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A Drink (Or Other Casual Encounter) With The Devil

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Anonymous

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A Drink With the Devil

It was the fall of 1981 and I had just moved to New York City to attend college. A group of five classmates and I went to the Cedar Tavern, a famous local bar/restaurant, which, in the past, had been frequented by the likes of Jackson Pollack, William de Kooning, Allen Ginsburg, Bob Dylan--a real hot spot for the creative avant garde of the 50's & 60's.

We took a big table near the front and had just gotten our drinks when I noticed a tall, unusual looking man standing at the bar, staring intently at me. He had dark features and a very self-assured bearing. As I looked at him, I distinctly "heard" a man's voice in my head saying over and over, "You know who I am..." and as I heard this voice the man began to transform in front my my eyes. His fingers, which were clutching a whiskey glass, grew until they encircled the glass twice. The features of his face elongated and his nose, chin, ears and eyebrows became very exaggerated. His slight smile became a lurid, leering sneer. He truly seemed to be transforming into a demon in front of my eyes! I blinked serval times and wiped my eyes, sure that this little scene would disappear, but it didn't. He just keep de-evolving into something not human, and no one at the bar was paying any notice. I tried desperately to get one of my classmates on either side of me to look at what was happening, but everyone seemed absorbed in the table's conversation and by the time I looked up again, the man had vanished entirely.

I have since begun to collect other people's stories of meeting "the Devil" in New York City--I'm just glad to know I'm not the only one this has happened to!


http://www.forteantimes.com/happened/cedardevil.shtml

Link is dead. Remainder of original text has been appended above.
 
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A friend from school used to swear that her Dad played cards with the Devil. She said her Dad was in a pub in Crewe called the Masonic Arms (now demolished) and was playing cards with a group, not all of whom he knew.

He dropped something on the floor and on bending to pick it up, noticed that the man sitting opposite him had, not shoes or workmen's boots, but CLOVEN HOOVES!

He sat up fast, nearly tipping the table over with his head, and was out of there like a shot, to mocking laughter from Mr Goat-Feet and general consternation among the other men. Nobody, he later learned, knew the stranger and each had assumed someone else had invited him.
 
Did he look at all like Al Pacino?
I have also heard a strange story that happened in my family. One of my great reletives, whom I never knew but my mum did was a miner in Lancashire. Obviously he had to go a fair way underground and was also at risk from a cave in. This particular mine was reletively new so any deaths or cave-ins would have been well known and known to my reletive. This particular day he had gone down to same place as he did every day but this time he went first. Apparently he only got so far before he came running back, as fast as his legs could carry him and screaming like a girl. This relative whom I think was my mum's uncle John was not a soft man and was not easily scared but that thing he saw down that tunnel turned his skin a sickening colour and he never told to a soul what he had seen.
It seemed unlikely that it would be ghost as there had as yet been no deaths in the mine. His wife said he told her and as she was not at liberty to say, she did say, however and she was just as straight as he that what ever it was said that, 'He would look upon this sight again.'
All our family believed that he indeed saw the Devil himself.
 
Sapho Juice - your relative wasn't a spice miner, by any chance?

But, tenous David Lynch film connections aside, I thought that the Devil did not manifest his true form on Earth. I thought that he appeared either as a charming man (you know, like in the Kate Bush song) or in the body of a person. Perhaps all these sightings were just minor dervishes, pretending to be the Devil (if you're into that sort of thing).
 
Did you ever read the one about the boyscouts who visited a cave and walked a good few kms in when they stumbled upon a deeply ugly dwarf with an oversized head eating lost boyscouts? I'm not kidding! But maybe that's what my relative saw...
 
The Cloven Hoof? The Hint of Sulphur? The Fiery Abyss?

The Devil was spotted late one night - I think in New York - in the early 1960s by a young family out walking. The case was righteously written up as *clearly* being a UFO entity, despite the fact that no saucery stuff was evident.

Sorry for vague details; I can drag the reference out if anyone's interested, but it's under a big pile of boxes in the attic.
 
DanHigginbottom said:
Sorry for vague details; I can drag the reference out if anyone's interested, but it's under a big pile of boxes in the attic.
Click to expand...
Off you go then. Be careful on that ladder! And get some help with the boxes if you have to, because I want to know the details - I'm interested.

Regards

The Boggart :)
 
Haha, a fellow Crouton!
The pub was reputedly the long-gone Masonic Arms in Market Street, demolished to make way for the Market Centre and Argos.
 
Haha, a fellow Crouton!
The pub was reputedly the long-gone Masonic Arms in Market Street, demolished to make way for the Market Centre and Argos.


'The Earl of Chester? The Duke of Bridgewater? The Brunswick???'
If you go from the Brun north down Eggy Road to the Duke of Bridge, then turn left to the Earl, you'll soon reach our own dear Queens, where the dress code is somewhat flamboyant. A chap in horns and long black cloak might pass unnoticed there.
 
possible explanation

Hoofed feet, hoofed feet...
It sounds too stereotypical to have been the real Devil. I mean, honestly, hoofed feet? Saying that the Devil has hoofed feet is like saying that all eight of Santa Clause's reindeer including the females have antlers. It is simply a stereotype that has arisen from some people's discomfort with not being able to say that *this* is what so and so looks like.
Additionally, I just found a costume site that, while I chaven't found a stayr's shoes, I have found a duck's feet.

http://www.costumeoutlet.com/cgi-bin/wm3/wm.cgi

And if there can be costumes that have realistic duck shoes, then why not hooves?

I am not saying that the person he encountered was definetely not the Devil, because it might have been. It is just that the belief that the Devil has hooved feet arose through Greek and Roman satyr myths, not through other means; the idea of a hooved Devil is still relatively young.
 
This meeting allegedly happened in a rough workmen's pub in an industrial town, about 50 years ago, so I don't think 'trick shoes' were de rigeur.
Incidentally, female reindeer DO have antlers. They are the only deer who do.
 
Could it, perhaps, be that upon realising that the gentleman was infact the Devil the witness spotted the cloven hooves?

In essence... he encountered the anthropomorphic manifestation of evil but his mind being unable to process the actuall appearance of the entity clothed it in the appearance underwhich he could comprehend it.

Just an idea... I'm not suggesting that it was the devil, it could have been a satyr on the lam...

Niles
 
I'd like to think Julie's Da was 'accidentally' dropping something on the floor in order to cheat at cards and that the subsequent diabolical grin was in fact a benificent smile upon a good learner!
 
could have been a satyr on the lam...

Surely a satyr in the goat, unless you consider a goat to be a satire on a sheep. Anyway what your da felt was certainly panic
 
Or maybe he saw someone with cloven hoofs and thought it was the devil. If satyrs have cloven hoofs as well, it could have been one of those.
 
Maybe it wasn't really the devil. Maybe cloven hooves were really in that year...you never can tell.
 
To a strictly-raised Methodist, the picture of the Devil sitting idly in a pub playing cards has a ring of truth about it.
 
Seems to me this bloke saw the hooves and inferred it was the devil, and the devil knew what he thought and saw the joke.
 
A little question. assuming his Satanic majesty was having a break between obtaining signatures on some dodgy contracts.

Why would anyone be stoopid enough to sign a contract that promises a few years of wealth, power and sexual gratification in exchange for an eternity of suffering? (I'm assuming Christian values here sorry to any Satanists). It must be obvious that your going to end up with the fecally contaminated end of the woody thing. The very appearance of the man with the plan should surely drive you to the nearest church.
 
Possible reasons:

a) It's all a trick to get you into church.
b) There's one born every minute.

What if you asked for immortality? Or to get into heaven? This could cause endless administrative problems.
 
They think they can get away with it.
But Satanists know that the Christian construct of The Devil is just a bogeyman to get you into church.

Short summary of Satanism-

Satan is the Owner of all material things. He gives of them freely, you only need to ask. If necessary, and possible, you may Take.

I know many Satanists who follow this creed. A right shower they are too. All believe Christianity to be irrelevant, much as many modern Christians feel Satan Himself to be, and don't believe for a moment in eternal damnation. They think Satan's their mate and will look after them in the afterlife.

Anyone familiar with Marlowe's 'Dr. Faustus' will see the flaw in this argument, which is that the Devil holds all the cards. Snap! We're back to a dingy pub in Cheshire.
 
Many Satanists do not believe in the actual existence of Satan. They just use Satan as a kind of mascot...
I looked at the Church of Satan's website recently, and this is essentially what they were saying.
The Christian church invented Satan as a bogeyman.
 
I believe they found Faustus' eyeballs stuck to the wall. Which kind of belies all that 'the prince of darkness is a gentleman' stuff.

Incidentally, does anyone know the first recorded example of a satanic description including the cloven hoof detail? I did wonder if it had any connection to the famous 'he-goats'/'devils' confusion in early Biblical translations. Or would it be more likely to be some kind of Horned God reference?
 
Hah, satan as a mascot, that'll be fun in the Afterlife.
'Hi. I'm Satan. I bought your soul for ten quid, a joint and back wheel for your moped in 1997.
Here's the Pit Of Fire where you'll be spending eternity, me laddie.
Mascot my *rse!'
 
Remember the gnostic viewpoint? The God of the OT is the devil of the new.

And I think that if I was the friend of Marion concerned I'd be taking a deep interest in charitable works and religious observances
 
I thought I saw the devil walk past my school last year. He was human but had horns and staggered past. I don't know if he had cloven feet.

I pretty sure it was hallucination because as a Methodist I don't believe in the physical devil

Redtom
 
If only only the person who saw the melting devil thing had had the presence of mind to take a football with him that night a major religious and political question could have been solved. If when thrown a football the Devil had played it first time on his left then the protestants are right, but if he trapped it on his left hoof and played it with his right then the Rev Ian Paisley could look forward to a very unpleasant afterlife(comforting thought). If the Devil missed the ball entirely there would be no theological implications whatsoever, but it would be a fair bet the Dark One has played left-back for the Alex. I always take a football to the pub.
 
Back when I was younger we used to play poker, and when out of things for betting we'd bet our eternal souls. I don't recall seeing the devil, though, and I'm pretty sure I always won back my soul...
 
Redtom-
................but HE believes in YOU, my dear!

durriti-
Yes, Gresty Road can feel like hell on earth sometimes!
That new stand is surely the work of the Evil One.
 
All these purported sightings remind me of what happened to

There is an old abandoned cottage in a feild near where I grew up on the shores of Strangford Lough, which was baffingly referred to as 'the Fort'. At first glance the most startling thing is that fact that some bright spark has thrown red paint over the walls, looking like blood and causing children in their early teens to run like the clappers when one "thought I saw something".

From the many eventful days spent round at the Fort, the one that has stuck in my mind is that one day, during a game of 'Commandos' (Rambo: First Blood was de rigeur at the time) my cousin decided to hide in the attic of the cottage. It took some time for the others to get round to finding him, but when they did he was in a complete state of panic. He bolted out of the Fort, tears streaming down his face.

When asked what the matter was, he wouldnt say exactly, just became all defensive and went home. My cousin was never one to be put off by something trivial. It emerged after a few years that he had been just about to get down out of the loft, when he was dragged back up by the hair. He has still never spoken about *what* exactly pulled him up, but in his more drunken moments he will let slip that he "knows where he is going".

It struck me from reading this thread that there are some similarites with other accounts of this nature (or super-nature).
 
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