The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agenda of Genies (15 page)

In severe cases, djinn take up permanent residence in a body, and must be forcibly expelled through exorcism by a skilled sheikh. Djinn who fall in love with people may enter a person's body in order to be closer to their love. This is not a desirable condition for the person, but in such cases, the djinni will usually not harm the person unless he or she does something to upset or anger them. If an evil djinni takes up physical residence, the danger is much greater-the djinni's intention is maximum damage, even death.

Not all forms of djinn possession are this extreme, however. Some cases involve being "touched" by a djinni-that is, the djinni comes and goes as it wishes and causes mild, temporary possessions. A person may have episodes of unusual behavior and not remember them after the djinni departs.

In some milder possessions, efforts are made to reconcile with the djinni rather than expel it. The djinni is engaged in dialogue. Speaking through its victim, it explains its grievances and what it wants in order to stop its possession. Some of the exorcism rituals are known as zar. Victims are usually women who are having problems with their husbands. As a result, they become possessed by djinn. The djinn, who love worldly pleasures, demand appeasement through jewelry and other gifts, sweets, and favors that must be performed by the offending husbands.

Possession is considered a substantial risk of crossing a djinni, or inadvertently injuring one. Sudden emotional and physical shocks rip open a person's natural protection and enable a djinni to breach the mind and body.15
Exorcisms are not always successful-djinn often sneak back into the body.

They Magically Grant Wishes

In folk tales, djinn who are imprisoned in vessels and rings must
grant three wishes to whomever liberates them, after which they
are free. Unfortunately, stories about wish fulfillment are seldom
straightforward; usually the wishes backfire, working too well, or
not at all how the wisher had hoped. As the djinn themselves warn,
every wish has a consequence. In most tales, the first wish is usually successful but the next two are not, and the protagonist finds
himself in increasing trouble because of the wishes. The wishes
must be worded very carefully, for a djinni will find a way to follow them to the letter, but in unexpected ways. Even if he tries to
be clever, the protagonist never outwits the djinni, and usually the
person's final wish is to undo the first two.

This theme continues to be played out in modern tales of the
djinni/genie. Earlier, we mentioned the story The Thief of Baghdad, about a boy who finds a genie's bottle on a beach. In the film
Wishmaster (1997), the protagonist liberates a particularly evil
djinni. For one wish, he asks for one million dollars ... and receives
it in an insurance payout when his aunt dies in a plane crash the
djinni had caused.

In "The Man in the Bottle," an episode of The Twilight Zone
(1960), a down-on-their-luck pawnbroker and his wife are offered an untraditional four wishes by a djinni who comes out of a
wine bottle. Dubious, they ask him to repair a broken glass cabinet. When the djinni does this instantly, they get excited and ask
for one million dollars. He complies. They give away a lot of the
money-and then the tax man comes to claim all but five dollars.

For a third wish, the husband asks to be the leader of a powerful, modernized country in which he cannot be voted out of office.
Suddenly, he becomes Adolf Hitler, about to commit suicide in his
bunker at the end of World War II. In a panic, the man uses his
fourth wish to erase everything that had happened. Everything is back to normal. When he gets home, he finds the wine bottle that
contained the djinni is broken. His repaired glass cabinet breakseverything is as it was before the wishes. He tosses the wine bottle
into a trash can on the street. The djinni's smoke reforms the bottle anew, and it lies in wait for someone else to release it.

They Can Shapeshift into Any Form

Shapeshifting is one of the most important abilities of djinn. We
have saved it for last so it can be fully discussed and reinterpreted.
We believe that some cases of paranormal activity may actually
have had shapeshifting djinn behind them.

Artful shapeshifting is a primary Trickster trait. Magical transformations are a great asset in confounding humans, who never
know quite what they're dealing with. As a result, people can land
in great trouble before they realize it. One must take care not to
throw water or stones at dogs and cats, especially black ones, for
they are likely to be djinn in disguise. Once doused or hit, they
and their clans become angry and will strike back in revenge. Similar precautions apply to snakes, another favored form. Djinn also
like to mimic the shapes of birds and goats.

Djinn can take the form of mice to enter homes at night. If
the residents have been foolish or absent-minded enough to leave
lamps or candles lit, the djinn-mice overturn them, resulting in
the home being consumed by fire-an excellent example of their
fiery Trickster nature.

Djinn also shapeshift into human form, especially to fool people for the purposes of misleading and persuasion. The one form
they cannot ever take is that of the Prophet Muhammad himself.
Muhammad makes appearances in visions and dreams for the purpose of guidance. He assured his followers, "... whoever sees me
in a dream, he surely sees me, for Satan cannot impersonate me
(appear in my figure).""
However, nothing prevents a djinni from taking on the human form of a sheikh or an admired authority figure, whom people will mistake as a representative of the Prophet.

It probably occurred to djinn long ago that they could take on the forms of supernatural entities, at least some of whom are real beings in their own right, using them as disguises for interacting with human beings. This masquerade shapeshifting of the djinn has long been acknowledged in Middle Eastern lore. Author Umar Sulaiman al-Ashqar of the University of Jordan comments:

Many people of our time and the previous times have witnessed something of the djinn, even though many who had seen them or who had heard them were not aware that they were djinn. They thought that they were ghosts, spirits, invisible men, creatures from outer space, and so forth."

Taking on supernatural entity forms appeals to the Trickster in djinn, especially the green djinn, who like to amuse themselves at humanity's expense. The thought of a ghost wandering around a house or lingering on property frightens many people because of sudden appearances, strange noises, disembodied voices, odd smells, and phantom forms with grotesque features. Prevailing beliefs about ghosts hold that they are a type of recording, imprint, or memory left behind by the person who has died, or that they are the restless souls of those stuck between the worlds of the living and the dead. Some ghosts seem to lack intelligence or awareness of the living, while others interact and attract attention. In either case, perhaps they are not remnants of people, but djinn having a bit of fun. Djinn activity may not account for all ghosts, of course, but perhaps they have created or piggybacked on the
haunting phenomenon. Perhaps some of our most famous ghosts
are not ghosts at all. It may be difficult, if not impossible, to ever
know the difference.

Another common haunting phenomenon is poltergeist activityunexplained disappearances and reappearances of objects, banging
noises, mysterious rains of stones, lights flicking on and off by themselves, appliance malfunction and/or breakage, property damage,
breakage, and disappearance; and other mayhem. Poltergeist is German for "noisy spirit," and unexplained destructive activities are often blamed on demons, angry ghosts, other spirits, and black magic
spells. Poltergeist activity also befits the Trickster nature of djinn as a
way of creating chaos and disorder.

Throughout history, people have reported encounters with mysterious creatures never before seen in the natural world. Sometimes
only a few sightings are ever reported, but other times, such creatures seem to exist in a parallel world, popping in and out of ours
for reasons unknown. Werewolves, dogmen, Bigfoot, swamp monsters and Jersey Devil-type flying creatures may be entities in their
own right-but their forms could also be borrowed by Trickster
djinn. Masquerading as a supernatural creature may be for a djinn
what donning a costume at Halloween is for humans. The object is
to have some fun, perhaps at the expense of others.

The famous Mothman wave of 1966-67 provides a good example of a possible djinn shapeshifting case. Mothman was a winged,
red-eyed humanoid that suddenly began appearing in the area
around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, (in particular, an abandoned
TNT plant) in November of 1966. Mothman was described as being six to seven feet tall. It did not seem to have a head, and its
eyes were set near the tops of its shoulders. It shuffled on humanlike legs, and it made a strange, high-pitched squeaking noise. It
could take off straight up into the air without moving its wings
and flew as though gliding, without flapping its wings.

Mothman terrified witnesses. If they were in cars and sped off,
it took off after them, keeping pace in a chase. It never aggressively attacked people, however. It would seem to tire of the chase
and break off and vanish. Such behavior is ascribed to green djinn,
who sometimes like to toy with people but quickly grow bored
and abruptly stop.

Although Mothman received much attention due to its unusual
appearance, the real activity in the wave was centered more around
UFO/extraterrestrial high strangeness. There were many sightings of
mysterious lights, craft, and aliens; electrical and telephone disturbances; poltergeist phenomena; phantom dogs and mysterious creatures; phantom people; and sinister "Men In Black," dark, cadaverous, mechanical-like men who harrass UFO contactees and threaten
them to keep silent. A dog disappeared and wild animals were found
mutilated. Mothman was blamed for all the phenomena, but was
never caught in the act of doing anything but observing and chasing people. The famous paranormal investigator and author John A.
Keel traveled to West Virginia to investigate the wave, documenting
activity in his book, The Mothman Prophecies (1975). Keel said at
least a hundred people had sightings of Mothman.

The bizarre activity continued into 1967, declining toward the
end of the year. On December 15, 1967, the 700-foot Silver Bridge
that crossed the Ohio River at Point Pleasant collapsed, killing
forty-six people. Some people linked the bridge collapse to Mothman, though no direct evidence was ever found. The collapse of
the bridge was accompanied by a halt in Mothman sightings, and
Mothman soon disappeared from the area. Since then, sightings of
the creature have continued sporadically in Point Pleasant and all
over the world, but there have been no more waves comparable to
the one in 1966-67.

Keel believed Point Pleasant was a "window" or portal that temporarily opened to a parallel reality. We also believe in such por tals, some of which may be open constantly, not just temporarily. It is possible that a portal did open at Point Pleasant, and many things poured through-including opportunistic djinn. All of the mystery beings-Mothman, Men in Black, phantom dogs, phantom people, and aliens-could have been djinn in disguise. The collapse of the Silver Bridge fits the Trickster motif, a nonsensical but lethal end to a windup of intense paranormal activity.

Sometimes djinn masquerades are more deadly in nature. Folklore and mythologies around the world are filled with supernatural predators of many shapes and names. Their main characteristics are luring unwary people to their doom and ambushing people as they travel, especially at night. In particular, fairy lore is full of such hostile beings, such as the water fairies who drown people, the wispy lights that lure travelers over cliffs and into bogs, and the savage trolls who jump out from beneath bridges. The djinn might make use of these and other nasty forms.

In Egyptian lore, a murderous Nile river entity is known to be a ginniya, a female djinni, who takes the form of a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and the tail of a fish-much like a mermaid. She entices people to come to the edge of the river by creating illusions: trays full of glasses of tea floating on the water, balls floating on the water, or an old woman carrying a pot who asks for help. When people come close enough, she grabs them and pulls them underwater. She gives them a choice: marry her or one of her kind, or die. If a person refuses, she strangles him and drowns him; his corpse is found with telltale thumb marks on his neck.''

Finally, an excellent example of what may have been a deadly djinn case comes from American supernatural history: the Bell Witch Cave. The Bell Witch "haunting" occurred in the nineteenth century in Adams, Tennessee, and involved spectral creatures, poltergeist
activity, bedroom invasion, and death. It was blamed on a witch's curse, but has numerous hallmarks that can be interpreted as djinn in origin. We make those comparisons in the following analysis."

Different versions of the story are told, but the main features are
consistent. Sometime in the early nineteenth century, John Bell
bought a thousand acres of land near Adams and set up a prosperous farm. He and his wife, Lucy, had eight children. In 1817, life
went from good to miserable. The first signs were mysterious creatures Bell saw-a large, black dog-like thing on his property that
vanished when Bell fired at it with his shotgun, and a turkey-like
bird. Both are favored djinn forms.

After that, severe poltergeist outbreaks occurred in the house.
Knocking, rapping, and scraping sounds were heard in the home
and outside on the doors and windows. Everyone in the family
was upset by the sounds of invisible rats gnawing on things, and
invisible giant dogs clawing the floors. The disturbances went on
for about a year and then escalated to attacks upon the family at
night while they were asleep in their beds. Covers were pulled off,
invisible hands slapped everyone on their faces and yanked their
hair. The Bells' twelve-year-old daughter, Betsy, got the worst of
it; she was slapped, pinched, hit, bruised, and stuck with pins. At
first, her parents thought she was playing tricks on them, but then
became convinced that something sinister was afflicting the entire
family.