Is it Possible to Sell Your Soul?
The Black Butler anime and soul-selling.
SPOILERS AHEAD! BEWARE! ALSO THIS ARTICLE COVERS SOME DARK TOPICS.
The fateful contract
Black Butler is a dark fantasy manga and anime about Ciel Phantomhive. He is an orphaned preteen aristocrat in Victorian England who sold his soul to a powerful demon named Sebastian Michaelis.
Why did Ciel — a child barely into double-digits — sell his soul? He wanted revenge.
Ciel’s parents were involved in some shady dealings and were murdered. Meanwhile, he and his twin were kidnapped by cultists. The twins were tortured and abused for weeks. Ciel’s brother didn’t survive the ordeal.
He craved revenge for the murder of his parents and twin. He desired payback for being humiliated and violated. He didn’t care what price he had to pay to get what he wanted. So, in desperation and rage, Ciel reached out to the spiritual realm for help.
Sebastian, a cunning, opportunistic demon answered the call. Ciel cut a deal with the demon in order to avenge his parents’ deaths; and (as part of his inherited aristocratic duty) to handle unsavory situations and to solve crimes for Queen Victoria. The demon agreed to stay and serve as a butler, bodyguard, detective, avenger, and anything-else-needed. In return for those services, Ciel Phantomhive sold his soul to Sebastian.
Black Butler is fiction. But is the premise fictional? Is it possible to sell your soul? Do you have the right to sell it? Does your soul even belong to you?
Famous bargain makers
If you spend anytime online researching the topic of soul selling, you’ll quickly find yourself sliding down deep, pitch black rabbit holes. Those holes are plastered with conspiracy theories and tales of blood sacrifices, unholy contracts, and all kinds of unsettling deals that now-uber successful actors and actresses, authors, athletes, and musicians supposedly made with the Dark Side.
Perhaps one of the most infamous stories is that of Robert Johnson, a legendary twentieth century blues man who allegedly exchanged his soul for otherwordly guitar skills. Legend says that Johnson made the dark deal at an intersection of two highways one pitch black night in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
After the deal was made, Johnson became a blues guitar man extraordinaire. But he didn’t live long to enjoy his newfound fame. He died at the age of 27 in 1938.
Deal or no deal?
Even if it was possible to make such a deal, it would be a lopsided one — and not in your favor. You’d be the loser from day one because you would have to trade your precious eternal soul for an ephemeral worldly desire.
That’s the trade Ciel Phantomhive made. He traded his infinite soul to a demon for a goal to be achieved in a finite amount of time.
It was a poor deal.
Nothing is more valuable than your soul. In fact, Jesus paid an extremely high price for us: his blood on the Cross. He died to save our souls from eternal torment.
And if you still think doing a dark deal would be worth it to get what you want regardless of the consequences, think about what Jesus said:
And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? Mark 8:36–37
The question
So, does your soul even belong to you? Does mine belong to me? And if our souls don’t belong to us, then who holds the deeds to them? Let’s see what the Bible has to say about who owns what.
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him. For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths. Psalm 24:1–2
And there is the answer. The Bible makes it crystal clear that everything and everyone belongs to God. So, back to that question from earlier: do any of us have the right to sell what isn’t ours? Do we have the right to sell our souls?
If you like this article, check out my article about the Death Note anime and principles for the Christian life here. Or, this one about women who were sexually assaulted in the Bible here.
Thanks for your time. Thanks for reading.
