Have you ever wanted something so badly you would trade your soul for it? This episode explores the biography of the one man who said yes, starting with the historical Johann Georg Faust, born around 1480, holder of a divinity degree from Heidelberg in 1509, dabbler in alchemy and astrology, and dead around 1540 in Staufen. We explain how his identity merged in the public mind with Johann Fust, Gutenberg's printing associate, whose mass-produced Bibles looked like dark magic to people who had only ever seen hand-copied texts.

From there we follow the legend's reboots: the 1587 chapbook that set the 24-year pact with Mephistopheles and the sin of preferring human knowledge to scripture, Marlowe's play that dragged Faustus irrevocably to hell, and Goethe's 60-year project that reframed the deal as a wager on whether human striving can ever be ...