Hundreds of Japanese Samurai were secretly Christians in the 16th century

Feudal Japan introduced strict anti-Christian measures in the 16th century
But Samurai's still used sword guards with secret crucifixes and other symbols, the designs were uncovered in a study of ancient swords at a Japanese museum.

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Hundreds of Japanese Samurai may have been secret christians who expressed their faith with codes hidden in their sword hilts, researchers have found. The deadly warriors were banned from following religions after feudal Japan introduced strict anti-Christian measures in the 16th century.


But the devout swordsmen commissioned metalsmiths to produce sword guards with crucifixes and other symbols skillfully hidden in their sacred weapons.

Samurais were banned from following religions after feudal Japan introduced strict anti-Christian measures in the 16th century. But the devout swordsmen commissioned metalsmiths to produce sword guards with crucifixes and other symbols (pictured) hidden in their weapons photo: swins

The designs were uncovered in a review of ancient Samurai swords at the The Sawada Miki Kinenkan museum in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is extremely rare to find sword guards with hidden Christian symbols used after the adoption of anti-Christian policies,' a museum spokesman said.

'The findings indicate that they kept their deep faith despite persecution.'

Catholic missionaries originally brought the religion to the East around the mid-1500s. But after 40 years it was banned by military ruler Hideyoshi Toyotomi, who exiled the European missionaries and tortured and killed many Japanese Christians in 1596.

Historians suggest that this was a response to the gradual expansion of European power in eastern Asia. Those Catholics that weren't wiped out by the purge formed an underground religious network.
They disguised images of Jesus and Mary to look like Buddhas, and changed their prayers to sound like Buddhist chants. And the museum's swords indicate that around 50 Japanese Samurais also committed themselves to a life of covert religious beliefs.

The museum owns 367 swords but has been reviewing the artifacts since November last year.


Historians conducted painstaking tests to estimate when the weapons were created based on factors such as their designs, materials and techniques used to produce them.

Historians conducted painstaking tests to estimate when the weapons were created based on their designs, materials, and techniques used to produce them. They show crosses, crucifixes and religious symbols carefully concealed in the intricate designs (pictured) photo: swins

Yuhiko Nakanishi, chairman of nonprofit group Nihon Token Hozon Kai - a Japanese sword preservation association - said 48 sword hilts were identified as belonging to Christians.

The Japanese Christians forced to trample on Christ - BBC News

The weapons with hidden Christian symbols were dated to the Sengoku period (Warring States) period (1467-1568) and the 1600s after warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi rolled out his anti-Christian policies.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi - Wikipedia

They show crosses, crucifixes and religious symbols carefully concealed in the intricate designs. 

Nakanishi added: 'A characteristic of sword guards made after anti-Christian measures were taken is that Christians carefully hid crosses in their designs.


'We concluded the designs show the faith of hidden Christians.' 


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The discovery of a 5,000 year old stone raises a big question about the birth of Christianity

Researchers discovered 5,000-year-old rock art on the ceiling of a cave in the Egyptian Sahara desert. Credit: Marco Morelli

Italian researchers have discovered what might be the oldest nativity scene ever found — 5,000-year-old rock art that depicts a star in the east, a newborn between parents and two animals. The scene, painted in reddish-brown ochre, was found on the ceiling of a small cavity in the Egyptian Sahara desert, during an expedition to sites between the Nile valley and the Gilf Kebir Plateau.

"It's a very evocative scene which indeed resembles the Christmas nativity. But it predates it by some 3,000 years," geologist Marco Morelli, director of the Museum of Planetary Sciences in Prato, near Florence, Italy

Nativity of Jesus - Wikipedia

Morelli found the cave drawing in 2005, but only now his team has decided to reveal the amazing find. "The discovery has several implications as it raises new questions on the iconography of one of the more powerful Christian symbols," Morelli said.

The scene features a man, a woman missing the head because of a painting detachment, and a baby.

"It could have been interpreted as a normal depiction of a family, with the baby between the parents, but other details make this drawing unique," Morelli said.

He noted the newborn is drawn slightly above as if raising to the sky. Such a position, with the baby not yet between the parents, would have meant a birth or a pregnancy.

"As death was associated with Earth in contemporary rock art from the same area, it is likely that birth was linked to the sky," Morelli said.

The scene becomes more symbolically complex if the other figures, two animals and a small circular feature, are taken into consideration

On the upper part is a headless lion, a mythical beast that appears in several rock art drawings from the same area, while below in the scene a baboon or an anthropomorphic monkey can be seen.

In the east, the Neolithic artist drew what appears to be the star.

The researchers called the site the "Cave of the Parents."

"No doubt it's an intriguing drawing," Morelli said. "We didn't find similar scenes until the early Christian age."

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What happens to us when we die? Will we recognise ourselves? Will we be re-united with those who have gone before?

Illustration from Dante's ‘Inferno’, the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem ‘Divine Comedy’, depicting thieves tormented in hell by serpents. Engraving by Gustave Dore, 1885. (Photo by Stefano Bianchetti/Corbis via Getty Images)

Updated today 16/05/2020 

What happens to us when we die? Will we recognise ourselves? Will we be re-united with those who have gone before? Since the time of the ancient Greeks and Hebrews, people have searched for answers to these questions – and others – about the afterlife. Here, historian Philip Almond investigates.

Last Judgment - Wikiquote

Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest heavens; from Gustave Doré's illustrations to the Divine Comedy. image wikipedia

In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the Venerable Bede tells us of King Edwin of Northumbria, in the year AD 627, contemplating acceptance of the Christian faith and discussing it with his friends and counsellors. One of his chief men eloquently expressed our ignorance of our final destiny: he likened it to a sparrow flying into a lighted hall at one end and out at the other. 

While inside the hall, it is safe from the wintry tempest outside. But after a short time it disappears, “passing from winter into winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while,” he declared, “but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all”.

That we all die, we know. But of what may lie beyond our deaths we remain, like Edwin’s adviser, completely ignorant. And yet, since the time of the ancient Greeks and Hebrews, there has been a long and complex history of our imaginings about the afterlife, both after our individual deaths and after the end of history; a history of attempts to answer a series of perennial questions with which we have always grappled: Do we ‘survive’ death? 

Will we recognise ourselves? Will we be re-united with those we have left behind or those who have gone before? Will our actions in this life be punished or rewarded? Will we have an opportunity after death to make amends or change our ways? Will our lives continue immediately after death or do we have to wait for a final end to history? What kind of body might we have? Where will we be?

The last judgment photo: pinterest

For all we know, one, some, or none of these imaginings may be true. But whatever, the history of the afterlife is the history of our hopes that there will be something after death and of our fears that there will be nothing. And, granted that there is something rather than nothing, the history of the afterlife speaks to our dreams of eternal happiness, of our nightmares of eternal punishment, and of the myriad ways in which these have been inflicted over the centuries.

Heaven in Christianity - Wikipedia

Whether in Greece of the seventh century BC or in the ancient Israel of the same period, the fate of the dead was the same whether they were good or evil – a shadowy half-life in Hades beneath the Earth or its Hebrew equivalent Sheol. 

But by the time of the Christian era, there were two foundational narratives about the afterlife in western thought already weaving in and out of each other. In both cases, the vice or virtue of the deceased determined their fate. On the one hand, there was a narrative built around the anticipation that life will continue immediately after the death of each of us. At the point of death, it was thought, the soul will be weighed in the balance, be judged according to its virtue or vice and be sent to the bliss of Abraham’s Bosom (paradise) or be cast into the pit of Hades.

Papyrus from the 'Book of the Dead' depicting the weighing of souls. (Photo By DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

On the other hand, there was another narrative, one that was driven by the expectation that our eternal destinies would be finally determined, not at the time of death, but at that time when history ends – when this world will be no more and when Christ returns to judge both the living and the dead on the Day of Judgment. Early Christians were less interested in life immediately after death and more focused on the imminent expectation of the return of Jesus in judgment. And then, there will be only two possible destinations for us. For Christ will bid the blessed among us to enter an eternity of bliss in heaven and will throw the damned among us into the everlasting fires of hell. And of the latter there will be many more than the former.  

With these two narratives in place, the history of the afterlife within the west became the history of a constantly fluid series of negotiations, contestations and compromises between these two versions of our futures after death. The majority held to the necessity of both. As the Christian tradition gained in social prestige and political power, the expectation of the imminent return of Christ faded into the background and the emphasis fell on life immediately after death. For those socially, politically or economically disenfranchised, the expectation of the imminent return of Christ remained at the forefront. When Christ returned, the oppressed would then receive their reward and the wicked their eternal comeuppance. 

Giotto last judgement Pinterest-

But what of resurrected bodies? To the non-Christian Greek intellectual elite of the first four centuries AD, the notion of the resurrection of the body on the Day of Judgment was absurd. Thus, St Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) had to deal seriously with a set of questions that he believed rightly were intended by Christianity’s cultivated despisers to ridicule his faith. 

Would aborted foetuses rise from the dead? What would be the size of resurrected foetuses and children? Would the bodies of the monstrous, the disfigured and the deformed be made perfect? What was the fate of those devoured by beasts, consumed by fire, drowned, or eaten by cannibals? What gender would the resurrected be?

St Augustine of Hippo. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

How much of any individual was needed to reconstitute ‘him’ on the Last Day was a question with which Thomas Aquinas was grappling in the 13th century and Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry, was still wrestling in the 17th. Drawing on the biblical vision of the resurrection of the valley of bones (Ezekiel 37.1-14) and his own chemical experiments on the stable and long-lasting texture of bones, Boyle surmised that skeletal remains would ensure the identity of the post- and pre-resurrection bodies, God adding such other parts as he saw fit to restore the bodies.

The Last Judgement Flickr

From the beginning of the third century, the Christian tradition adopted the Greek tradition that individuals were composed of a mortal body and an immortal soul. This enabled sense to be made of the tension between the fate of the individual after death and after the Day of Judgment. It was the soul, it was argued, that survived between death and the Last Day, and it was the body that was resurrected on the Last Day and re-united with the soul. Thus, the history of the afterlife was also the history of the conflict between the body and the soul as the essence of what it is to be human; sometimes of the necessity of both, occasionally of the acknowledgement of the one to the exclusion of the other.

The Last Judgment, 1600-25, by Cornelis de Vos. National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

This opposition between body and soul was intellectually difficult to sustain. The distinction between body and soul was sufficiently fragile for the one to be likely to collapse into the other and the difference between the two made effectually redundant. The soul was given a ‘bodily’ status and the body a ‘spiritual’ one. On the one hand, it became necessary to accord to the soul the sort of ‘bodiliness’ that allowed it a geographical location after death either above or below the earth. As a result, it took on physical aspects – the soul was gendered, had rank and status. 

On the other hand, it was crucial to ‘spiritualise’ the body – to resurrect it not as it was at the point of death but in an ‘ideal’ form most suited to its enjoyment of the delights of heaven or to its suffering of the pains of hell. A ‘spiritual’ body at least had the virtue of avoiding difficulties inherent in the notion of a resurrected physical body. From the middle of the 19th century, a ‘spiritual’ body overtook the physical body as the preferred form of afterlife vehicle.

BRUEGEL PIETER PAINTINGS

And heavenly needs, along with heavenly bodies, also changed over time. From the early modern period onwards, there was a tension between the idea of eternal life as one centred on the love and worship of God to the exclusion of human relationships to one focused on human relationships to the virtual exclusion of God. Thus, from the middle of the 17th century, there was a gradual transition from a heaven focused on the vision of God with much playing of harps and casting of crowns upon glassy seas, to heaven as a place of ongoing activities, moral improvement, travel and reunion with family, friends and pets – a kind of ethereal Club Med. At the same time, by the middle of the 19th century, hell, with its dark fires and gnawing worms, its tormenting and tormented demons, was becoming marginalised in the European mind, in part no doubt the result of the diminution of the public spectacle of punishments, torture and pain in the secular sphere.

The Hell, c1545. Found in the collection of Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Artist Henri de Patinier. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The story of life after death is also part of the history of the human demand for justice. It reflects the belief that there is a need for justice on the other side of the grave, since there is precious little of it on this side. So it speaks to the recognition that, because virtue is not obviously its own reward, the best solution to the injustices on this side of death was to ‘even them up’ on the other side. Thus, a moral economy demanded the creation of places after death where the righteous would receive their just recompense and the wicked their just deserts, and of punishments and rewards proportionate to vices and virtues.

But by the beginning of the fifth century AD, it was clear that, while the really wicked deserved instant and eternal hell, and the really good instant and everlasting heaven, most of us, occasionally good but not very good at being really bad, deserved a place between the two. Thus we find that between the 5th and 11th centuries, the development of the idea of Purgatory, a place between heaven and hell where the not too wicked could be purged and purified in preparation for Heaven after the Day of Judgment. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th century was to throw Purgatory out, leaving our options after death either only heaven or hell.  

That all said, the ultimate destiny of the dead lay in the hands of God. It was he who would reward the good and punish the wicked, who would weigh up souls at the moment of their death and who would determine their eternal destiny. God rewarded the good and punished the wicked in different ways at different times in the history of the afterlife, according to various measures of his goodness, his justice and his righteous anger.

That said, it was accepted for the most part that God would save or damn in accordance with the virtues or vices of the dead. But it was also argued (by Augustine in the fifth century, for example, and later by John Calvin in the 16th), that God apportioned eternal happiness or everlasting torments merely as the arbitrary act of his own sovereign will, regardless of any person’s virtues or vices. This was to become a central feature of reformed thought about the afterlife from the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

John Calvin. (Photo By DEA/ G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

In short, God could do whatever he liked and, it was argued, he did just that. For those of a libertine turn, this was a view conducive to eating, drinking and merry-making in the here and now; for those more puritanically inclined, it was an incentive to piety, sobriety and accumulation of wealth as proof of election to salvation. God’s power was emphasised – although, for many, it was at the cost of his goodness and justice. 

Our imaginings about the afterlife, both after death and after the end of history, are a testimony to the hope that many have had, and still do, for an extension of life beyond the grave. They speak to the desire for light beyond the darkness of death; for ultimate goodness beyond present evils; and for final justice over earthly inequities. They give voice to the faith that the drama of history, and the minor role that each of us has played in it, has an ultimate meaning and purpose, one that is discernible from the vistas of eternity if not from our present perspective.

For good and ill, these imaginings have enormously influenced how we have understood how we should think about life in the here and now and how we should act until life is no more. At the end of the day (or the world), they result from our being members of a species, each member of which knows that he or she will die. This is both our triumph and our tragedy.

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Another amazing discovery made by archaeologists in The Holy Sepulcher

Church of the Holy Sepulchre photo: franklinnow.com

For decades, archaeologists and theologians have debated whether the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is really the place where Christ was buried and that he rose after being crucified.

Nowadays, after scientists have obtained the agreement to open the tomb for the first time in 500 years, its content offers "visible evidence that the place where pilgrims venerate today is the same tomb that Roman Emperor Constantine found in century IV "

The tomb was dressed in Marble in the year 1500 to prevent visitors to steal pieces of it or relics. In previous centuries, the famous church was destroyed and rebuilt many times as experts began to have doubts about the exact location of the tomb and its contents.
 

The second room of the aedicula, purportedly containing the tomb of Jesus photo: wikipedia.org

After lifting the marble plate for the first time after 500 years, researchers have found in limestone shelf that is supposed to be the body of Jesus was laid, says The Mirror. In addition, it was discovered and a second slab of marble unknown to researchers, engraved with a cross believed to have been carved XIIl century by the Crusaders.

Archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert, National Geographic part of the team, said that "the thing that amazed me the most was when I removed the first layer of dust and found a second piece of marble. It was gray, beige not like that from the outside and even in the middle of it was a very nice cross inscribed. I had no idea that such a thing is there. "


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Six characters who have signed The Contract and sold their soul to the devil

Updated 11/05/2020

Urbain  Pact Deal Signed by Devil Wikimedia Commons

There had always been rumors about people who have sold their soul to the devil, and that especially Christian period, although pact with evil forces existed in all myths and cultures of the world. 

Financial success, beauty or ability to do special things have been labeled as supernatural powers obtained through a secret pact with an entity, how else than malicious In return, obviously the soul. Musicians, writers, artists of all kinds have often been accused of having signed a pact with the devil in exchange for their virtuosity, wealth or fame. In the following we present the stories of six such people, maybe the most famous in the business of souls sold and their disturbing experiences.

Urbain Grandier (1590 - 1634)

Portrait of Urbain Grandier photo: wikipedia.org

Urbain Grandier (born in 1590 in Bouère, died in Mayenne – 18 August 1634 in Loudun) was a French Catholic priest who was burned at the stake after being convicted of witchcraft, following the events of the so-called "Loudun Possessions". 

The circumstances of Father Grandier's trial and execution have attracted the attention of writers Alexandre Dumas, père, Aldous Huxley and the playwright John Whiting, composers like Krzysztof Penderecki and Peter Maxwell Davies, as well as historian Jules Michelet and various scholars of European witchcraft. Most modern commentators have concluded that Grandier was the victim of a politically motivated persecution led by the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.

Urbain Grandier is the name of that bind, perhaps the most notorious case of accusation and condemnation to death with the devil and witchcraft acts. Grandier was, as few would expect a priest. A Catholic priest in the church of Sainte Croix in Loudon, Catholic diocese of Poitiers, France. 

Diabolical pact

Pact in Backwards Latin photo: wikipedia.org

One of the documents introduced as evidence during Grandier's second trial is a diabolical pact written in Latin and apparently signed by Grandier. Another, which looks illegible, is written backwards, in Latin with scribal abbreviation, and has since been published and translated in a number of books on witchcraft. 

This document also carries many strange symbols, and was "signed" by several demons with their seals, as well as by Satan himself. Deciphered and translated to English, it reads:

We, the influential Lucifer, the young Satan, Beelzebub, Leviathan, Elimi, and Astaroth, together with others, have today accepted the covenant pact of Urbain Grandier, who is ours. And him do we promise the love of women, the flower of virgins, the respect of monarchs, honors, lusts and powers.
He will go whoring three days long; the carousal will be dear to him. He offers us once in the year a seal of blood, under the feet he will trample the holy things of the church and he will ask us many questions; with this pact he will live twenty years happy
on the earth of men, and will later join us to sin against God.
Bound in hell, in the council of demons.
Lucifer Beelzebub Satan
Astaroth Leviathan Elimi

The seals placed the Devil, the master, and the demons, princes of the lord.


Baalberith, writer.

Before, however, of his reputation as a man who dressed the monastic robe, Grandier was made known by his amorous adventures and frequent sexual scandals involving women from every social class, a veritable Rasputin of France. In addition, restive priest was also an ardent foe of the famous Cardinal Richelieu, the one against whom he wrote several pamphlets acidic whom he addressed public criticism repeatedly.

Dr. Johann Georg Faust (1480 -1540)

Ritratto del Dottor Faust photo: wikipedia.org

Because of its association with the legendary literary characters or influenced you, today is difficult to establish the real life character that existed in reality as the Faust.

 Most likely, Faust was born in Germany in Helmstadt, around the years 1480/1481. By the age of 30 years, Faust completes its studies in his native country and in Krakow, where obtained a doctorate in theology. 

Besides this mysterious character is distinguished by his abilities as a physician, alchemist, philosopher, magician, astrologer and filmmaker horoscopes.

In Cracow he met Martin Luther and Philip Melachton, Dr. Faust characters that links a strong friendship. Legend has it that the two have even witnessed him Faust pact that ended with the Devil himself. Rumors have been launched since the time of his life, so that the individual was fired from the University of Ehrfut where ancient philosophy teaches. It is said that it was time to recognize shadowy understanding that he had done. In a conversation with a Franciscan priest, Dr. Klinge, Faust would have confessed to have more trust in God than demons. 

After such a reputation, Faust is driven from academics and church and get to make a living selling horoscopes and trying to transform simple metals into gold by alchemical processes. Following an experiment unfortunate doctor is torn by an explosion. The medical report says the time his body was "mutilated awful" action interpreted as a sign of the devil who had come to take their reward. What followed you strictly literary talent of a Frank Baron, Marlowe, Ghoete or Thomas Mann.

Herman the Hermit and Codex Gigas (sec. XIII AD)

Codex Gigas photo: wikipedia.org

Herman The Hermit is a character as controversial as it is mysterious. The name is linked to the appearance on the cultural scene of the world's largest medieval document known until now - famous Bible of the Devil, Codex Gigas, and yet nothing, apart from a brief legend, does not speak of life who created the (improperly said) gigantic work.


Legend has it that somewhere in the XIII century, the Benedictine monastery of Podlazice (Czech Republic today), a certain priest Herman had committed a sin so hard that not even be uttered. 

Codex Gigas: The Devil's Bible photo: ancients-bg.com 

The colleague shocked that their rulers Benedictine monastery decided, by mutual agreement, the only penalty that Herman would have deserved it was edifying alive. Horrified by the prospect that I had booked an other monks, Herman would have begged in tears to spare her life. 

Instead, he would have followed to write a book one evening which will include all the teachings of the world's largest and most comprehensive book ever written. Astonished, the priests would have agreed to offer him the sinner still a night to prove what may. It was evening when Herman the hermit did, from what they say, a pact with the devil. In exchange for his soul, the devil would have written what remained in history as the Codex Gigas - Devil's Bible, and he would be saved from an agonizing death Herman.

Illustration of the devil, Folio 290 recto. Legend has it the codex was created by a monk who sold his soul to the devil. photo: wikipedia.org

Mysteries manuscript begin, however, until now. Weighing 75 kilograms and a length of about one meter, leathery skin codex required 160 donkeys to be made entirely. It takes at least two strong men to him could carry. Besides a version of the Bible in vulgar Latin, Bible filled with demonic images with a giant portrait of the devil, Codex Gigas also includes Etymologie Isidore of Seville, History of the Jewish historian Flavius ​​Joseph, Chronicle of Bohemia by Cosmas of Prague, many treated by history, medicine and etymology list of Podlazice monastery monks, a calendar with an obituary, a lot of hexes, spells and local notes. 

The entire document is written in Vulgar Latin and the last stop in the year 1229. notes in handwriting experts argue that by Codex was one more character and not, as was customary in the Middle Ages. It is curious that to achieve such a monumental document, it would have taken at least 30 years (meaning that Herman had written a row every 20 seconds and that would have spent a few hours each illustration). 

And yet, handwriting indicates that there is even the slightest change in writing or any sign of fatigue, changes inevitable for a man during so many years.

Codex Gigas: The Devil's Bible photo: photo: wikipedia.org

Another mystery surrounding the disappearance of Codex is the 7th pages of the original 320. No one knows where and when they disappeared pages, but rumors say that their absence is due just content that could seriously affect the Benedictine order. 

In addition, Devil's Bible has earned a reputation Plaza real bad, it bringing disaster on the majority of its owners, from mental illnesses, fires and destruction apparently without explanation. Currently, Codex Gigas is kept in the Royal Library in Stockholm, Sweden.

Niccolo Paganini (1782 - 1840)

Certainly few of you reading this material might think of the great Italian composer and violinist as an individual who has got talent following a pact with the devil. But a closer look shows that sources Paganini weather was not bad away from rumors and, moreover, he chose not to rebut ever. In fact, right from his birth in a poor family of a merchant lacks luck, his mother had a dream premonition in which i was told that her son will get the greatest violinist in the world it has ever known.

Following this dream, his parents did everything to fulfill the prophecy. By the age of 7 years, Paganini perfectly learned the secrets of mandolin and violin, which played the first tools. Up to age 11 she was beginning to show itself, because up to 13 years to be already known as a violin virtuoso. Up to 19 years began to compose his own music, and at age 23 already create works of tremendous value. At 27 and already had a huge audience wildly successful ... and rumors of collusion to assure such a fame already circulating on everyone's lips. Curiously, when asked whether such a rumor is true, Paganini replied nonchalantly: "How else do you think I could sing the way I do?"

Niccolò Paganini (1819), by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres photo: wikipedia.org 

Paganini's decline began at age 40 when he was diagnosed with syphilis. Weather empirical treatments, treatments that included mercury and opium, they practically destroyed health. Dressed always in black, pale, almost without any tooth, Paganini was only a shadow of the beautiful and talented young man who astounded Europe. People were convinced that Paganini now paying the price of which had given talent unnatural.


Robert Johnson (1911 - 1938)

Except for blues enthusiasts, few are those who know the legend of the singer colored with a meteoric ascent on the American music scene. Robert Johnson was born on a plantation in rural Mississippi in 1911. 

His desire most, since childhood has been to play the guitar and become a famous blues-man but apparently talent or leave seriously desirable in this regard. Then, in the teenage years, Johnson was advised to take their old guitar and disagreement of unsuccessful attempts to compose blues, and seek their fortune at midnight at a crossroads.

Robert Johnson photo: wikipedia.org

Even Robert says he did so at the crossroads near Dockery Plantation, where at midnight, he met a man solid color (Devil). It would have taken a few seconds the young guitar, would have granted it and would be linked to several agreements blues after that would be stretched guitar back. 

Covenant had been made. Robert Johnson sold his soul in exchange for his talent. And soon, Johnson became famous, one of the greatest blues singers in the history of the United States. His plays have come to influence musicians and famous bands, from Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Johnny Winter. 

Moreover, Eric Clapton said in a televised interview that Robert Johnson was "the most important blues singer that ever lived". The sign of the devil? Pure coincidence? Nobody will ever know. The fact is that Johnson died only at 27 years, poisoned, apparently, the jealous husband of a woman who had invited her to dance.

Robert Johnson - Hellhound On My Trail

Following his remaining six (figure predestined?) Albums of genius. In most there are songs that make reference to the encounter with the devil in the dead of night or canteratelui fears that he would be in hell.


The exact location of his grave is officially unknown; three different markers have been erected at possible sites in church cemeteries burial outside Greenwood.

Alleged gravesite with one of Johnson's three tombstones photo: wikipedia.org

Research in the 1980s and 1990s strongly suggests Johnson was buried in the graveyard of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Morgan City, Mississippi, not far from Greenwood, in an unmarked grave. A one-ton cenotaph in the shape of an obelisk, listing all of Johnson's song titles, with a central inscription by Peter Guralnick, was placed at this location in 1990, paid for by Columbia Records and numerous smaller contributions made through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund.

Jonathan Moulton (1726 - 1787)

Faust nicknamed Yank, Jonathan Moulton was, in fact, an individual that gave rise to many legends smack supernatural, that his influence beyond the actual historical events in New Hampshire, USA. 

Faced with material deprivation in childhood, Jonathan worked as an apprentice to a carpenter until age 19, at which time he left his job to join the militia of New Hampshire.

 In a short time he is appointed captain of a regiment of mountain hunters and, as such, carries numerous battles with Ossippe Indians, allies of France in Anglo-French war, known as the King George's War (1744-1748). This was noted by his acts of bravery and, as a reward, received a land stretched from the former territory of Indians Ossippe.


At war's end, Jonathan Moulton was married Abigail Smith, who was going to provide no less than 11 children. At that time, Moulton opened a small store and tried to put up a business and to import goods from Europe to North America.

Jonathan Moulton tomb photo: pinterest

His business, however, proved unprofitable one and material deprivation started to make their mark on the large families.

 It was when they started to appear Moulton legends pact would be concluded with the devil. The fact is that, for unknown reasons, spouses Moulton began to behave as if it never knew what poverty means. Money is no longer a problem and everything seemed to go smoothly.

Legend says that Jonathan would have sold his soul to the devil to get rid of extreme poverty that you press. In exchange for his soul, every day of the month, the devil should have them fill boots with gold coins. That is until Moulton, money-hungry laziness, he would come up with a clever idea. 

He cut a hole in the floor, over which he placed some huge boots without soles. Thus, no matter how gold could be poured devil coins would be drained directly into the basement leaving the impression that the boots have never made it. Devil understood, however, craftiness captain and, as a reward, her house burned to the ground and made it all the gold tight while the Moulton family disappear without a trace. 

Jonathan quenched in 1787. It is said that when his relatives wanted to open her casket, inside it has not found a bag with gold than with the sign of the devil himself. But skeptics argue that Moulton was buried in a grave with no name and no one knew where this place ever.


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