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Who is the demon at the crossroads?

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Demons striking deals is an old archetype, and these deals always come at a high cost, whether you sacrifice your soul or karmic catastrophe.

Mephistopheles, who is now well-known from numerous depictions in media but who was initially a German legendary figure from the legend of Faust, may be the quintessential deal-making crossroads demon (whose name gives us Faustian bargain).

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Who is the demon at the crossroads?

Mephistopheles is the devil’s representative in the Faust stories, and he trades with Faust for his soul.

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Within folklore cross roads are important places. They often represented liminal spaces.

This is a fancy way to say that a crossroads is an ambiguous place that is neither here nor there – not at your destination, nor the place where you started, where you have to make a decision on what path to take.

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If you were in unfamiliar lands, a crossroads was an easy place to get lost. If a sign was wrong, or you read your map wrong, you could end up far from your destination.

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Multi award-winning journalist.