summer Cinema of Sin series with The Devil's Advocate (1997), starring Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves, and Charlize Theron, directed by Taylor Hackford.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses, 7H10H goes into the diabolical, blasphemous, and heretical elements of one of the funniest frenemies in English lit: stately, plump Buck Mulligan, the carousing, poetical medical student based on the historical figure of Oliver St. John Gogarty, Joyce's one-time roommate and rival.RTÉ's amazing podcast version of Ulysses from the 1982 production recorded by Marcus Mac Donald, directed by William Styles, and performed by the RTÉ Players. (RTÉ is the public broadcasting company of Ireland.)The companion “Reading Ulysses” podcast hosted by Gerry O'Flaherty and Fritz Senn from 2004. Gifford Annotations, Corrected. From the James Joyce Online NotesPatrick Hastings, Ulysses Guide

The Cinematic Summer of Sin continues with John Carpenter's 1987 Prince of Darkness. Compelling devil cinema but also–-is this at once the best and the worst film about graduate school ever made? Stephen Jay Gould “Nonoverlapping Magisteria”Interview with John Carpenter on Assault on Precinct 13

This week we discuss two films End of Days (1999) and Deliver Us From Evil (2014) both of which blend the police action flick with the exorcism film. What difference does it make when Satan himself is the criminal mastermind? Along the way we discuss the uses of the idea of "evil" in US politics today in the wake of the mass shootings of May 2022. One book mentioned:Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment

Sherlock Holmes, the Devil, and Old Time Radio, all under one podcast roof.Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Devil's Foot” in the Strand Magazine Arup J. Chatterjee, “Sherlock Holmes and the Spectre of India:” The Adventures of the Devil's Foot Root”

Kicking off our summer cinema series with 2015's Midwinter of the Spirit, a supernatural British mystery centering on exorcists in the Church of Mystery and their battles against a “Satanist” plot.Watch some it free here.Matthew J. Cressler: “Exorcists, Abusers, and When Catholic History is Horror.”

This episode we deal with our first incognito secret-agent pseudonymous theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the way he blends Christianity with Neoplatonism, and how this impacts his demonology. Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works(Free online version.)Marilena Vlad, “Dionysius the Areopagite on Angels: Self-Constitution vs. Constituting Gifts” in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, ed. Luc BrissonKevin Corrigan and L. Michael Harrington, “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite” at the Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyChristoph Helmig and Carlos Steel, “Proclus,” at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Colleen Hubbard's new novel, Housebreaking, on sale now

This episode, Boethius uses Neoplatonic philosophy to prepare himself for his impending execution and to help Klaus and Travis understand why Batman is so miserable.Free online version of the Consolation of PhilosophyP.G. Walsh's translation and introductionJames Marebon, “Boethius,” at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Bonus episode musings on Milton's Paradise Lost Book 2, creeping back to the first text we ever worked on for the pod, rethinking everything.Paradise Lost Book 2

This episode is all about non-Christian, Greek-philosophical perspectives on demons and their role in the universe that were developing around the formative stages of Christian theology. Neoplatonism would go on to influence late-ancient and medieval Christianity and so we start to track its effects in this episode.Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, ed. Luc BrissonPlotinus, EnneadsPorphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Food, Bk. 2“Iamblichus” by Riccardo Chiaradonna & Adrien Lecerf at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy“Plotinus” by Lloyd Gerson at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy“Porphyry” by Eyjólfur Emilsson at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

An interview with author S. Jonathon O'Donnell about their new book, Passing Orders, in which we discuss spiritual warfare, the Christian Right, and the complicated roles of demons in the political theology of empire. Don't miss it.S. Jonathon O'Donnell, Twitter: @demonologianPassing Orders: Demonology and Sovereignty in American Spiritual Warfare **The idea mentioned in the episode that “people live in the contradictions” comes from this interview with Patrick Blanchfield on Know Your Enemy about Freud.**

Moby-Dick's dramatic return to the pod as he battles the Cape[Cod]d Crusader.Twitter for 1940s Batman vs. White Whale images: @klaus_yoderBattle Ave's music.Video for "My Year with the Wizard"

Back in the saddle for the official start of season 3.Sources:John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis & Against the Jews (The Translation and Introduction by Paul W. Harkins whose name we neglected to mention.)The Penance of Chrysostom by Giulio CampagnolaBen Dunning, Chrysostom's Serpent: Animality, Gender, and CreationJames H. Charlesworth, The Good And Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became ChristianizedPauline Allen and Wendy Mayer, John Chrysostom

Watching Station Eleven through goggles tinted as red as a cartoon devil.Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaAG-SwEa7k

Finishing up our coverage of Ahab's centipede-legged soul and mortal combat against the white weasel, ahem, whale (Chs. 133 & 134). With this we bid season 2 adieu and look forward to sharing season 3 with you real soon.------The novel in html: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm#link2HCH0119The novel as a cool 1902 edition on pdf: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Moby_Dick/d4VNAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Massively unanticipated bonus pod on personified evil in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick inspired by a long drive across Pennsylvania. ----Moby-Dick as a cool podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/moby-dick-or-the-whale/id384525495?i=1000085154762As html: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm#link2HCH0041----Some secondary sources:Jonathon A Cook, Inscrutable Malice: Theodicy, Eschatology, and the Biblical Sources of “Moby-Dick.” Cornell University Press, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv177tfgd.Leslie E. Sheldon, "Messianic power and satanic decay: Milton in Moby-Dick": muse.jhu.edu/article/495703.

This week's pod gets a little rowdy as Klaus and Travis discuss Gregory the Great, his demonology, and most especially his voluminous, and often hilarious, commentary on the Book of Job. With this episode we're wrapping up season 2. We'll be back soon getting medieval on season 3 and in the interim some stand-alone episodes may appear in the feed. Thanks for your support!------Our main primary source, Gregory's Moralia in Job: Secondary Sources:George E. Demacopoulos, Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor, and First Man of RomeCharlotte Kingston, “Taking the Devil at his Word: The Devil and Language in the Dialogues of Gregory the Great”

the trailer

This episode 7H,10H is honored to welcome Louis Römer, ethnographer extraordinaire of the Caribbean and the Netherlands, to discuss Santa's demonic entourage in the Netherlands and Germany, namely Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) and Krampus. We discuss the way these Santa-demons and their re-invented traditions matter for racial politics in Europe, the Caribbean, and Upstate New York. And why, in Italy, Santa is Black.Follow Louis on Twitter: @lromeranthSources:Sacha Hilhorst and Joke Hermes “‘We have given up so much': Passion and denial in the Dutch Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) controversy”Yannick Coenders and Sébastien Chauvin, “Race and the Pitfalls of Emotional Democracy: Primary Schools and the Critique of Black Pete in the Netherlands”Nicole Römer (Louis's cousin): “Ik Heb Een Naam” (I have a name) (English language piece on responding to racism in the Netherlands and how Zwarte Piet factors in.)Magdalena Berger, “Warum sich immer mehr junge Männer als Krampusse verkleiden”Eva Reisinger, “Dumme österreichische Bräuche: Warum ich den Krampus hasse”

This episode we discuss a recent article in the religion/media/culture magazine The Revealer by Klaus about police procedural television and its obsession with Catholicism and Catholic priests in particular. What does this have to do with the devil you ask? Nothing! Nothing at all, I tell you... Wait. Perhaps it has something to do with how these shows represent Black nationalists? Don't be ridiculous. Klaus's article: "Cops and Clergy on TV" An episode of @NoChorus' podcast that helped inspired this researchTrevor Strunk's Patreon for Homicide: Life on the Streets content, video games, and so much more.

A quick look at one of the weirdest traditions from Genesis, the Curse of Ham, and how it factored into patristic demonology as well as white supremacist Christianity of the 19th century antebellum South.Thanks to Ernest Mitchell for the Zora Neale Hurston assist. Sources:Stephen B. Haynes, Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justifications of American Slavery : https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195142799.001.0001/acprof-9780195142792David M. Goldenberg, Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691123707/the-curse-of-hamAugustine, City of God Book XVI: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120116.htmOrigen, Homily XVI, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus. Catholic University of America Press, 1982, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt32b3pv.Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions: http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/0050-0150,_Pseudo_Clemens,_Recognitions_[Schaff],_EN.pdf

This week: Return of the Hippo--Augustine's Revenge!A classic, super-helpful source:Peter Brown, Augustine: A Biography

This episode we look the hippo in the eye and dive into the treacherous, chilly waters of St. Augustine's demonology. Please remember to rate, review, and wait for the signs. Some Augustine Sources:Tractate in John 8: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701042.htmCity of God Bk XI: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120111.htmOn the Trinity (De Trinitate Bk XIII)Chronology of Works: https://exploringaugustine.weebly.com/chronological-list.htmlOthers:Neil Forsyth, The Old EnemyJeffery Burton Russel, Satan: The Early Christian TraditionCristina Richie, "THE AUGUSTINIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE TRANSMISSION OF ORIGINAL SIN AND ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES" Religious Studies and Theology; London Vol. 37, Iss. 1,  (2018): 79-91. DOI:10.1558/rsth.31054

We're re-releasing this history of Halloween we recorded last year to keep up with the trick-or-treat vibes.Please remember to leave a review--it really helps. Thanks!A really useful source for this week's material is Nicholas Rogers' Halloween : From Pagan Ritual to Party Night.

To celebrate the witching season we devote our annual Halloween-horror-film episode to the 1970 folk horror classic, The Blood on Satan's Claw, (dir. Piers Haggard). Watch it here, courtesy of New Castle After Dark, for free.Other things we mentioned:Penda's Fen (1974) (again, watch it for free.)A great podcast episode from Live at the Death Factory (second half) that covers Penda' Fenn.Andrew Michael Hurley, Devils and debauchery: why we love to be scared by folk horror

This episode we unleash the takes upon some actually recent pop culture, viz. Netflix's Midnight Mass, and discuss its strengths, weaknesses, and broader relevance for representing the aging, decrepit, and vampiric institutions that feed on our collective life force.Stuff mentioned in the episode:Noroi: The Curse (dir. Kōji Shiraish 2005) can be watched in its creepy entirety on YouTube here.The short story about brain electricity at the moment of death is Tobias Wolf's, “Bullet in the Brain”

Lightning strikes twice in one week. It's a short solo episode from Klaus about Athanasius of Alexandria, how the devil might live in the air, and how Christian theology conceptualizes both the human body of Jesus and the airy bodies of demons as instruments of the Lord.Sources:Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the WordAthanasius, Life of AntonyGay Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian LiteratureGiorgio Agamben, Opus Dei: An Archaeology of Duty

The episode that celebrates one year of 7H10H! Then we discusses how the Trinity happened, some influential theologians from Cappadocia, the devil as heretic, the devil as a man-eating Leviathan, Jesus as a fishhook, and God as the devil's therapist. Sources:Gregory of Nyssa's Great Catechism: chapters XX-XXVIGregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the ResurrectionNicholas P. Costas “The Last Temptation of Satan: Divine Deception in Greek Patristic Interpretations of the Passion Narrative”Jeffrey Fischer & Kyle Kirchhoff, “‘Even the Enemy himself would not dispute that the action was just': Disguise and Self-Deception in Gregory of Nyssa”Adam Kotsko, The Prince of this World, Ch. 3Morenna Ludlow, “Demons, Evil, and Liminality in Cappadocian Theology”