The Devil’s Best Trick with Randall Sullivan

The ex-Rolling Stones journalist throws open the door the devil hides behind. Warning: not for kids.

The devil’s best trick, according to French poet Charles Baudelaire and/or criminal mastermind Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (1995) was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.  

Randall Sullivan’s new book, The Devil’s Best Trick: How the Face of Evil Disappeared, argues that despite our sceptical age that dismisses the existence of the supernatural, evil is at work in the world, and can’t be dismissed as the product of a bad upbringing or warped psychology.  

In this interview with Life & Faith, Sullivan, the author and former investigative reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, tells us about his miraculous conversion experience, recounted in his earlier book The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions.  

He also spills on his new book, which took him 20 years to write, and his experience of coming up, close, and personal with the divine... and what felt like a malevolent presence in the Piazza Navona in Rome.  

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Explore:

The Devil’s Best Trick: How the Face of Evil Disappeared

The Miracle Detective: An Investigation into Holy Visions

Randall Sullivan’s Wired article on Michelle Gomez, the world’s best bounty hunter (paywalled)

A short Thinking out Loud column quoting Randall Sullivan in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in 2024