EP 17: Crossroads, Spirits, and Dangerous Deals

Watch/Listen to this Episode Crossroads, Spirits, and Dangerous Deals License Info Crossroads, Spirits, and Dangerous Deals Transcription Crossroads, Spirits, and Dangerous Deals

The Ancient Fear and Power of the Crossroads

This episode of the Wondering Monsters Podcast explores one of humanity’s oldest supernatural ideas: the crossroads as a place of power, danger, and negotiation. Across cultures and centuries, intersections have been viewed as liminal spaces where the normal rules of reality weaken and spirits may be encountered.

Crossroads are neither one place nor another. They represent choice, uncertainty, and exposure, especially in pre-modern societies where leaving a settlement meant encountering wild animals, bandits, or the risk of becoming lost. These dangers helped shape the belief that crossroads were spiritually charged locations where unseen forces gathered.

The Crossroads as a Liminal Space

Liminal spaces exist between states: day and night, life and death, inside and outside. Human cultures have long treated these thresholds as sacred or dangerous. Doorways, mirrors, midnight hours, and intersections all share this in-between quality.

The crossroads stands out because it forces decision. Choosing a path determines whether a traveler arrives safely or vanishes into the unknown. This vulnerability made crossroads a natural setting for rituals, offerings, and supernatural encounters.

Selling Your Soul at the Crossroads

One of the most famous crossroads legends comes from American blues history. The story of Robert Johnson claims that he gained extraordinary musical talent by selling his soul to the Devil at a crossroads. Though Johnson himself never made this claim, the myth endured and became a defining part of blues folklore.

Historians suggest the story may have originated with another blues musician, Tommy Johnson, yet the cultural impact remained the same. The legend reflects a deep suspicion of sudden success and the fear that greatness must come at an unbearable cost.

Crossroads Before the Devil

Long before Christian ideas of the Devil emerged, ancient cultures believed crossroads were ruled by gods and spirits. In ancient Greece, the goddess Hecate was closely associated with three-way intersections. She governed magic, ghosts, protection, and boundaries.

Offerings were left to Hecate at crossroads to ward off danger or gain favor. Importantly, she was neither wholly benevolent nor malevolent. Like many early deities, she represented forces that could help or harm depending on how they were approached.

Tricksters, Devils, and Broken Bargains

European folklore contains many stories of humans bargaining with supernatural beings and attempting to escape the consequences. Tales collected by the Brothers Grimm describe blacksmiths and tricksters who make deals with the Devil, only to outwit him through cleverness.

These stories often end ambiguously. Even when the Devil is defeated, the human character may be rejected by both Heaven and Hell, condemned to wander forever. Such endings reinforce the danger of existing between worlds without belonging to either.

Crossroads Across Cultures

The belief in crossroads spirits is not limited to Europe or North America. In Japan, road intersections often feature protective statues meant to guard travelers from harmful entities. Across Central and East Asia, stone markers and offerings appear along ancient trade routes.

Archaeological evidence shows that Neolithic cultures left votive offerings along paths and boundaries as early as 4000 BCE. These practices suggest that the sacred nature of crossroads predates written history.

Ritual Rules and Warnings

Traditional crossroads rituals often share common rules. They are performed at night, usually at midnight, in desolate locations. Offerings such as food or alcohol are left behind, and participants are warned not to look back as they leave.

Looking back symbolizes doubt or fear and appears as a forbidden act in many myths. These rules emphasize respect, caution, and the seriousness of interacting with forces beyond human control.

Why the Crossroads Still Frighten Us

Crossroads remain frightening because they represent moments of irreversible choice. To stand alone at an intersection in the dark is to confront uncertainty, vulnerability, and the temptation of shortcuts.

Whether viewed as metaphor, folklore, or spiritual belief, crossroads myths endure because they reflect universal human fears. They remind us that every path has a cost, and that some bargains, once made, cannot be undone.

Links from the Show

• Are Ouija Boards Real?
• Is Bloody Mary Real?
• What are Liminal Spaces and Why Do They Feel So Weird?
• Why are Graveyards SO Scary?
• Mothman and a Horrific Bridge Collapse
• The Legend of the Headless Horseman and Sleepy Hollow
• The History of the Boogeyman
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and the Wild Man Tradition

Watch & Listen to the Full Episode

Enjoy where the conversations of silly meet strange at the Wondering Monsters Podcast.

Watch on YouTube Watch on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Other Platforms

Licensing Information

• Title: Entry of the Gladiators
• Composer: Julius Fučík
• Library of Congress (Public Domain)
• Podcast theme song version edited/arranged/mixed by Dan Swift

Unless indicated, images appear in their original form.

Images were generated using AI from MyNinja.ai, NightCafe, lenso.ai, Gemini, or ChatGPT

Transcription

*Transcription was automatically generated and may contain errors.

(Music)

Baba: between worlds and doers between our world and boogie world, boogie world.

WDG: It's a boogie man's world. None.

Baba: It's a boogie man's world. Not the world. He doesn't like when you call it that.

Danny C: It's a man's life in a boogie world.

Baba: Stop that. Stop that. OK. Well, let's stop that. Let's talk about let's talk about crossroads. I've been thinking about heading down to one lately. You know, maybe you're getting some better outcomes. Maybe I can spin a deal. But a lot of the things that in the in the current world, you know, in this 21st century world. Smearing with this 20th and even 19th century world that seems to be, you know, we've got this smearing world, but the 20th 21st century, we think of like. Packed at the crossroads and especially the big one, probably at least for like the music people is selling your your soul at the crossroads to get some kind of good deal to get some kind of probably like a music skill or some other kind of skill from the man at the crossroads. And it's a we'll wind back the clocks pretty soon, but it starts with. At the this end of things. It starts in the future with Robert Johnson, the story of a supposedly mediocre musician, blues musician, Mississippi Delta.

WDG: I think he was a harmonica player originally before he was guitars like I'm a harmonica with other and wanted to play guitar, but wasn't very good and wasn't considered very good.

Baba: There you go. So and so at some point he did have a reputation for kind of like disappearing for a couple of weeks at a time and then being back again, according to some things I was reading on. And so he shows up and he's better than he was. And he made some had some kind of bit of a following and popularity growing. And so this story spreads sold his soul the devil at the crossroads. he himself didn't seem to have claimed that. And actually, it seems like most likely his association with that besides his song Crossroads Blues or Crossroad Blues is actually associated with another blues musician called Tommy Johnson, who was around just just a few years before and outlived Robert Johnson. Robert Johnson falls into that famous 27 Club of musicians that died at 27. And the things associated with those musicians. See, we got Janice Joplin and Morrison and Kurt Cobain and you got a bunch of others in there, a bunch of others in there that people can

WDG: also add them against the musicians who didn't die. So don't

Baba: ruin the story. Yeah, well, is there some really good musicians that lasted a while? Is there any more that you didn't have? Until 83 or something.

WDG: Yeah, it's like, yeah. Is it? I wonder, is Jack Jones said the origin of that sort of 27 idea, like, is that like it's like, is it to kind of start with him? You know, possibly because of the whole, I sold my soul to the devil. So like the kind of like young star burns out. And then we just like start pattern recognition. Anyone else who's a young star who has a really they must have been part of that same formula. Yeah. Yeah.

Baba: So but actually a lot of the stories of the devil and selling your soul to the devil, not necessarily at a crossroads, he gets around. Actually, oftentimes that particularly in the Grimm's telling, the person tricks the devil out of the thing in the end. I'll go into the story now. This is not technically a crossroad story, but we'll go back into that. Because what would this be if we didn't first go into a tangent of only somewhat related things? So we have the the devil and the blacksmith the Grimm's fairy tales Now, the Brothers Grimm were collectors. They were collectors of fairy fairy and folk tales. And this one may even have its roots in bronze age stories based on philologists and language experts and things that kind of trace these things back and say, where the hell did it come from? So this might actually be from bronze age telling. But the story goes like this in the Brothers Grimm collection, something like this, because there are variations and you've got. So there's a blacksmith living it up, making lots of money and living the pleasures of the world. Enjoying himself. And he's running out of money and decides he's going to he's going to do himself in, as it were, and he goes to the woods with our rope and a plan. And there he meets in this liminal space. So it's not completely unrelated in this liminal space of the woods. This old man, the devil. And the devil says. Why looking so long, rope carrying man? And he's like, I'm out of dough and about to wrap this up. And so devil says, well, hold on, I can make a deal. I've got this book here. And if you write your name in the book, I will give you 10 years of good life. And then at the end of it, I'm going to come and snatch you up. Like in the deal. And so he says, well, how do I know you're really this guy? And the devil says, I can make myself as big as a. I think it's a fir tree or something in as small as a mouse. And the guy says, well, can you give me a little demo? And so the devil does it. And so the guy's like, that sounds pretty good. Let me write my name in the book. I was probably coming to see you anyway. So he writes his name in the book and the devil's like, cool. See you in a while. And so he checks on it. So the guy goes back to his shop and he's got all his money coming out of everywhere in his face so he can spend it. That money's just coming in and he's living it up like he never did before because now he's really got no worries except for what happens in 10 years. And at some point along the line, the devil shows up and see how he's doing. He's like, hey, you're you're living it up pretty good. I'll tell you what, you're doing so well. I'm going to give you this little pouch and you can it's a magic pouch and you can lock up anybody in it that you want and then and only you will be able to release them and so on and so forth. And the guy has some good fun with that and sometimes going by and 10 years is coming. And and this is where there are some some variations on it. But but basically it goes like this. So either the devil shows up to collect them and he says, here he goes and he meets him in the woods where he or whatever, where he was supposed to meet him. And so he goes and the devil shows up and he says, hey, I'm here for the deal. And the guy says, hey, I just want to make sure you're still that guy. Can you still do the thing where you can grow real big or get small like a mouse? And he's like, yeah, sure. Boom, boom. And when he's the size of a mouse, he throws him in the pouch. And says. Not so busy, son of a bitch. I got you now. And he gets he beats the devil with a stick until the devil agrees to let him out of the bargain. OK, that's one version of it. OK, and there are versions where he decides the guy decides, oh, geez, at this point. I have to. So eventually the guy dies. This is how the variations the guy dies and then he won't get let into heaven because he's been consorting with the devil and he won't get into the devil into hell because the devil knows he's a son of a bitch troublemaker and doesn't want to turn in hell upside down. And so no one will have him. And so he goes and he's he's asked people to bury him with a hammer and some nails when he because he has this plan when he dies and he knocks on the gates of hell. And when a demon comes out, he nails him to the gate and another one comes out and he nails him to the gate. And the devil sees what he's doing. And he's like, screw this. I'm going to St. Peter and tell him to let me in, let this guy in. I can't have this going on. And so so he strikes a deal and he gets into heaven or or there's another one where he sneaks into heaven by meeting another traveler that was on the way to heaven and he throws a hammer to jam open the doors. And anyway, you got this trickster character that that gets away with not paying. By the way, any of you that are considering this, I would not advise making a deal with the spirit and then not paying. Anyway, let's get back to the crossroad. Typically backfires. Typically backfires. Yeah, those stories are probably just devil's propaganda to to get you to try your luck. But yes, so so that the crossroads thing is old. And I mentioned, of course, this. The Grimm's fairy tales story might might be a latest version of a Bronze Age tale. That's pretty old. The Ten Commandments, the so-called Ten Commandments that go back to their Bronze Age things, you know, so it's old. Yeah. So we've got this idea of the crossroads as this this place where you can meet spirits and eventually, you know, to early 20th century blues musicians selling their souls to gain skills. So this is old. It goes back, you know, and you have you've got the Hesseid, I believe the in his Theogony talks about Hecate. This is eighth century BCE. So, you know, a ways back, Hecate being the controller of the the heavens and the sea and the earth, these this three way crossroads. And so she's probably one of the oldest the crossroads deities we know about. Hecate is associated with witches, some of the coolest beings in the world, witches and and also with with making deals and and and things like that. She's in charge of sometimes spirits and things, you know, and even till today is is invoked by by witchy folk for her.

WDG: And she also is like, it's very interesting to understand like that type of like in the Greek crossroads kind of thing, it's more for like sort of like protection or blessing or something like that, like, like basically, like, yeah, you will leave stuff at night specifically, I guess, at the right at the crossroads for.

Baba: Yeah.

WDG: Yeah. And it was like, because like, she is like one of these like, free Olympian gods, you know, gods like like, so it's like kind of goes back to like the more tribal earlier versions of the Greeks, like not as much. Yeah. And it's like, so there's this kind of like, you know, it's more of that, like more folk magic versus like later on, like Hellenistic, you know, type of worship of like the Olympian gods or whatever her like order and stuff. And she's more in that like chaos underworld.

Baba: Yeah, like one of these older gods that doesn't really get talked about too much. In the, so we're, we're, yeah, we're used to like the Olympian gods. So like, when I talk about the Greek one, you got Zeus and, and Hera and, and Aphrodite and all these characters, we're familiar with these. Before them, there were the Titans. So you've got Cronos, the eater of time, the god of time. He's in the Roman world, he's Saturn. But it's the, this old man of time. And, and he, he keeps eating the gods. As long as he keeps eating them, the gods can't be born until he gets tricked. And given a stone instead of the gods and Zeus gets hidden away. And then later on, Zeus comes out and kicks Cronos, nobody's business right in the gods and he throws up all the gods fully born and into the world. And then different tales. Maybe Zeus kills Cronos, maybe Cronos has to wander forever. Again, these aren't necessarily like, I think like and kind

WDG: of with the, with with, isn't with like, take like you don't, it's not like, it's not like she's not there to make like devilish deals. It's more just like, I need protection from my house or I need, I need protection for my family or I mean, it doesn't mean like, it's like, like all of the older like deities of those like underworld deities, they're more chaotic, but like she's not like, it's not like, it's not like some more level of like drag you to hell kind of deal with yourself.

Baba: Right. And in fact, for a long time, a lot of these entities, these threshold deities and gods and things, they're like, they're kind of these like borderland things that are not good, good, they're not bad, bad. They're just kind of these entities with their own agendas and their own ideas. And you can pit them against each other. You can, I mean, it's it's they don't all get along. You know, it's only later on that we've got this like, I mean, even the devil, which we'll have to talk about the devil, the Christian devil, you know, for a long time, the devil's kind of just in charge of the world. And if you have to get things done here among the people, you kind of have to make a deal with the devil, even if you are a Christian. And there's not like hardcore rules. They get cleaned up over time. The rules that things get tightened over time and just not allowed to do things for a while. You know, but but actually the difference between like what's magic and what's prayer and that stuff gets worked out over time. I mean, the devil gets designed over time and you have certain leaps in R&D like during the Black or the I mix my plagues up. That's all right.

WDG: During various plagues. You'd be like like the Black Death, like the medieval Black Death.

Baba: Yeah, like the one that wiped out like the huge percentage of European population. But the devil gets very popular the world's scary and you can kind of scare people into cooperating. You know, we talked about. Belsnickel and stuff like that, you know, Belsnickel in the Bigfoot, our first year Bigfoot episode, Belsnickel is associated with Bigfoot, but also associated with Santa Claus, Hecate was associated with the three way crossways and the threshold. And if you think about what the heck is a threshold and why do we care about them? You want to think back to you're leaving your town to travel to somewhere because where do you encounter crossroads? I mean, sure, in cities and things, you'll encounter them within major parts of the city and as cities get more advanced, you know, crossroads mean different things. But if you're traveling out and you're finding major roads out there somewhere, one leads somewhere and one leads somewhere else. And depending which one you go and might not be marked, not necessarily street signs all the time, you might wind up far from your destination. So a crossroads is a perilous place. Plus, you're out somewhere where there are like animals. Nonhuman animals and they could get you. It's dangerous out there. This time of year is a spooky time of year, starting with like Halloween and going straight through the winter to epiphany or the three kings also are associated with the three three way crossroads and and with with magic and things. They're a cool one we talk about at some point. They're not necessarily scary. They're like they're gift giving spirits in the later traditions. And so you can make offerings to the three kings and a three way crossway. Now, at this point, you might actually be able to make some kind of deal with with Hecate. Give it a go. There's lots of information out there on it. See, if the witch hunts do come back, I'm in big trouble. I'm always recommending that people do these things. Call up Bloody Mary. What could go wrong?

WDG: From my understanding, it doesn't even seem like the Greek thing is actually even an influence on the European like ideas or then the American traditions, which seem to be like also potentially like Christianized African traditions, you know, like in things like that. So there's like this kind of weird thing of like, and then they're like. Even in my place, like Japan has big things about crossroad intersections and road intersections and often have like. That's where like you know, like spirits might be or you know, it's like you're outside like you said, like outside the your village or on a trail like you'll often have like. What's the issue they will put there and people will leave like offerings and stuff. The like. I think like would but eventually become like I think like Buddhist is like the. Mongolian like stone road markers, I think they're like oomph or oomph is like the other. I think it's like things also like things along the Silk Road and stuff like that, like things where you know, like no, like, you know, people will leave stones and pile them up there. And it's like it's really like people do that things even now, like on like hiking trails and things, you know, like they'll put like. So there's this kind of weird like and then sometimes I mean rituals or offerings later on that would be like around those things for like travel and stuff, but it's like but it is kind of like this get weird like. It kind of. And then the cultural stuff some some of it gets darker or some of it gets more ritualistic but it's like. But there's always this thing like seemingly around you know like crossroads like threshold spirit like very, very similar to like. You know, like like the boogeyman thing like it's just like this old since we started traveling and trading outside of our. Regions I guess like these areas have become like you know. Kind of like important points you know yeah look and then they start getting like weirder you know.

Baba: Well, and it seems like you can even go back to again now this is not this is not a crossroads packed what I'm about to say but like neolithic burials. 4000 BCE or so and there you do start to see what they call these votive. deposit votive deposits votive deposits is weapons and jewelry and food and pottery and things like left at certain things that are these thresholds and sometimes roads and not talking about paved roads at that point, you know, but but traveled roads. So you start to see this this kind of this. Association so I think what I'm getting at with this and I think this ties in is that there's there is a long held association with thresholds being special. With things that are. Either both one thing or neither one thing nor another being special. And so and that goes through from these neolithic burials all the way to bloody Mary. Well. The boogeyman anyway, you could you could make an argument about whether bloody Mary's a threshold spirit only if you can travel into another world via the mirror, I guess, but kind of I guess I kind of a it's like a phone. It's like a video.

Danny C: Well, remember the stories alleges that she can come out of the mirror. She can come out of the mirror.

Baba: That's right. So that would make it a threshold. Yeah, so. But but that's something that we've often. I mean, it's come up a good few times on here. And actually, when you get into. so the first pacts deals with things at the crossroads. That we know of. In writing go back to the the PGM or the Greek magical papyri You can correct me on my Latin people in the comments, please interact. Any Latin scholars out there. Yeah, so. The Greek magical papyri. Do give information on. Making deals at desolate crossroads at midnight. Offering sometimes a black puppy. And at this point, you do have references to hack a day and Hermes Hermes being the other big Greek crossroads. Deity. Most people in the West are more familiar with. The Roman version of Hermes, which is mercury. And they're familiar with that because that's the thing that goes into retrograde. That's everything up. But Hermes is governs machines and travel and communication. We'll come back to that communication and the threshold things when we get back into the new world. Showings up of the crossroads stuff. We'll talk more about that. So but the Greek magical papyri. Yeah, you're doing it to get. Skills and things like that. And you're talking about. Fifth century BCE, second century BCE, perhaps. That this stuff's being scratched down. And continuing after that, because there was a Greco-Egyptian tradition that. Just flourished in. Thebes and things like that in northern Africa. And then just spread, you know, the way things do throughout empires, they just kind of spread around. So that obviously the Romans were influenced by the Greeks. In the sense that they took a lot of their stuff and just rebranded it. But yeah. You know, but you want to say something there.

WDG: I was going to say, like, with the thing with like. The offering, right? Is because like dogs are like sort of her symbol like that. It's like to and dogs also act disease like. I couldn't track the sound. I thought it said, I thought there was something that like that also might have come actually out of like more out of Egypt, you know, like the dogs being, you know, back and forth like travelers between the like between worlds. So like the guard houses, the things that they were doing. Like between worlds. So like the guard houses, things like that. But also like guide you other, you know, to like to the underworld or to. Yeah. Yeah. So they so they can kind of bounce like back and forth almost. And because they're not like, again, they have this like dogs to be menacing or dogs could be friendly like dogs could be, you know, it's like, you know, they they're they're like vigilant. And sometimes like later on, they become like guardians of spaces that are like, oh, like you're not supposed to get to like, yeah.

Baba: Well, yeah. And dogs, yeah, they're like long associated with death. Definitely a threshold and and tombs and things like that, probably because largely scavengers and left to their own devices and. You can read it. And so, yeah, you wind up with dogs around burial sites and things like that. And probably the association of Anubis, Anubis is a jackal, you know, but is the the the jackal headed deity and sometimes just a jackal shaped deity of the Egyptians. And yeah, I'm just leaving it as just Egyptians like it was all one thing and didn't change over many, many, many, many, many, many. Years, but whatever. So, but yeah, and and and it's unclear. I mean, you've got a lot of smearing of stuff when you've got ancient world things because. What came from Egypt, what that was in Egypt came from Babylon or Sumer or and what from there was imported. From what we would call like India or I mean, lots of things just kind of move around. And sometimes you've got things that just like show up like fully formed. And then you've got things that like are kind of like I mentioned, the devil kind of gets like rebranded, reworked, retooled and tightened over time. You know, it's that way with a lot of this stuff too, all the way down to. Contemporary Western magic practices or who do practices and those things smear together because when we learn about each other, we just tend to smear everything together. And yeah, let's let's talk about let's talk about who do because that's that's where so if you get into blues music. You're going to run into who do a lot. A lot, particularly the traditional, you know, I mean, let's talk about like the Mississippi, Mississippi Delta blues artists you've got flourishing of do you look like you want to say something there, Dan?

Danny C: I do, I do. So I know within the country here, blues generally has its fruits down south, like you're saying, Louisiana. What about prior to that? Where is it? Is it Africa? Is it where does it come from? Does anyone does anyone know they would research out at all? I'm just curious.

Baba: Not not specifically. I mean, I've I've heard of certain patterns and things like that may be going back various to various call and response type things that were more more probably part of a.

WDG: Brother like African soul like, you know, basically African spiritual music, like, you know, that kind of import it, you know, and like, yeah, that's. That that's probably like the closest relative from somewhere like what would have been, you know, like end up here, you know, so yeah.

Baba: Which then also became the basis of some of the coolest rock music. Obviously, yeah. Blues is worth getting into people. It's not sad. It's not sad. People that don't know blues are like blues is sad. It's like, not really. It might be it might be thought of as more like gallows humor or something like that. You know, it's like because there's still like a kind of a there is kind of a humor to it, you know, like check out a waters and garbage man blues.

WDG: what would be like the modern, you version of this like, the 21st century version, you know, of that and like, Yeah, so like selling your soul so you can, I don't know, like, have good in stock investments.

Baba: be a big influencer. Yeah.

WDG: Yeah.

Baba: the time you've gotten to the point where you might be selling your soul or making some other kind of deal with people don't sell your soul, can probably get away for much cheaper. Today's takeaway whiskey is a pretty good like rum is a pretty good option. if you've gotten to the point where you're going to make a pact with a spirit or something like that in order to get good at and actually we might be entering those times again. We know professional strategy really works because you can't get ahead of algorithms and things like that. Maybe this is a good strategy. There I go again. I'm just burning myself at the stake. in my opinion, you got to think more like an artist than a scientist. It's not which one is the right one. It's which one feels like the right one. And you probably don't you don't want to be lazy about it. Pick something that resonates and and it could be. I mean, I've like back roads ones are pretty decent if if you're they're not being dwelled by suburban police. You know, wondering why you're pouring out rum in the middle of an intersection or whatever.

Danny C: But hold on for one second.

Baba: So when open container laws things.

Danny C: Yeah. When it comes to the crossroads, essentially any crossroad will do any intersection. I can like walk in my neighborhood and whatever or the doorway between my house in the backyard or something like that. What if I wanted to do something at the crossroads? Is it legit like anywhere where one space begins and the other one ends?

Baba: You'll get argument on this just like you'll get argument on art, you know, which that's the right way to do it. Because I'm sure if any magic practitioners are listening to this, they're already shaking their fist at me. And some of them are like, no, totally right. Which one of you put in the comments? Yeah, which one are you?

WDG: Yeah. Well, that's what I'm trying to get to get out. Like it's like this kind of like, you know, we have this like, you know, difference between like, you know, extremely rural early 20th century, you know, like Mississippi or whatever versus like, just like super urbanized highway. Like urban sprawl that we most of us live in.

Baba: Or like a crossroads, like intersecting paths in an abandoned mall. I might argue that.

WDG: That might be a good one. Some kind of hot topic demon.

Baba: It's trying to get money. You're trying to be an influencer, go to a mall. An abandoned mall. An abandoned mall. And where you've got these neglected spirits of commerce.

WDG: Still have the science. Ancient spirits of commerce.

Danny C: Are they bound to that space? Is that one of the rules? Are they kidding?

WDG: It's like, rules are a little wiggly when you get to this stuff. A bad idea of a tropic boutique, like former GameStop, please. If

Baba: you can find, yeah, like see if you can find an intersection in a mall where two businesses exist. My language just falls apart when I do these things. I can't speak. I'm a hypnotist. I can speak, but I just forget how to and I've been talking to these two. You keep interrupting each other. You just approximate language after a second. I've

Danny C: got to interrupt for a second. I got to interrupt. So recently I updated the, or I edited the Headless Horseman episode. believe it was in that one or Mothman where you talk about things getting gone. So that is still fresh in my head. So with these two businesses get gone. Yeah.

Baba: So some of that got gone. Find ones that were successful in their hey day and are now just of the past. But they might be. Increasingly so it's only going to be seven companies and there's not going to be anything physical left. But then what do you do about Crossroads? Then you got to look up William Gibson. The one that had our buddy Papa Legba and we'll be coming back.

WDG: I was going to say, do you go to the abandoned, what was it like, early virtual reality slash things like, I don't know, like second life or something? You go there. It's like, ah, interesting.

Baba: Earlier versions of the still emerging real matrix.

WDG: Some kind of like abandoned part of like World of Warcraft or something.

Baba: So the PTM, the Greek magical papyri say, desolate, somewhere desolate. So yeah, actually, Second Life. They used to have. I mean, you probably could have if you're trying to be an influencer and still have. I mean, I think AOL finally shut down its dial up.

WDG: Thing what could argue that Facebook would be desolate. Twitter might also be a place where demons.

Baba: I mean, they're both definitely soulless. So you'd have. But if they're soulless, are they soulless? I don't know.

Danny C: Go ahead. I don't want to kind of change directions completely. That's what crossroads are good for. So and I don't know if you had if you're planning on getting to this in the near future, but I'm going to go. I'm going to detour down this road. So if someone wants to go to the crossroads and make some kind of deal, which we highly advise against, especially any kind of going back on your word, you know, what is the way to go about doing that? You find the desolate area. I'm assuming you need some kind of offering to to talk to the spirit to communicate on your behalf. How does that all work? OK,

Baba: so you can give a physical offering. You can give a promise offering. What seems to be a recommended practice, recommended good practice is to give a physical offering. But OK, so first, you're going to decide who you're making an offering to. If you're already working with some kind of a spirit, you're going to decide who you're making an offering to. If you're already working with some kind of a spirit, they're probably a good one and that they seem to be, you know, you got a good relationship with them. They're probably not a bad one. The devil of the crossroads is probably not the Christian devil, but, you know, once again, see previous notes on art and figuring it out, you know. But there's the devil at the crossroads. And basically, the practice is you go to the crossroads, you say what you want, you say what the terms are, you make an offer. You deliver on the offer or part of the offer. I'll come back to that in a second. And then you walk away from the crossroads, what you left of the offering or the offering in general, and you do not look back. That's a popular thing you'll encounter. Don't look back. Just keep on trucking. You hear noises and things behind you. Keep on trucking. Just don't look back. What

Danny C: happens in the event that before the offering. No, no, no. So what happens if someone else happens to see the offering and they take it? What does that do? Does that do anything?

Baba: Okay, so first of all, if that happens, it's not on you. It's not on you. If you are that person, a moron. Don't do that. People, if you see something that looks like an offering or shrine on the road, don't assume somebody left you a snack or a beverage. It's not for you. Don't do it. What if it is for you? It's totally your fault, whatever happens.

WDG: If you're the devil, this is his free.

Baba: If you're a spirit and you're just not sure. I don't know. I guess ask somebody else. Is there somebody that knows what's going on on that side?

WDG: I think most people on this side would pick up, you know, like a random, like, I don't know, be weird to pick up like random bottle of something laying on the road.

Baba: But if you're like wasted and you see a bottle of rum sitting at a crossroads and you're just like, yo.

WDG: How did you want it? Yeah, right. What are you doing? this is a weird thing. Like maybe like let's go back into like, I guess like now we're getting into threshold rules, right? Like we have ghost rules and threshold rules. So, yeah, like super cut segments. I saw something and like you might be able to correct me on this with the tag tag thing that the crossroads actually has to be like a three way crossroads.

Baba: Yeah.

WDG: Like it's not just a four way like intersection. It's got to be like where three roads meet because it's like something about like she has like three faces or three. So so that like so that could narrow it down because like where do you find like a three way crossroads?

Baba: probably encounter that at the edge of right when you were leaving your town or city because you've got like probably like a ring of road that probably goes around the outer perimeter. And then you've got whatever led up to it. Yeah.

WDG: And then you're like walking out of the main street of your town and you hit like this thing. So like the little streets in your town wouldn't really be crossroads. They'd just be like little alleys and things versus like the big area outside of like. Yeah. So that's.

Baba: And if you go outside of the town, is it also is it still a road maybe, you know, but yeah, but the three way thing is the the thing with with Hacketay and like that with the three kings and. Some others don't really specify what kinds of crossroads. to think of it as as the four way or the you know, a cross, an actual cross where. Right.

WDG: Right.

Baba: Yeah.

WDG: you're going back to ghost rules. There's something about like people burying people out by crossroads. There's like if they're like malicious spirits or like they're criminals or they committed suicide or something. So that's the way their spirits can't find their way back into town. Like they get lost there. Interesting. You know, so it's another like like sort of like where the crossroads and the ghost rules kind of meet up in a sense like like it's like kind of the opposite of like finding someone's thing rebury them so their spirit stops haunting. You're like, getting them out there because you know their spirits going to haunt something. So you're putting them somewhere to keep them like trapped essentially.

Baba: You know, like. Now there are certain traditions around the crossroads specifically when it comes to Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve and things like that where you can wait out. There's a belief this is a Scottish one that deals with a three legged stool and a three way crossroads. So you take a three legged stool to a three way crossroads. And if you sit there, I believe it's at midnight. Threshold right. It's neither one day nor the other. It's halfway between as of both. And again, if you go to the Greek magical papyri, you've got the the midnight thing for meeting at the crossroads. It's the threshold thing. It's this old tradition. And if you sit there with a three legged stool, you will hear the names of the people that will die in the next year. Yeah. Like what? And that's the thing. Like it's this weird kind of

WDG: or you're like Bob. Yeah. OK.

Danny C: People, you know, that are going to die. That's a huge list.

Baba: I don't even know who that is. You got some time. Yeah.

WDG: And they all overlap. You just like me.

Baba: Oh, damn it. Could you go back? You're

WDG: like, like, yeah, that guy, he had it coming. All right. Oh, shoot. Yeah. Like that doesn't sound like it's a really depressed thing to do on a deer.

Baba: You might be doing it to make some bets in the next year, you know.

WDG: Yeah.

Baba: Yeah. Yeah. It's so that's one there. There are different ones like that where New Year's Eve or Christmas Eve, you can stay up. I think there are a couple of them around hearing the people that will die in the next year. And it seems to be a fascination. I don't know if you think about this time of year. A lot of people did die around this time of year because it's cold and you're sitting hard and you didn't make the right offering at a crossroads. You got eaten by wolves or, you know, now people use the crossroads for all kinds of things for that they'll use it for disposed because like that practices blend together. So now you've got Western style hermetic magicians being influenced by who do practitioners and vice versa. And so you'll have the dispose of your ritual stuff at a crossroads or things like that. And it's it's kind of become more of a general, more generalized practice in a lot of ways for

WDG: that dumping your ritual garbage at the crossroads.

Baba: Particularly I would say like if it's of the human sacrifice variety and abandoned crossroads. I hope so. Far away from where it's like yeah like I don't know. Lost Highways.

WDG: What about like a little bit about the circles I guess you know is that like,

Baba: I mean the circle is, it's a threshold. And you'll have debates among practitioners about whether you should use them or whether you're being a chicken. I'd recommend them. I'd draw some kind of circle. You don't have to be mean about it.

WDG: I'm in traffic circles. Like, like, you know, because they do have a crossroads.

Baba: If it's three, then that traffic circle is ruled by Hecate. If it's four, up for debate. If it's more than four, probably Discordia or Eris. Because of chaos. Yeah.

Danny C: Also, also probably means you're in New Jersey, which is a whole other bunch of stuff. Yeah.

Baba: Yeah. And then it's a toss up. It's a toss up. Could be the Jersey devil, depending, you know.

WDG: I didn't think he was that concerned with with entering and exiting.

Baba: It's more keeping people from entering. It's like, stay out of the bind, Barons, you bastards. Yeah. I'll sour your milk. back to the offerings thing at the crossroads. A good practice seems to be you give part of the offering now and the rest of it later. Ten percent, 90 percent is probably fine. Well, after they deliver, if they don't deliver, don't give them the rest of it. You know. Yeah. So say, oh, here is a tenth of a bottle of rum. When you deliver the rest of it, I'll come back and deliver the rest of this. You don't deliver. You don't get it.

Danny C: So when it comes to the offering, does that matter what type of thing you you give? Can it be literally anything? Does certain things do certain things out of implications over others? How does that work?

Baba: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. If you're being a chaos magician, which you probably are, if you're taking my advice on this. Otherwise, you probably have a tradition or advice to lean on besides this this clown on this particular podcast. Yeah. I mean, like food and stuff is old school. The the oldest offerings probably were food and and were probably offered to the ancestral dead before deities and things. I can't prove it because that was older than writing to. And so but you've got. So, yeah, I mean, I would say. Research, if you're working with a particular spirit. I would say you're you're you research what they like and leave what they like. If you're going to for the devil at the crossroads or just a general spirit. Probably should see the episode on Ouija board for that. Don't just ask for general spirits. You're probably fine with whiskey. Whiskey is probably a good a good offering. Most most. Yeah, I think you're probably good with whiskey whiskey and and rum rum

WDG: so should we start going through giving our ratings on crossroad or should we have like a specific way we want to go about? Do we get or is there some more we have before you wrap up? Like what do we got?

Danny C: I think

Baba: we probably we've probably covered enough of the of the basic the basic stuff. Let me let me talk about are they are they scary and things like that? Are spirit packs scary? I mean, we could we could do that. Are you are you in risk?

WDG: Should we do a specific like just a general protection like old school crossroads or like straight up like sell your soul to the devil to get something good crossroads? You know, like that's I'm

Baba: kind of leaning towards the second one because the first one isn't that scary.

WDG: Right. Right. Like so that's what I'm saying when we go into the thinking about like, you know, let's just assume, you know, like.

Baba: Yeah, you know what? Let's go with that. Let's we're going with the second one. OK. And I'm going to say got to be desolate. It's got to be desolate. You can't just you're also less likely to get arrested. Yeah, it's got to be desolate. Less likely. Remember, you can't just go into abandoned malls, people. Not usually.

WDG: Well, I mean, some abandoned malls, which I think are most malls, you know, so.

Baba: I mean, if you're the lone security guard an abandoned mall whatever at night. our person.

WDG: You may be.

Baba: Let us know how it goes. Yeah. I'm not a security guard anymore. I'm freaking rich. yeah, I think in desolate, actually, I think anywhere desolate is scary. We are doing this kind of thing and I do this kind of thing. So like, like if you're if you're up at night and no one's around, you don't even have to be at a crossroads for it to be scary if you're calling into the dark for a spirit. It's also one of the things that makes it fun. I want you to take it seriously, you know, but I mean, we talked before, particularly actually, Bill, you caught us on the boogeyman thing and like, yeah, yeah. But what do you do at night if the closet's open? You might say you're not scared of it. But what do you do when the when the rubber meets the road? So, yeah, I think they can actually be quite quite scary. And to tell you the truth, I think that is probably an indication that is going to go well for you. If you made a smart deal, which again, you know, the 90, 10, 10, 90, that's a good deal. You could do 50 50 if you're feeling a little a little more confident. But I think it's quite scary. I would give it because the actual experience, I'd say I'd give it a solid for. I'd give it four and a half. I'd give it four and a half because when you're actually there doing the thing, it's it's much more this kind of stuff can be much more scary than it than it seems in theory, especially if you're there by yourself, because like there are like human threats and things too. Like we talked about with like liminal spaces and things. But but I just think even just from the. Speak. Yeah, it's a. Yeah, I'm sticking there. Four and a half. What do you guys think?

WDG: going out by yourself into a desolate. Like abandoned, whatever at midnight, it's probably already going to be like kind of scary. Now, assuming like let's just let's just take the premise that you can sell your soul off like that you believe in such a thing and you can do it. That would be kind of scary. And if that's weird, if you're already going there, you must already believe that. So I think that because otherwise you would just be like, well, this is just nonsense. Why am I going to do this anyway? Like this is like, but it'd be like, like you said, going out, putting yourself in danger, like things like that. So if you believe that already, you're already there, you decide it. There's some kind of thing you need that's more important than your immortal soul. So yeah, I think I think a four, definitely a solid four on the would be a pretty scary thing. Oh, and then you get to meet like, you know, some variant of the devil or a devil or demon, something that's going to impart this. Power or wealth or something on you. Yeah, that's probably pretty, pretty frightening. And it's a yeah, because it's not just being like chased down, say by like a specter or something like that. And ultimately nothing good comes out of it. Because even if you get out of the pact somehow, seemingly it doesn't. Now you're like, I don't know, like I like you said, Beth, like the Grim's Fairy Tail, you're kind of doomed to like wander. You know, in a liminal space for eternity or something. So it's still like some kind of like, so something bad comes out of it anyway.

Baba: If it's a soul pact.

WDG: Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. So just like that idea of like the devil, like, yeah, some kind of something like that, because I mean, usually that's what they want, right? Like your soul, like, you know, that you do something for something like that, you know, it's like, because what else would they otherwise it's like your soul's

Baba: iron is valuable due to inflation.

WDG: Yeah, there's a lot more of them, I guess, but it's like, if not, then you're entering probably into some kind of, I'm sure you're entering some kind of dark pact, right? Which means like, you're gonna have to do something of negative consequence, right? Like to like get the thing, right? Like, you know, it's like, like, it's not just like, you know, there's some kind of debt, right? Like that. So, so if, but even though, so like that's, yeah, so I'll give it a four. I'll leave it at that. Yeah, yeah. I think that's pretty scary, you know? So

Danny C: before I give my rating, I need clarity. Sure. So I was under the impression that it was a quid pro quo based on what you left behind. So if I leave a bottle of rum, and I'm asking to be whatever or get whatever, it's quid pro quo. Now is the soul always involved? Like, it was, how does, how does that tie in?

Baba: Now that's how the deal, the deal works. You say I'm going to give you this in return for this. So I'm going to give you bottle of, I'm going to give you a bottle of rum in return for a high paying fully remote

WDG: But if it's a good for you, I give you a bottle of rum for the whatever the monetary equivalent is of that.

Baba: That's just a terrible deal because you had to walk there too. You should get paid for it. You had to extend risk, you know?

Danny C: Okay, all right. So you're not losing your soul unless you specifically say each offer.

WDG: But if you want the really big thing though, right? Like you want the, like the, like,

Baba: First of all, don't do this unless you want something big. There's easier magic for small things. If you go get a devil at the crossroads because like, I don't know. I don't know for, you know, to get good parking or something like that.

WDG: A 2% cost of living increase.

Danny C: All right. So if that's the, if I'm understanding this correctly, then I'm actually rating this kind of low. I'm giving this like a one and a half. To me, it seems like the rewards vastly outweigh the risks. You know, I take my bottle of rum with me. I go to the crossroads. I leave it behind. I turn around. I walk away. I don't look back. There from what we talked about doesn't seem like if it's unhappy with the offering, it'll attack me or steal me or my soul or anything like so. Seems like I really have nothing to lose. I give it a shot. Worst case scenario, I lose my time, my mileage pay and, you know, my rum. So for me, I'm rating this low. It reminds me of the Mothman. I rated the Mothman kind of low too because of the same idea. It's like the Mothman generally doesn't attack people. You know, your car, yes, but people know. So I'm giving this to not scary at all. I think lots of rewards to be there. Minimal risk.

Baba: All right. So let's let's raise it a little bit. OK, it's an offering of of rum. But it's like a real cop hobby town. Is it scary now?

Danny C: Now, now. So I open your data laws. What do you need? Does it have to be scary? So, OK, do I have to pour the.

Baba: If you give them the whole bottle of rum now, you just got to take it and might not deliver on the promise.

WDG: Haven't you worked with spirits? But it was so like, like to me, but it's a spirit dealing with a low level like because like before you said bottle of rum for back in the day is worth a ton because it's so rare. Like right now, the spirit of like you got better leave like a case of rum or like something better be something like like fairly expensive or one of those like bottles of whiskey. That's like, you know, you have to win in an auction and leave.

Baba: But like the thing is with the spirit, how the hell else are you going to get it? You know, and that's the thing. How the hell else are you going to get it? But yeah, it's because I mean, you can you can make offerings of all kinds of things. You can literally pour water. You get in a weird stuff, you can pour water and call it rum. That's just that's weird. So but yeah, I mean, it's actually funny little thing. Who do okay. They used to that. So there's a thing called feeding a mojo bag. You feed it a certain thing to keep it empowered a mojo bag is a little bag that contains a bunch of material for for achieving a certain goal. And it's like it's like I thought of almost like a living thing and you feed it either a certain type of whiskey or something in order to keep it going. Oftentimes it's whiskey. But when prohibition was going on, there was a thing called hoitzkollon that came into existence or might have pre-existed it. But it became these little little bottles like this. Hold up a little bottle for those of you missing out on the YouTube. The hoitzkollon becomes the new way of feeding the mojo because you couldn't really get whiskey or like not easily. And maybe if you did, like you weren't like going to be like pouring it on your little bags. It was really hard to get. But yeah. So so yeah, so it's weird. Like what counts at what time? Because there's also just a thing of like, well, at this point now there's so much of a story associated with the value of ramen things like that. Like the story, the symbolic value of the thing for the story purpose almost has more weight than how much it actually costs in currency. Because it's like a bottle of rum is completely out of reach. It's completely in the grips of this ridiculously wealthy class. to give an offering like this, so that's what that symbol is. Something that was like, it's like a I don't want to say kingly drink because I just despise the people that ran that industry so much. But you know, but it's like that. It's like the the class of the ruling classes, special super thing that's then being offered to a spirit because it's like the best thing out there. Like now it might be like, I mean, if you really could do like, like, I don't know, like Johnny Walker Blue or something like that. Like that.

WDG: Like steal a McLaren and drive it to the crossroads and leave it there.

Danny C: Yeah, it's like Peter Griffin style.

Baba: It's like it's like blood sacrifices are considered valuable and things. It's like it's like stuff that's not offered to spirits and things very often. And it seems like there's some there's kind of a rule about like you kind of have to ask them to participate in order for the deal to to initiate. So it's not like they're like, I'm just wandering around. I'm just going to grab a handle of whatever. Like it's like, no, no, no, like you have to ask them to to help in return for a thing. They don't just which is why it's like, well, they can give you the job. Why couldn't they just give themselves the rum? Well, it's like, well, because you kind of have to initiate the process,

Danny C: What do you want to add real quick? Anyone watching, listening, please take a second and write us a review on your favorite listening or watching platform. Really would appreciate that.

Baba: And if you don't think this particular thing is scary, (Music)