Speaker 1: Yah. Welcome to the Hidden Gin, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkey. Before
Speaker 1: we begin this week, a gentle word of warning. There
Speaker 1: are references to sexual assault in this episode, so please
Speaker 1: proceed with care. Decades ago, I knew a family that
Speaker 1: lived in my mother's town that had three young daughters.
Speaker 1: The lady of the house was a close friend of
Speaker 1: my mother's, and so, in other words, she was kind
Speaker 1: of an auntie to us, and every so often Auntie
Speaker 1: would drop bif for a visit, bringing boxes of homemade
Speaker 1: sweets or a platter of rice or some little treat
Speaker 1: to share over a cup of hot gi and oftentimes
Speaker 1: whatever her daughters would come with her. The eldest was
Speaker 1: maybe around twenty and the youngest was an early teen.
Speaker 1: For years, though I never met the third daughter, the
Speaker 1: middle one. Once in a while Auntie would mention her name,
Speaker 1: she would ask my mother for prayers, say something in
Speaker 1: passing about her doing better or worse. One day, after
Speaker 1: she left, my mother sat shaking her head, looking deeply
Speaker 1: sad about whatever Auntie had shared with her, and I asked,
Speaker 1: what's wrong. My mother took a deep sigh and responded
Speaker 1: she thinks her daughter has a gin. That's when I
Speaker 1: finally learned that the third daughter, the one I never saw,
Speaker 1: had an entire host of what her parents understood to
Speaker 1: be symptoms of either the evil Eye or gin possession,
Speaker 1: or a combination of the two. But my mother explained
Speaker 1: to me it was just as possible that the daughter
Speaker 1: had mental health or medical issues if she did, though,
Speaker 1: Auntie wasn't prepared to accept it and seek professional advice. Instead,
Speaker 1: she saw it help elsewhere, soliciting prayers and charms from
Speaker 1: spiritual healers, hoping something would drive away the demons that
Speaker 1: caused a young girl to lash out, that kept her
Speaker 1: tongue tied and frustrated, that kept her afflicted, suffering, and
Speaker 1: isolated from the rest of the world. But nothing worked.
Speaker 1: My mother tried to counsel her to take the girl
Speaker 1: to see a doctor, or a psychologist, or even a psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: but the advice didn't land. Auntie was convinced that someone
Speaker 1: had put a curse on her daughter, a curse for
Speaker 1: a gin to torment her. At some point, maybe a
Speaker 1: few years after I first got to know Aunty, I
Speaker 1: finally met that third daughter. She was sweet and kind,
Speaker 1: shy and mostly quiet, But though when she did speak,
Speaker 1: her words were halting and repetitive. I didn't get a
Speaker 1: sense that she was haunted or tormented by anything. But
Speaker 1: one thing was painfully clear to me and to anyone
Speaker 1: else who might be familiar with the condition. The young
Speaker 1: woman was tistic. So what happens when developmental or mental
Speaker 1: health issues, physical disabilities, disease, chronic illness, emotional disregulation, or
Speaker 1: any one of hundreds of physiological and psychological conditions that
Speaker 1: human beings experience is understood through the lens of the supernatural.
Speaker 1: How do you know whether you're suffering from a treatable
Speaker 1: condition or you've been struck by a gin? Is the
Speaker 1: affliction in the psyche or in the soul? While the
Speaker 1: lines have been blurred throughout history, and today we'll explore
Speaker 1: what it looks like over the centuries when medicine, psychology,
Speaker 1: and the supernatural cross paths. I'm Robbia Audrey, and I'll
Speaker 1: be your guide into the ancient world of the hidden gin.
Speaker 1: Welcome stars are the celestial doubles of human beings. Jin
Speaker 1: milliars are their underground doubles, and the leaves of the
Speaker 1: trees of paradise are their doubles in paradise. When human
Speaker 1: beings are sick, the jin double is sick with the
Speaker 1: same sickness. His star pales, and the leaf of the
Speaker 1: tree of Paradise yellows and curls. At the hour of death,
Speaker 1: the jin dies first, the star falls from the sky
Speaker 1: as a shooting star, and the leaf detaches from the
Speaker 1: Tree of Paradise. That is from a collection of cosmology
Speaker 1: collected in Marrakesh, Morocco that documented, among other things, the
Speaker 1: belief that the human condition exists in several planes at once,
Speaker 1: and whatever it goes through, whatever it experiences, is experienced
Speaker 1: by corresponding entities linked intimately to each of us. For
Speaker 1: every person a leaf on the tree of Paradise, a
Speaker 1: star in the heavens, and a gin in the underworld.
Speaker 1: The gin will live, get sick, and die with us.
Speaker 1: But what about the gin who actually make us sick?
Speaker 1: According to a book titled The Gin and Human Sickness,
Speaker 1: an entire host of conditions can and are attributed to Gin,
Speaker 1: including depression, anxiety, epilepsy, personality disorders, psychiatric breaks with reality. Now,
Speaker 1: the movements of the Gin in and upon the human
Speaker 1: body can't really be tracked. Because the dinner created as
Speaker 1: smokeless fire and energy that cannot be contained, they're able
Speaker 1: to move with our bloodstream itself. They say. There are
Speaker 1: two ways in which gin physically afflict human beings. They
Speaker 1: can either strike a person or possess a person. Striking
Speaker 1: a person could mean sudden paralysis or blindness, or any
Speaker 1: other physical condition that just appears out of nowhere, or
Speaker 1: even a more literal strike, like suddenly you lost all
Speaker 1: your hearing in one ear. Maybe it was because the
Speaker 1: gin slapped you on that side of the head. But
Speaker 1: you must be asking yourself why would any gin be
Speaker 1: bothered enough to strike a person. More often than not,
Speaker 1: it's because the gin was offended or disrespected, knowingly or unknowingly.
Speaker 1: Urinating the wrong spot, let's say, in a shadowy corner
Speaker 1: a gin called home could incurage. Wrath or wearing the
Speaker 1: wrong color and the wrong place the wrong time might
Speaker 1: anger a gin, and you might really peeve one off
Speaker 1: if you disrespect it by rejecting the existence of gin altogether. Sometimes, though,
Speaker 1: the affliction is actually a way to connect a gin
Speaker 1: to a person, a means of establishing first contact, you
Speaker 1: could say, and shaking that contact isn't always easy, but
Speaker 1: for thousands of years there have been healers and magicians
Speaker 1: to help take care of such bothersome attachments. It seems
Speaker 1: that the idea that illness stems from and therefore requires
Speaker 1: spiritual or supernatural interventions, is as old as history itself.
Speaker 1: Unto the side of the water, or have drawn nigh,
Speaker 1: casting a woeful fever upon his body. A bane of
Speaker 1: evil had settled on his body, and evil disease on
Speaker 1: his body. They have cast an evil plague had settled
Speaker 1: on his body, Evil venom on his body. They have
Speaker 1: cast an evil curse had settled on his body. Evil
Speaker 1: and sin on his body. They have cast venom and
Speaker 1: wickedness have settled upon him. This priestly Assyrian chant, as
Speaker 1: thousands of years old, a litany of the many ways
Speaker 1: evil spirits attacked some poor soul. And the doctors of
Speaker 1: ancient times were in fact the healers and the magicians,
Speaker 1: and the priests, sometimes indistinguishable between any of them. They
Speaker 1: were the ones who were called upon to help heal
Speaker 1: the sick. With little space between medicine, religion, and magic,
Speaker 1: these healer magicians were regarded by society as honored warriors
Speaker 1: waging war against un seen forces on the battlefield of
Speaker 1: the human body. They wielded an array of tools. Each
Speaker 1: instrument specialized to deal with whatever demon was causing the sickness,
Speaker 1: and also used chance, spells and rituals to drive away
Speaker 1: the forces of illness. But how did they know which
Speaker 1: demon it was and what tools to use, Well, it's
Speaker 1: pretty simple. It all depended on which part of the
Speaker 1: body was ailing. The symptoms of whatever ailment a person
Speaker 1: was struck with themselves gave rise to the diagnosis. For example,
Speaker 1: a painful throat pointed to Utuku, the demon jin, who
Speaker 1: well lived to attack human throats fevers. You're dealing with
Speaker 1: a suku skin disease. The demon Rabisu was the culprit.
Speaker 1: The ancient Greeks likewise, believed both that evil spirits could
Speaker 1: cause every matter of sickness, but also that there were
Speaker 1: gods you could turn to for healing, so it kind
Speaker 1: of balanced it out. And sometimes times the evil spirits
Speaker 1: themselves began to be worshiped as gods as a way
Speaker 1: to appease them through rituals of praise and even blood sacrifice.
Speaker 1: For example, there's the demigod al Maharik. He was a fierce,
Speaker 1: angry and ancient pre Islamic god that was worshiped in
Speaker 1: parts of the Middle East. His name means the one
Speaker 1: who burns, and he lords over a crimson throne read
Speaker 1: as flames. Al Moharak was known to be a god
Speaker 1: of the underworld, and much like his Babylonian counterpart, the
Speaker 1: god Nergill, he was a deity of disease, but al
Speaker 1: Moharak didn't just attack one person. His wrath was more efficient.
Speaker 1: You could say Al Moharak sent plagues to sickened entire regions,
Speaker 1: and later his legend morphed into him being the Jin
Speaker 1: of plagues and pestilence. According to Ottoman mystics, the Jin
Speaker 1: afflicted humans with the plague and other epidemics by piercing
Speaker 1: them with the tip of a disease ridden spear or arrow.
Speaker 1: Treatises written in the fifteenth and sixteenth century also share
Speaker 1: that sometimes these plagues are spread by the direct command
Speaker 1: of Satan himself, who directs his legions of Gin to
Speaker 1: go rampaging against hapless humans. But according to the same treatises,
Speaker 1: there is a way to protect yourself if the plague
Speaker 1: is a war on man said by Satan, man can
Speaker 1: fight back by invoking a powerful name of God against
Speaker 1: the disease. A famous Turkish historian scholar by the name
Speaker 1: of Tasco Prosiati prescribed the following for protection against the
Speaker 1: plague carrying gin. Repeat Albaki, a name of God that
Speaker 1: means the everlasting a hundred and thirty six times a day,
Speaker 1: and no such jin could touch you. Tesco Prosati wrote
Speaker 1: about a story in which a group of students living
Speaker 1: in Kaskar, a city on the Silk Road bordering Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: saw frightening shadows on a wall. The shadows were of
Speaker 1: figures carrying arrows, but was more frightening was that there
Speaker 1: was nothing in the room to actually cast the shadows,
Speaker 1: which could only mean one thing. The figures were gin
Speaker 1: and the tips of the arrows they carried were poisoned
Speaker 1: with plague. The students were told to write down the
Speaker 1: powerful names of God on pieces of paper as a
Speaker 1: talisman to protect themselves. According to the story, those who
Speaker 1: followed instructions were saved and those who didn't perished. Hundreds
Speaker 1: of similar prayerful invocations are prescribed throughout Islamic Plague treatises
Speaker 1: from that time, and likewise Christian and Jewish writings reflect
Speaker 1: the same ideas and even language. Take for example, Psalm nine,
Speaker 1: a prayer that reads, you who live in the shelter
Speaker 1: of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of
Speaker 1: the Almighty, will say to the Lord, my refuge and
Speaker 1: my fortress, my God, and whom I trust. For he
Speaker 1: will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and
Speaker 1: from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his opinions,
Speaker 1: and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness
Speaker 1: is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the
Speaker 1: terror of night, or the arrow that flies by day,
Speaker 1: or the pestilence that stalks and darkness, or the destruction
Speaker 1: that wastes at noonday. While Muslims, Christians, and Jews have
Speaker 1: always had much in common to discuss and interfect gatherings,
Speaker 1: having a shared belief in dark, evil forces that shoot
Speaker 1: arrows of disease probably comes as a surprise to many
Speaker 1: of us on the subject of physical ailments. If there's
Speaker 1: every convenient time to blame a gin, it's when the
Speaker 1: issue is well a deeply personal one. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and eighteen, a medical journal published a piece by a
Speaker 1: doctor from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the
Speaker 1: Health Medical Center in Dubai entitled quote Infertility Caused by Gin.
Speaker 1: This same doctor, Dr Amira Bajirova, had previously written an
Speaker 1: article for the Archives of Sexual Reproductive and Health titled
Speaker 1: quote infertility caused by decreased oxygen utilization and GIN. Now,
Speaker 1: I was as surprised as you define such pieces in
Speaker 1: recent medical journals, But such is the power of spiritual belief.
Speaker 1: Now that thesis of these pieces is that evil gin
Speaker 1: take no greater pleasure than they do in wrecking marriages
Speaker 1: through all kinds of means, like causing and medie between
Speaker 1: spouses over finances, disputes over family issues, lessening their attraction
Speaker 1: for each other, or just making them irritable and hateful
Speaker 1: to each other. But if none of that works, they
Speaker 1: can take more direct action to like causing sexual disorders, miscarriages, impotence,
Speaker 1: premature ejaculation, early menopause, and yes, infertility. Sometimes the gin
Speaker 1: might do it on their own, but more often than
Speaker 1: not they cause these problems because someone, a rival or enemy,
Speaker 1: has summoned them with black magic to destroy the happy
Speaker 1: life of a couple that they want to harm. The
Speaker 1: articles come complete with very official looking charts and lists
Speaker 1: dozens of sexual and reproductive disorders that might be inflicted
Speaker 1: by the gin or could be actual symptoms of being
Speaker 1: possessed by one. And there are a number of very
Speaker 1: interesting cases presented in these pieces, like the one in
Speaker 1: which a patient suffering from polycystic ovaries failed to follow
Speaker 1: the doctor's instructions and then disappeared for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: She then returned to the doctor after a frightening experience.
Speaker 1: She was standing in front of a mirror one night
Speaker 1: applying lipstick when suddenly a bright red patch appeared in
Speaker 1: her clothing below her pelvis. She was bleeding heavily, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't clear whether it was menstrual blood or not.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was, it shocked her into returning for medical treatment.
Speaker 1: The case summary in the article concludes, and a quote
Speaker 1: mirror attracts the gin. The gin is circulating in the body,
Speaker 1: settles in the womb and opens the uterine vessels, causing
Speaker 1: abnormal bleeding. The doctor also had a theory behind male
Speaker 1: impotence and other sexual dysfunction. This happens apparently when a
Speaker 1: female gin. Well, the doctor conceded that maybe a male
Speaker 1: gin too was sexually attracted to a human male and
Speaker 1: messed with his system so he could neither find satisfaction
Speaker 1: or give satisfaction to another human partner. Talk about being
Speaker 1: possessive anyhow. If that caught your ear, don't worry. We'll
Speaker 1: be getting into the phenomena of human gen relationships in
Speaker 1: a later episode. But spoiler alert, the relationships aren't always voluntary.
Speaker 1: Getting back to the connection between evil forces and sexual
Speaker 1: and reproductive issues, we have to keep this in mind.
Speaker 1: One effective way to lessen the stigma of these conditions
Speaker 1: and lesson the personal blame some might ascribe themselves, maybe
Speaker 1: to find an external cause when it's black magic, the
Speaker 1: evil eye, or a wicked gin. It affords a bit
Speaker 1: of protection to those who might otherwise be mistreated by
Speaker 1: their partners or families or society for failing to fulfill
Speaker 1: their obligation to go forth and multiply. It's ironic, actually,
Speaker 1: that such proscriptions might just be a compassionate way of
Speaker 1: letting people off the hook, including medical and health professionals.
Speaker 1: All faults and deficiencies get attributed to the gin, freeing
Speaker 1: people of accountability, blame and shame. At the same time, though,
Speaker 1: it also keeps alive a thriving source of income for
Speaker 1: the people and institutions who claim to be able to
Speaker 1: heal the things that science cannot, and it opens the
Speaker 1: doors for criminals and predators who prey on the vulnerable.
Speaker 1: A two thousand twelve article in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn
Speaker 1: reported the arrest of a faith healer promising to free
Speaker 1: a young girl of gin, but instead the girl's mother
Speaker 1: caught the man in the act of raping her daughter.
Speaker 1: Thankfully he was arrested, but catching such culprits isn't always
Speaker 1: so cut and dry in South Asia, and maybe it
Speaker 1: happens in other parts of the world, but at least
Speaker 1: I can personally vouch for this region. While there are
Speaker 1: doctors and clinics, of course, that can treat infertility, what
Speaker 1: happens when a wife unable to produce any children gets
Speaker 1: repeatedly checked out and the medical professionals say she's just fine. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks to misologyny and the patriarchy getting the way of
Speaker 1: good judgment. Oftentimes no one thinks to check the husband's
Speaker 1: reproductive health, because well, that would be unthinkable. So the
Speaker 1: only remaining explanation then is supernatural, a curse that woman
Speaker 1: is suffering from, or maybe a gin. And so there
Speaker 1: have been countless stories of women, once humiliated for being
Speaker 1: barren and unable to conceive, miraculously becoming pregnant after being
Speaker 1: left alone for treatment with some fraudulent holy man who
Speaker 1: claimed that he could drive out the gin preventing conception.
Speaker 1: Imagine then the situation these women face finally pregnant to
Speaker 1: the great joy of their families, but not through some
Speaker 1: mysterious spiritual healing. Instead, because they're the victims of sexual
Speaker 1: assault by these fake religious healers, these women are left
Speaker 1: to hold this terrible secret, a secret they undoubtedly share
Speaker 1: with dozens of other victims, the secret that more often
Speaker 1: than not, you don't have to fear the supernatural, because
Speaker 1: the worst monsters are usually human. A two thou five
Speaker 1: article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
Speaker 1: presented the case of a twenty five year old Iraqi
Speaker 1: woman living in the UK with no history of any
Speaker 1: psychological or psychiatric disorders, who began to slowly but surely
Speaker 1: withdraw from life. Over time, you stopped being in the
Speaker 1: company of other people, stopped communicating and eventually even stopped eating.
Speaker 1: Doctors diagnosed with severe depression and subjected her to electroshock therapy,
Speaker 1: which did nothing for the patient but further confirmed her
Speaker 1: family suspicion that they were dealing with something else here.
Speaker 1: They secretly believe that their daughter was under the influence
Speaker 1: or possessed by a jin. Without telling the medical professionals involved,
Speaker 1: They ferried the young woman off to see a faith healer,
Speaker 1: who assured them that he could cure her with prayer
Speaker 1: and ritual. After all, faith is often the last resort
Speaker 1: of the desperate. The healer put his patient through a
Speaker 1: few sessions of spiritual therapy, and miraculously, her appetite returned,
Speaker 1: as did her previous emotional health. She reported that she
Speaker 1: wasn't sure what had happened to her, that she was
Speaker 1: fully aware of her condition, but she just couldn't bring
Speaker 1: herself to do anything to come out of it, even
Speaker 1: though of her own admission, she wasn't particularly feeling sad
Speaker 1: or depressed about anything at all. According to the article,
Speaker 1: even five years later, she was still doing fine without
Speaker 1: any medications or any other treatment since the spiritual healing.
Speaker 1: But of course, not all such stories have happy endings.
Speaker 1: For some, the spiritual healing itself becomes a private hell.
Speaker 1: People have long both feared madness and been in awe
Speaker 1: of it. The ancient Greeks thought some madness to be sacred,
Speaker 1: opening divine portals and the power of prophecy. And then
Speaker 1: there's a dark side of madness, the one that's not
Speaker 1: caused by gods or saints, but by demons, or sometimes
Speaker 1: by something in between, like Lyssa, known to the Greeks
Speaker 1: as both the goddess and demon of rage and frenzy.
Speaker 1: In the Greek tragedy The Madness of Heracles, Heracles, the
Speaker 1: son of Zeus, stands before his father's altar, ready to
Speaker 1: purify himself, when suddenly Lissa strikes him with madness. Heracles
Speaker 1: spun around, his eyes, rolling in his head, mouth foaming,
Speaker 1: and mounted an imaginary chariot. He bellowed maniacal laughter as
Speaker 1: he drew his bow and took aim at his own children.
Speaker 1: He didn't know they were his children, though in his
Speaker 1: madness he believed they were the children of an enemy.
Speaker 1: Heracules terrified children tried to save themselves. One child hid
Speaker 1: behind his mother, another behind a temple pillar, and the
Speaker 1: third one under an altar, but it didn't deter Heracles.
Speaker 1: He killed all three of his children and his own
Speaker 1: wife before finally being struck by a rock that put
Speaker 1: him in a deep slumber. Greek mythology is full of
Speaker 1: madness caused by demons or curses, leading to murder, suicide, infanticide,
Speaker 1: and other unthinkable acts such evil You see can madness be?
Speaker 1: And the line between madness and evil forces is just
Speaker 1: as straight. In the Arabian tradition, both predating and after
Speaker 1: the seventh century, when Islam emerged as a religion in
Speaker 1: the region, a mad person is called much new and
Speaker 1: madness itself is called janine. Both of these words have
Speaker 1: the same three letter origin as jin, those letters in
Speaker 1: the English alphabet being j and and much noon januin jin.
Speaker 1: They're not only related. Much noon literally means possessed by
Speaker 1: a jin, whether or not that person is actually possessed.
Speaker 1: So how do the jin drive a person mad? Well,
Speaker 1: they have a few tricks up their sleeves. First is
Speaker 1: the insiduous was swassa, the whisperings, am I good enough?
Speaker 1: Am I pretty enough? Is my husband cheating on me?
Speaker 1: Are my friends talking about me? Did my brother steal
Speaker 1: from me? Is that woman following me? Are my children safe?
Speaker 1: Will my parents die? Those doubts and negative thoughts that
Speaker 1: you can't get rid of, that continuous, persistent stream of
Speaker 1: anxious questions and insecurities that circulates in your mind constantly.
Speaker 1: It may well be a jin whispering to you in
Speaker 1: your very own voice. Maybe it's even your caree, that
Speaker 1: constant companion jin that's born with you and for you,
Speaker 1: and dies with you too. The Gin know that if
Speaker 1: they're at it long enough, it can lead people, if
Speaker 1: not to shear madness, then to depression, panic attacks, resentment
Speaker 1: and anger, and even suicidal ideation. And if that doesn't work,
Speaker 1: they'll try to drive you mad with their music. It's
Speaker 1: not really music, though, it's more of a sound, not
Speaker 1: unlike a siren song, but a bit more creative. It
Speaker 1: can sound like a constant buzzing of flies or bees,
Speaker 1: or the incessant shirp of a bird. It could be
Speaker 1: the sound of wind or a far off whale, or
Speaker 1: never ending murmurs, or maybe the faint beating of drums
Speaker 1: for hours and days, both when you wake and sleep.
Speaker 1: It could just be a sound repeated over and over,
Speaker 1: like it was reported by an ancient poet who described
Speaker 1: it as zizizema, zizimma, zizizimma. Before the advent of modern
Speaker 1: psychiatry and psychology, this was all understood to be symptoms
Speaker 1: of external malevolent forces. But even in the modern era,
Speaker 1: it can be hard for many to draw lines between
Speaker 1: the natural and the supernatural, to know when to take
Speaker 1: a loved one to a psychiatrist and when to take
Speaker 1: them to a spiritual healer, and in some places there
Speaker 1: are almost no options but to choose the latter. In
Speaker 1: the small town of boya Umer in the heart of Morocco,
Speaker 1: there stands a mausoleum dedicated to a sixteenth century saint.
Speaker 1: The town itself was named after this particular saint was
Speaker 1: known to cure those suffering and what we today understand
Speaker 1: to be psychiatric disorders, but before modern medicine was generally
Speaker 1: considered madness caused by gin, and this mausoleum, a shrine
Speaker 1: for that saint, became a place of hope for the
Speaker 1: loved ones of those who were thought to be touched
Speaker 1: by madness, but a place of despair for the afflicted themselves.
Speaker 1: Families came from near and far to leave their sick children, siblings,
Speaker 1: elders at the shrine in the hopes that the healers
Speaker 1: working there and the power of the shrine itself would
Speaker 1: cure their loved ones. Whether the families were driven by
Speaker 1: love or fear, guilt or faith, their patronage brought a
Speaker 1: steady stream of revenue to the shrine, which charged a
Speaker 1: monthly housing fee for their patients and made nearly a
Speaker 1: million dollars a year from their services. The healers there
Speaker 1: claimed they could heal through their own power derived from
Speaker 1: the deceased saint himself, that they had power over the
Speaker 1: gin that were either afflicting to patients, or by employing
Speaker 1: the gin that were already in their control to battle
Speaker 1: the ones that were not in their control. People passing
Speaker 1: by would hear howling and screams, sobs and cries for mercy,
Speaker 1: all which was chalked up to the torment of the
Speaker 1: gin who were being exercised from their victims, except that's
Speaker 1: probably not what it was. Not too many years ago,
Speaker 1: reports began emerging of the torture these patients, treated more
Speaker 1: like animals. Faced Human rights activists raised allegations that patients
Speaker 1: at the shrine were often shackled and beaten, even starved,
Speaker 1: and that place must be shut down. So serious and
Speaker 1: systematic was the situation that a report was even presented
Speaker 1: to the u N Working Group on arbitrary detention. One
Speaker 1: story detailed the horror faced by a young man from
Speaker 1: Tangiers who had a drug addiction and had been left
Speaker 1: at buyah Omer in two thousand and six by his brother.
Speaker 1: He was robbed and beaten, deprived of food and water,
Speaker 1: but was finally saved by the same brother came to
Speaker 1: see him a year lay here for a year, he
Speaker 1: said he lived in hell. As these tales emerged, medical
Speaker 1: professionals and human rights groups demanded the government shut the
Speaker 1: shrine down, putting the authorities between a rock and a
Speaker 1: hard place. After all, the shrine was part and parcel
Speaker 1: of their cultural heritage, as were the beliefs around gin
Speaker 1: and spiritual healing. Others counter protested, insisting the shrine remained
Speaker 1: open not only because of its historic importance, but also
Speaker 1: because they simply didn't know what to do with their
Speaker 1: loved ones, where to take them, how to help heal them.
Speaker 1: But the government conducted a review of the shrine operations
Speaker 1: and in two thousand and fifteen shut it down, much
Speaker 1: to the relief of activists and health professionals. It didn't
Speaker 1: just shut down the shrine, though, The government allocated millions
Speaker 1: of dollars for the patients that would be escaping the shrine,
Speaker 1: recruited mental health professionals, and bought dozens of ambulances to
Speaker 1: transport the ill and the story itself prompted both national
Speaker 1: and international conversations about mental health, abuse of power, human rights, tradition,
Speaker 1: and faith, but also about gin. After all, the government
Speaker 1: could shut down the shrine, but they couldn't shut down
Speaker 1: the healers who claimed powers derived from the saint, and
Speaker 1: they couldn't shut down the Gin themselves, because as long
Speaker 1: as they're a gin, there will always be people who
Speaker 1: promise they can save you from them. They say, there's
Speaker 1: sometimes a fine line between a gift and a curse,
Speaker 1: and such is the case with madness too, because while
Speaker 1: it has often been thought to be a result of
Speaker 1: evil or dark forces, there's a place on the spectrum
Speaker 1: that has long been considered a portal to enlightenment. In
Speaker 1: the Sufi tradition, you are lucky to be known as
Speaker 1: much hub, meaning an unruly friend of God, a person
Speaker 1: touched with madness that connected them to the divine, opened
Speaker 1: them up to secrets, gave them the ability to see
Speaker 1: and understand, and no things the rest of us aren't
Speaker 1: capable of. These people would be forgiven in an otherwise
Speaker 1: orthodox society for exhibiting bizarre behavior and speech, like running
Speaker 1: around naked, babbling in tongues, dancing and frenetic ecstasy, and
Speaker 1: breaking all kinds of religious and social norms. And yes,
Speaker 1: the sacred madness was attributed to Gin good Gin, that is,
Speaker 1: pious Jin, who possessed the bodies of pious men and
Speaker 1: women and opened up the reality of God to them,
Speaker 1: connecting them through the madness to an unseen holy realm.
Speaker 1: The awe that these unruly friends inspired in sufis may
Speaker 1: seem odd, but then behold the Western regard for genius.
Speaker 1: The German philosopher Arthur Scopenhauer once said genius lives only
Speaker 1: one story above madness, and well before that, Aristotle told
Speaker 1: us no great mind has ever existed without a touch
Speaker 1: of madness. Indeed, many of the celebrated geniuses of Western art, literature, science,
Speaker 1: and philosophy suffered from some psychiatric or psychological disorder. Many
Speaker 1: many studies have been done correlating the two phenomena and
Speaker 1: making a strong case for the relationship between madness and art.
Speaker 1: One study found that of famous poets experienced psychopathology, and
Speaker 1: another study found quote a very high percentage of the
Speaker 1: writers and artists, thirty eight percent had been treated for
Speaker 1: a mood disorder. Of those treated, three forts have been
Speaker 1: given antidepressants, lithium, or have been hospitalized. There are researchers
Speaker 1: who dismissed the idea that madness and genius are correlated,
Speaker 1: citing poorly designed studies and conflation and an entire host
Speaker 1: of undermining factors. But then the famous Lord Byron once
Speaker 1: said about himself, we of the craft are all crazy.
Speaker 1: Some are affected by gayety, others by melancholy, but all
Speaker 1: are more or less touched. Byron spoke from personal experience.
Speaker 1: Both he and his contemporary Percy Shelley, were aflicted with
Speaker 1: wide ranging mood swings, from deep sadness and apathy to
Speaker 1: fits of uncontrollable rage, common signs of manic depressive disorder.
Speaker 1: Van Go suffered mental illness for many years of his life,
Speaker 1: leading him to both slice off his ear and shoot
Speaker 1: himself in the chest. Nicola, Tesla, Nietici, Isaac Newton, Edgar
Speaker 1: Allan Poe, Virginia Wolf, Wolfgang Amadeus. The list of mad
Speaker 1: geniuses goes on and on, and just like the Sufis
Speaker 1: gave a pass to their unruly friends of God, so
Speaker 1: has the West not just tolerated, but celebrated its own
Speaker 1: unruly creatives, understanding on some level that these two forces
Speaker 1: go hand in hand. What, however, does any of this
Speaker 1: have to do with gin Well, you'd be surprised to
Speaker 1: know the etymology of the word genius, in case you
Speaker 1: didn't make the connection from how the word sounds. Some
Speaker 1: scholars say and may have its roots in the Arabic
Speaker 1: word ginia and the Arabic word jin, which makes perfect
Speaker 1: sense when you learn that the entire concept of genius
Speaker 1: dates back to ancient Rome, because the Romans believed that
Speaker 1: we are all born with genius. Actually, to be more precise,
Speaker 1: they believe that we are all born with a genius,
Speaker 1: a genius that was originally thought to be a guiding spirit.
Speaker 1: That each one of us was born with a supernatural
Speaker 1: entity that's separate from us, but lives with us, inside
Speaker 1: of us, inspiring us. I don't know sounds kind of
Speaker 1: like a Jin to me. Thanks for joining us this week.
Speaker 1: Next week we'll be back to take you another step
Speaker 1: into the world of the Hidden Gin. Until then, remember
Speaker 1: we are not alone. If you loved today's episode, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you a big favor. Please stop my iTunes
Speaker 1: and leave me a rating and a review, even if
Speaker 1: it's just one short sentence. Not only is that how
Speaker 1: other listeners discover the podcast, but it's also what keeps
Speaker 1: the podcast going. And for every thousand reviews that I
Speaker 1: get on iTunes, I'll release another Patreon episode absolutely free.
Speaker 1: That's right, We're on Patreon, so if you're a Jin enthusiast,
Speaker 1: check out the Companion Patreon series at patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash Hidden Jin. Again, that's patreon dot com slash Hidden Gin,
Speaker 1: and remember Jin is spelled d j I n N.
Speaker 1: That's where you're gonna find an amazing series of interviews
Speaker 1: between me, scholars, experts, artist, historians, and every day lay
Speaker 1: people who have had extraordinary experiences with Jin and everybody
Speaker 1: can check out the first episode absolutely free. It's me
Speaker 1: and my husband sharing our Jin stories and it was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. And if you have any Gin stories,
Speaker 1: well I'd love to hear from you. Email me at
Speaker 1: the Hidden Gin at gmail dot com. Once again, it's
Speaker 1: the Hidden Gin Gin with a D at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com and you might just hear back from me, or
Speaker 1: you might hear your story on this show. And finally,
Speaker 1: don't forget to follow us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Instagram with the handle the Hidden Gin. There you
Speaker 1: can tweet, post, insta, dm me. I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from all of you, and believe me, I read every
Speaker 1: single message. The Hidden Gin is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The
Speaker 1: podcast is written and hosted by Robbia Chaudry and produced
Speaker 1: by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Music for the show was
Speaker 1: provided by Smith Sony and Folkways Recordings. Our theme song
Speaker 1: was created by Patrick Cortez. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. H