Dealing with the Devil (1979) is Daniel Cohen’s entry into the diabolical catalog. It’s one of his books written to more of an adult level, but his ability to plainly explain complex topics, his enthusiasm for the subject and his reasonable skepticism make it fit for any age reader.
More than anything, he presents the Devil as a ridiculous figure. Sure, he can be fearsome in some legends, but he is just as often an easily duped dope (Saint Dunstan grabbing him by the nose with a smith’s tongs is really just the tip of the iceberg). Much of the book is dedicated to charting the origins of the figure, who is notably absent for much of history and only appears as a dealer in souls and pacts relatively recently, in the last four or five centuries. There’s a lot to be skeptical about and Cohen ends by expressing the concern that we’re taking the devil too seriously. By 1979, the Satanic Panic was bubbling up and Cohen’s own Curses, Hexes and Spells had showed up on banned book lists two years earlier.
As if to underline his point, Cohen serves up the best author photo of his career, dressed in a Halloween costume consisting of a long black hooded cloak, with a miniature skeleton dangling from a cord around his neck. He’s the very picture of a nefarious Satanist!
One additional interesting fact: the cover painting is by Donn Albright, who also provided covers for at least three other books by Cohen, including A Close Look at Close Encounters, Creatures from UFOs and Science Fiction’s Greatest Monsters. It’s a spooky cover, sort of intentionally crude and evocative of occult imagery of the ’60s and ’70s — I could easily picture this on a Kenneth Grant dust jacket. Anyway, Albright was a great friend of Ray Bradbury, as well as his bibliographer and occasional editor!
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