Speaker 1: Welcome to the Hidden Gin, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkey. Listener discretion
Speaker 1: is advised. I have five maternal uncles, each one of
Speaker 1: them a little bit crazier than the last. One of
Speaker 1: these uncles, one of my favorites of the entire group.
Speaker 1: In fact, had been engaged to be married half a
Speaker 1: dozen times. He had been trying to get married for
Speaker 1: nearly fifteen years, but every single time the engagement would
Speaker 1: get broken off for some reason or another. Year after
Speaker 1: year went by and he could never go from being
Speaker 1: engaged to actually getting married. He was in his late thirties,
Speaker 1: a point by which he should have been well settled
Speaker 1: down with a few kids of his own. And he
Speaker 1: was a really nice guy, decent looking, He had his
Speaker 1: own plays, had a great job, travel the world. No
Speaker 1: one could figure out why he just couldn't seal the deal,
Speaker 1: until finally, when he was advised to go see a
Speaker 1: local woman known for her supernatural abilities. Maybe he was
Speaker 1: told she could figure out what was wrong, and so
Speaker 1: he went to her. He dragged a friend along with
Speaker 1: him to her tiny, crumbling home on the outskirts of
Speaker 1: the city. A little bit nervous about whether what he
Speaker 1: was doing was even kosher. He had heard that this
Speaker 1: medium healer whatever she was, dealt in black magic, and
Speaker 1: that made her dangerous. But he said his prayers and
Speaker 1: sucked up his fear because at this point he was desperate.
Speaker 1: She was younger than he had imagined, rail thin, sunken eyes,
Speaker 1: swaddled up in numerous shawls despite the blazing heat, and
Speaker 1: she sat in a small, dusty courtyard on a low
Speaker 1: woven seat and motion for my uncle to sit on
Speaker 1: a sheet spread out on the floor in front of her.
Speaker 1: She asked him his name, his parents names, and his
Speaker 1: date of birth. Then she closed her eyes and mumbled
Speaker 1: some prayers. After a very long five minutes or so,
Speaker 1: her eyes flew open, and she told my uncle, I
Speaker 1: know what's wrong. Someone has done black magic on you.
Speaker 1: They've conjured a jin to block your marriage. So every
Speaker 1: time you get close to getting married, this gin interferes
Speaker 1: and whispers dark things into your heart or your fiance's heart,
Speaker 1: and turns you against each other. The person who did
Speaker 1: this magic on you as a woman who wants to
Speaker 1: ruin your life, and her name starts with an end.
Speaker 1: Now many of the women closest to him, including cousins
Speaker 1: and sister in laws, and even his own mother had
Speaker 1: names that started with the letter N. But he had
Speaker 1: a feeling he knew exactly who it was, a sister
Speaker 1: in law that he didn't trust, and he wasn't about
Speaker 1: to let her get away with it. The healer told
Speaker 1: him exactly what he needed to do to break the
Speaker 1: curse and handed him a list of items he'd have
Speaker 1: to retrieve and return to her with along with her fee,
Speaker 1: the equivalent of about two U s. Dollars. She also
Speaker 1: handed him a small plastic container, which she told him
Speaker 1: was a vial of holy water from the spring of
Speaker 1: Zum Zum in Mecca. He was to take this vial
Speaker 1: and place it under his bed and return with it
Speaker 1: and the other things she needed after a week. Seven
Speaker 1: days later, he returned to her with all she had
Speaker 1: asked for, hair stolen from the brush of the person
Speaker 1: he suspected to have done the black magic, a black
Speaker 1: rubber slipper, a basket of dried red chilies, and a
Speaker 1: bundle of cash he washed as she placed the hair
Speaker 1: on the dirt floor of the courtyard and poured the
Speaker 1: holy water over it. Then she took the black rubber
Speaker 1: sandal and began slapping the now wet patch on the floor,
Speaker 1: screaming the sister in law's name, and to hell with you,
Speaker 1: to hell with you, over and over. My uncle had
Speaker 1: never seen anything like it. He was mortified. As she
Speaker 1: grew more frenzied, bouncing up and down, slapping the muddy
Speaker 1: strands of hair with all her might, until suddenly she
Speaker 1: collapsed in silence. After a few minutes, she collected herself
Speaker 1: and emptied the bag of dried chilies on top of
Speaker 1: the rubber sandal, which was still laying in the watery
Speaker 1: mess she had made. Then she set the little pile
Speaker 1: of dried chilies on fire. Now, if you have never
Speaker 1: burned dried chilies, the smoke is thick and peppery and choking.
Speaker 1: And as this smoke rose, she blew it towards my uncle,
Speaker 1: who sat their eyes watering, holding back coughs. He tried
Speaker 1: to get up, but she signaled him to sit back down,
Speaker 1: where he suffered until the fire went out and there
Speaker 1: was no more smoke left. The healer then gathered up
Speaker 1: some of the ashes into a cotton pouch and handed
Speaker 1: him to my uncle, telling him to bury them where
Speaker 1: no one would find them, and that once they were buried,
Speaker 1: the curse would be broken. Now, my uncle told me
Speaker 1: this story about a year after all of this had
Speaker 1: taken place, and he laughed as he told did, and
Speaker 1: I laughed with him, tears streaming down our faces as
Speaker 1: he re enacted how that woman had slapped the black
Speaker 1: slipper on the ground over and over, howling for his
Speaker 1: sister in law to go to hell. The entire thing
Speaker 1: had been ridiculous, he admitted, but he had gone ahead
Speaker 1: and buried the ashes even though he was pretty sure
Speaker 1: that the healer was a fraud. But I wasn't so sure, though,
Speaker 1: because at the time he told me this, seventeen years ago,
Speaker 1: I was visiting Pakistan and we were sitting in our
Speaker 1: family home preparing for his wedding. I'm Robbiadrey, and I'll
Speaker 1: be your guide into the world of the hidden Gin. Welcome.
Speaker 1: While most gin, you could argue, are busy in their
Speaker 1: own lives, going about their gin business, we do know
Speaker 1: that business isn't always confined to their own realm. There
Speaker 1: are places here on earth with a gin are known
Speaker 1: to live and linger ruins and graveyards. But then sometimes
Speaker 1: the GIN will decide to take up residence in your residence.
Speaker 1: Hollywood has produced dozens of films unhaunted houses, and ghost
Speaker 1: hunters on TV have long entertained us with shaky visuals
Speaker 1: of darkened locations, so we are all familiar with what
Speaker 1: a potential haunting looks like. The most benign of them
Speaker 1: are just the entity making its presence known, like moving
Speaker 1: things around, playing little tricks on the residence, or staking
Speaker 1: acclaim in a corner of the house as their own.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, I've had such experiences, and while
Speaker 1: I do admit being freaked out, it was mostly just
Speaker 1: a nuisance. But there are much more extreme circumstances, of course,
Speaker 1: where the Gin are committed to driving out people from
Speaker 1: their homes, and they do so by terrifying them in
Speaker 1: all sorts of ways. Over the years, I've heard dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens of stories about household objects being smashed, doors
Speaker 1: being slammed at all hours of the night, chairs with
Speaker 1: people seated in them, being dragged across the room, toilets
Speaker 1: and tubs overflowing on their own, and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth. And you can witness similar things yourself online.
Speaker 1: That is, there are endless YouTube videos of purported house
Speaker 1: hauntings and human gin possessions. Entire accounts dedicated to just
Speaker 1: these sorts of things, though I am rather skeptical of
Speaker 1: the gin hunters who seem to find them in every
Speaker 1: dark house they go into. Forget finding jin, though, it's
Speaker 1: getting rid of them. That's a much tougher task, whether
Speaker 1: you're exercising them from a place or from a human body.
Speaker 1: It's not for the faint of heart, and certainly not
Speaker 1: for the lay person, because when the possession is serious,
Speaker 1: most of us are hardly equipped to get into a
Speaker 1: fist fight with a gin. Enter the world of gin exorcism,
Speaker 1: a realm full of quacks and frauds, but also powerful
Speaker 1: spiritual healers that risk their lives to drive out dark
Speaker 1: gin from human bodies and abodes. But before they can
Speaker 1: exercise a gin, a gin has to first take possession.
Speaker 1: It's believed that there are certain parts of a house
Speaker 1: or dwelling that you're most likely to find the gin in,
Speaker 1: usually the darkest, dirtiest, or most abandoned parts of a residence,
Speaker 1: which is understandable, like the bathroom or a dank basement,
Speaker 1: maybe a dusty attic, but the gin are also drawn
Speaker 1: to in between places. That's why they're most active in
Speaker 1: this sliver of time between day and night, between dusk
Speaker 1: and dawn, and it's also why they lurk under thresholds,
Speaker 1: neither inside or out, but just on the boundary, but
Speaker 1: also right at the opening openings to a home or
Speaker 1: to a room. And similarly, the gin also need openings
Speaker 1: into human beings, a crack or vulnerability that will let
Speaker 1: them in, and they have a number of tricks up
Speaker 1: their sleeves to get on the inside, as it were.
Speaker 1: According to Moroccan lore, a jin can be invited to
Speaker 1: possess someone if the victim can be tricked into eating
Speaker 1: something called the ahm. In the early part of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, the French artist Aleen R. De Lenz, one
Speaker 1: of the first women ever to be admitted to the
Speaker 1: Art School of Paris, moved to Morocco with her husband,
Speaker 1: which was at the time colonized by France. Once settled
Speaker 1: in her new country, Aleen dedicated herself to the revival
Speaker 1: of what she deemed native arts, and herself went on
Speaker 1: to create over a hundred paintings and write dozens of
Speaker 1: short stories and numerous volumes about the lives of the
Speaker 1: people that she lived among. She was particularly fascinated with
Speaker 1: the lives of Moroccan women and their cultural norms and practices,
Speaker 1: which are central to many of her writings. De Lenz
Speaker 1: died young at the age of forty four in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty five, and shortly after her death, her final book
Speaker 1: was published, Practices of Moroccan Harems, Witchcraft, Medicine, Beauty. The
Speaker 1: book was a collection of magical rituals and recipes used
Speaker 1: by Moroccan women and healers for almost every issue you
Speaker 1: could imagine, including recipes to and I quote, give a
Speaker 1: deflowered bride the appearance of virginity, ashore a husband's fidelity,
Speaker 1: bring misfortune upon a co wife, augment the size of breasts,
Speaker 1: and for irritated mothers in law, detaching a newly married
Speaker 1: son from the two beloved new wife. If a wife
Speaker 1: wanted to dominate a marriage, according to this book, all
Speaker 1: she had to do was, after being intimate with her husband,
Speaker 1: urinate into her cupped hand and then pour the contents
Speaker 1: into her unsuspecting husband's tea while reciting this chant, I
Speaker 1: made you drink my water so that you do not
Speaker 1: see but by my eyes you do not hear, but
Speaker 1: by my ears you do not speak, but by my words.
Speaker 1: If a woman wanted her husband to desire her more,
Speaker 1: she had to preserve a fresh, plump date inside her
Speaker 1: well private regions and then mix it into her husband's food.
Speaker 1: To stop an abusive husband from beating his wife, he
Speaker 1: had to be fed soup made with hyena's brains, and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. Among these recipes was the
Speaker 1: preparation of the arm, the food that, if eaten, would
Speaker 1: cause a person to be controlled in a variety of ways.
Speaker 1: The magicians and healers who prepared that the arm claimed
Speaker 1: that it was in fact prepared at the guidance and
Speaker 1: direction of the Jinn themselves. The preparation was described in
Speaker 1: de Lenz's book like this, The coast coast is rolled
Speaker 1: by the hand of the dead, mixed with the crushed
Speaker 1: bones of the dead as a fatida, fallen hair reduced
Speaker 1: to cinders, powder of dry toronto would have figged finally pulverized.
Speaker 1: This is at the base of all magic drugs administered.
Speaker 1: Unknown to the victim. That hand of the dead thing,
Speaker 1: by the way, wasn't taken lightly. Local doctors once reported
Speaker 1: to de Lend that two women were caught digging up
Speaker 1: a grave so that they could steal the hands from
Speaker 1: a cadaver and use them to prepare food for one
Speaker 1: of their husbands. They weren't trying to get him possessed,
Speaker 1: though the ritual was supposed to have the effect of
Speaker 1: a love potion and filled the spouse with endless desire
Speaker 1: for his wife. Instead, once the women were caught, the
Speaker 1: husband actually divorced the wife. Now, if you want to
Speaker 1: cause an actual gin possession, more foul things have to
Speaker 1: be added to the base of this concoction. To take
Speaker 1: things further, dung and feces, choice foods of the gin
Speaker 1: are added to that the um, resulting in a filthy
Speaker 1: mix that no person in their right mind would voluntarily eat,
Speaker 1: which is why the victim has to be tricked into
Speaker 1: eating it, And that trick involves the person's own personal jin,
Speaker 1: the kareen. You'll remember earlier in the season, we talked
Speaker 1: about this jin, the one that every person is born
Speaker 1: with and dies with the front of me for life,
Speaker 1: that you just can't shake. According to de Lenz's book,
Speaker 1: the way to get the evil gin on the inside,
Speaker 1: as it were, was for it to team up with
Speaker 1: the victims screen and influence it to make their person
Speaker 1: eat the filthy the arm which the evil gin was
Speaker 1: attached to. And once that the arm is inside your
Speaker 1: belly and running through your bloodstream, so is the possessing
Speaker 1: gin itself. You might be relieved thinking that you're safe
Speaker 1: from gin possession because while no one you know would
Speaker 1: or could go to such lengths to saddle you with one,
Speaker 1: I mean, no one dislikes you that much, right, But
Speaker 1: not all gin possessions are orchestrated by a human enemy.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the gin go about possessing people completely of their
Speaker 1: own volition. They might do it for revenge if a
Speaker 1: human hurt them or another gin, usually without knowing it,
Speaker 1: but they can also be driven by lust, desire, jealousy
Speaker 1: of a person, wanting that person to themselves, not unlike
Speaker 1: a real life stalker. In such cases, these gin can't
Speaker 1: rely on their victim eating the arm to enter the body,
Speaker 1: so they have to find other openings, and according to tradition,
Speaker 1: every opening in the physical body is fair game for
Speaker 1: the gin, and not just the obvious ones like the nose, mouth,
Speaker 1: and ears, even the fused fontanels in the skull like
Speaker 1: that soft spot on the top of the head. The temples,
Speaker 1: the eye sockets are considered gateways into the inner space
Speaker 1: of a human being. Then, of course, there are the
Speaker 1: openings of the nether regions, which according to tradition, are
Speaker 1: just as vulnerable to invasion as any other opening in
Speaker 1: the body and should be guarded accordingly. But these openings
Speaker 1: also don't have to be physical. Overwhelming emotions such as
Speaker 1: fear or despair are exactly those cracks that render a
Speaker 1: person less able to fend off a gin attack. Fright
Speaker 1: is in a specially powerful break in a person's psychic
Speaker 1: defense mechanism, which is one reason evil gin will do
Speaker 1: all they can to scare the heavy jeebs out of you.
Speaker 1: It's not just for kicks, it's to create breaks in
Speaker 1: your armor that lets them right on into your body.
Speaker 1: The idea that demons or even Satan could take possession
Speaker 1: of a person is as old as the belief in
Speaker 1: these beings themselves, and ancient scrolls were found in the
Speaker 1: caves of Gormran on the shores of the West Bank
Speaker 1: and Palestine that attest to that belief. You may have
Speaker 1: heard of them. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered
Speaker 1: in ninety, but date back a few centuries before the
Speaker 1: birth of Jesus of Nazareth. A prayer found in the
Speaker 1: scroll reads, do not let Satan or an unclean spirit
Speaker 1: rule over me. Do not let pain or an evil
Speaker 1: inclination take possession of my bones, demonstrating that the Jews
Speaker 1: of this period acknowledge that this was a real possibility. Now,
Speaker 1: given that we've all seen the x or sist, you
Speaker 1: might believe that we all know the signs of demonic
Speaker 1: possession when we see it. I mean, what else could
Speaker 1: explain speaking in tongues while your head spins three sixty degrees.
Speaker 1: But the signs aren't always so obvious. An online blog
Speaker 1: aptly named gin Exorcist tells the story of an average
Speaker 1: housewife who suddenly began acting really strange. The blog has
Speaker 1: only two entries, both written by the son of the
Speaker 1: suspected victim of possession. His mother was generally a sweet woman,
Speaker 1: sensitive and kind hearted, and when family problems arose, she
Speaker 1: took them to heart pretty deeply. One day, having been
Speaker 1: unable to sleep the night before because of family issues,
Speaker 1: his mother fell with a thud in the kitchen. When
Speaker 1: they found her, she was on the floor having passed out,
Speaker 1: maybe from exhaustion, but she seemed okay afterwards and fell
Speaker 1: into a deep sleep for the rest of the evening.
Speaker 1: But around one am, the family woke suddenly to the
Speaker 1: sound of crashing glass. They found the mother standing in
Speaker 1: front of her dress or mirror, which she had smashed
Speaker 1: with a perfume bottle as she screamed repeatedly, you're a
Speaker 1: bad mother. I'm going to kill you. She then turned
Speaker 1: to her husband and demanded to know who he was,
Speaker 1: and then she passed out again, and when she came to,
Speaker 1: she didn't recognize anyone in the family, not even her children.
Speaker 1: At this point, of course, the family started freaking out
Speaker 1: and called nine one one, thinking she was having a
Speaker 1: psychiatric break, But when she was taken to the hospital,
Speaker 1: all the tests checked out just fine. They weren't able
Speaker 1: to find any medical reason for the fainting and memory loss,
Speaker 1: and so she was released to go home. The next day,
Speaker 1: she seemed fine, but the family had started wondering whether
Speaker 1: they were dealing with something supernatural, so the Sun reached
Speaker 1: out to a cleric to ask how they would know
Speaker 1: if this was Gin related. The cleric told him to
Speaker 1: look out for some common but relatively unrecognized symptoms of
Speaker 1: gin possession joint pains, abnormal headaches, extreme temperature changes in
Speaker 1: the body, excess of yawning, laziness, and nightmare. He also
Speaker 1: advised that they recite a number of prayers and blow
Speaker 1: into a glass of water to give the mother to drink.
Speaker 1: If she complained that the water tasted weird or like ash,
Speaker 1: that meant a gin had taken over her. They never
Speaker 1: did get a chance to do the water test because
Speaker 1: it turned out they didn't need it. That same night,
Speaker 1: the mother began speaking in someone else's voice, the voice
Speaker 1: of the gin that was possessing her. He spoke through
Speaker 1: the mother in a deep voice as she either stared
Speaker 1: ahead unblinking or closed her eyes with a smirk. His name,
Speaker 1: he said, was a mus Rooney. He was a gin
Speaker 1: from India, he told the family, and he liked living
Speaker 1: with them and liked living in her body, where he
Speaker 1: had dwelled for the past twelve years. We are never
Speaker 1: told whether the family was able to exercise Musrooney the
Speaker 1: gin from the mother, because the blog stopped short of
Speaker 1: the next entry. But they were on the right path,
Speaker 1: because according to the customs, the first thing you need
Speaker 1: to try to do when exercising a gin is to
Speaker 1: determine the jin's name, if that is the general give it.
Speaker 1: The gin will ordinarily resist giving too much information about themselves,
Speaker 1: because the more they give up, the less power they have.
Speaker 1: Knowing the name of a gin, where it's from, what
Speaker 1: it's lineages, gives you leverage over it, and kind of
Speaker 1: a similar way to knowing all that information about someone
Speaker 1: you're interrogating. It can take repeated intense questioning, coupled with
Speaker 1: irritating the gin, for example by tugging on their victims
Speaker 1: ears or pulling their hair. Establishing the name of the
Speaker 1: gin is most important in cultures where exercising a possessed
Speaker 1: person is less about driving out in evil gin and
Speaker 1: more about establishing what you could call a working relationship
Speaker 1: with it. The book The hammad Sha, a study in
Speaker 1: Moroccan ethnopsychiatry, details how the latter approach is much more
Speaker 1: likely to be taken on in that region. That's because
Speaker 1: in Morocco, certain powerful jin's like La la Aisha, the
Speaker 1: camel footed she demon or her consort Sidney Hammu are
Speaker 1: not just believed to exist, they're also venerated and feared
Speaker 1: If these gin are responsible for a possession, the victim's
Speaker 1: best bet is to just join the very Sufi order
Speaker 1: connected to the gin in order to appease it. In
Speaker 1: one particular case, a man who was a member of
Speaker 1: the Sufi order called the Miliana dreamt on three consecutive
Speaker 1: nights that the Jin La la Aisha had grabbed him
Speaker 1: by the neck and slammed him onto the ground. She
Speaker 1: said to him in the dream, either you work for
Speaker 1: me or I'll have your neck. Over the course of
Speaker 1: those days, the man grew so sick and weak he
Speaker 1: could no longer walk. Finally, his wife bought him a
Speaker 1: black tunic and red turban the colors beloved to La
Speaker 1: la Aisha, and after performing a ritual to join the
Speaker 1: Jin's order, he recovered. He told the author quote, Aisha
Speaker 1: asked me to perform her rituals for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. I will always work for La la Aisha.
Speaker 1: Now women hold a special place among these orders when
Speaker 1: it comes to dealing with gin, acting as what are
Speaker 1: called the law or exorcism sears. They're brought in especially
Speaker 1: when a gin can't be identified, and they use their
Speaker 1: powers of divination to cast and read Cali shells. That's right,
Speaker 1: those pretty speckled shells that are often made into jewelry
Speaker 1: in our part of the world are in fact central
Speaker 1: to one of the oldest divination rituals in the world,
Speaker 1: used to connect with ancestors, spirits, and yes jin, most
Speaker 1: commonly in West Africa. Once the gin is identified, elaborate
Speaker 1: communal rituals are often undertaken to appease the gin, and
Speaker 1: one of the most well known such rituals in North
Speaker 1: Africa is the Czar exorcism ceremony. The Czar exorcism is
Speaker 1: meant to appease no other than the Tsar itself, malevolent
Speaker 1: demons that most frequently attached themselves to women. It's believed
Speaker 1: that there are eight demon jins called sar Roach who
Speaker 1: all serve at the pleasure of the Jinn, King Warobal Mama,
Speaker 1: and any of these could be behind a possession. The
Speaker 1: czar ritual itself is not only done mostly by women,
Speaker 1: it's also often led by women. In the two thousand
Speaker 1: and three book Women and Demons Culled Healing in Islamic Egypt,
Speaker 1: the author witnessed a ritual for herself and Cairo when
Speaker 1: she accompanied a well known exorcist named Sika Zahara to
Speaker 1: a ceremony meant to cleanse the gin from a victim
Speaker 1: known as the Czar Bride. The ceremony took place in
Speaker 1: the dead of the night at the home of a
Speaker 1: woman who lived in a house made out of a
Speaker 1: grave right in the center of the Cairo Necropolis. The
Speaker 1: Necropolis is a massive one thousand year old cemetery called
Speaker 1: the City of the Dead, but it houses not only
Speaker 1: the dead, but also thousands of living Egyptians who make
Speaker 1: their homes right next to the deceased. A group of
Speaker 1: women were already gathered in this grave house, and the author,
Speaker 1: also a woman, was immediately doused with incense and seated
Speaker 1: on the floor so the ceremony could begin. The Czar Bride,
Speaker 1: a woman in her fifties, was dressed in white with
Speaker 1: a head dress and ornaments, and the rest of the
Speaker 1: women formed a circle around her. Amid drums enchanting by
Speaker 1: shaik A Zara, the women let out a high pitched euilation,
Speaker 1: a joyous sound signifying celebration. Suddenly, the drumming and chanting stopped,
Speaker 1: and the bride was led into the center of the room,
Speaker 1: where two turkeys were brought to her. Sik A Zara
Speaker 1: apologized to the birds and then slaughtered them and smeared
Speaker 1: some of the blood on the bride's forehead, cheeks, and hands.
Speaker 1: And then something truly unusual happened. A bottle of whiskey
Speaker 1: was broken out and poured for everyone in the room. Now,
Speaker 1: everyone in that room was Muslim and would ordinarily shun
Speaker 1: alcohol as completely forbidden in the faith, But as was
Speaker 1: explained by the author, they were dealing with some very
Speaker 1: special circumstances. The gin who had possessed the czar bride
Speaker 1: was a Christian gin, and he had ordered that everyone
Speaker 1: must drink the whiskey to appease him, and of course
Speaker 1: they couldn't say no. The women lit up cigarettes, drank
Speaker 1: the whiskey, and began intense, dramatic, exhausting dancing, shaking and shuddering,
Speaker 1: swiveling hips, and swirling scarves and sticks for hours, each
Speaker 1: one channeling a different Gin through their particular movements. At
Speaker 1: the end of the exorcism, the gin hadn't exactly been
Speaker 1: driven anywhere. Rather, the gin had become the master of
Speaker 1: the possessed, and the ceremony itself was a means for
Speaker 1: the possessed to submit to the Gin, a submission that
Speaker 1: they will be bound to for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: They will live as their master's servant, dancing the day,
Speaker 1: answers the master enjoys, wearing the colors he or she prefers,
Speaker 1: and participating in the rituals the master expects. These are exorcism,
Speaker 1: it seems then, it's not at all about exercising the
Speaker 1: gin from a person. It's more about exercising a person's
Speaker 1: resistance to the gin. It seems like a heavy price
Speaker 1: to pay, but for most it's worth it to no
Speaker 1: longer be tormented by gin whose power can never be matched.
Speaker 1: It's also, i suppose, worth the large sums of money
Speaker 1: that have to be paid to the woman in charge,
Speaker 1: sheik Zara for the Czar ritual itself. Of course, not
Speaker 1: everyone is on board with pretty much just giving in
Speaker 1: and submitting to a gin, and frankly, not all gin's
Speaker 1: are on that same train either, which brings us to
Speaker 1: the kind of exorcism that we think about When we
Speaker 1: think about exorcism, you know what I mean, the priestly
Speaker 1: figure chanting, script, shaking holy water, sweating, hollering, exhausted by
Speaker 1: the effort to drive out a demon from its victims.
Speaker 1: And yes, those kinds of exorcisms happen all around the
Speaker 1: world with experts claiming to be able to expel the
Speaker 1: Gin from human hosts. Enter Abu Yusuf, intrepid Jin hunter
Speaker 1: and healer from Detroit, Michigan, who was profiled on the
Speaker 1: Religion News blog fifteen years ago. Abu use Of claims
Speaker 1: clients all across the globe and was tracked down for
Speaker 1: his profile in Beirut on his way to the Gulf
Speaker 1: to perform some exorcisms. Yusef wasn't born with any special
Speaker 1: powers in the field, but he spent hours studying scripture,
Speaker 1: and one day, two decades later, as he was deep
Speaker 1: in study, he suddenly felt something what he wouldn't say.
Speaker 1: It was a secret, and that secret opened up the
Speaker 1: secret world of Gin to him, a world he was
Speaker 1: able to see clearly. Ever, since not every Gin exorcist
Speaker 1: has the power to see Jin. Ordinarily, making use of
Speaker 1: special in a I see dead people kind of way,
Speaker 1: he could vouch, for example, that six of the dwellings
Speaker 1: in the UK were haunted by Gin, and could also
Speaker 1: tell what a person is possessed by a Jin even
Speaker 1: if that person is showing no apparent signs of it
Speaker 1: during the interview itself. Use have told one of the
Speaker 1: two journalists that she was possessed by a gin, but
Speaker 1: her male colleague nope, which tracks with the use of
Speaker 1: theory that most gin possessions happened to women by jin who,
Speaker 1: out of lustful obsession, sexually violate their victim. Those such cases,
Speaker 1: he said he saw frequently. The reporter, who was hoping
Speaker 1: to witness an exorcism, decided she may as well just
Speaker 1: get exercised herself, and so she revisited Yusuf, who began
Speaker 1: by seating her in a chair, feet firmly planted, hands
Speaker 1: on her thighs relaxed as use have bent close to
Speaker 1: her ear chanting prayers. At first, she tried to focus
Speaker 1: on the words, but then they all started to blur together.
Speaker 1: Then she rights the shadows and lights reflected on the
Speaker 1: stone floor start to dance. My vision blurs, My hands
Speaker 1: start to sweat. I can feel my hands start to
Speaker 1: lift up just a little bit, but strongly enough to
Speaker 1: make it hard to keep them down when I try.
Speaker 1: I have no idea how long this is all taken.
Speaker 1: It has been some twenty minutes until my hands and
Speaker 1: legs started shaking slowly. My hands are still up, and
Speaker 1: that was it. She was then given a drink of
Speaker 1: water and told that the gin would never bother her again,
Speaker 1: that it had left her body through her hands and feet.
Speaker 1: The journalist was rather shocked that the entire thing was
Speaker 1: so painless. That, explained Yusef, was because he knew what
Speaker 1: he was doing, which is why he said there were
Speaker 1: people around the world willing to pay him thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars to help free them of the demons that conventional
Speaker 1: medicine failed at Now, if that seems like a stretch,
Speaker 1: it isn't at all. A two thousand and nineteen piece
Speaker 1: on the Metador Network travel blog, written by Middle East
Speaker 1: culture writer Baxter Jackson, tells the story of a woman
Speaker 1: who traveled all the way from the US to the
Speaker 1: country of Oman in order to take care of her
Speaker 1: gin problem. Jackson had years earlier written about a famous
Speaker 1: gin exorcist named mall Lam Salim, who was from and
Speaker 1: lived in Bahla, an oasis town in Oman. But Bahla
Speaker 1: isn't just any old town, though it's made it into
Speaker 1: the National Geographics list of the top ten most haunted
Speaker 1: places in the world, and was also featured in an
Speaker 1: NPR segment for the unusual and unexplainable supernatural things that
Speaker 1: took place there. It's called for good reason, Medina the Alser,
Speaker 1: the city of magic, black magic. That is, the stories
Speaker 1: out of Bahla are endless pillars of fire that erupt
Speaker 1: out of the desert sands spontaneously, crumbling walls that refused
Speaker 1: to be rebuilt, Mosques that fly, which is that take
Speaker 1: off with little girls, and accounts of peop will who
Speaker 1: look out of a window only to see their own
Speaker 1: self looking back in and encountering gin that have taken
Speaker 1: on the appearance of a dead loved one. It's not
Speaker 1: a surprise to find men like maure Lum Salim in
Speaker 1: a place run amok with gin. And so when a
Speaker 1: young woman from Boston read Baxter Jackson's piece, she reached
Speaker 1: out to him, saying, I'm an American, I live in Boston,
Speaker 1: and I have a gin problem, and I'm not crazy.
Speaker 1: She wanted to see if more Lump Salim could help her,
Speaker 1: and she was willing to fly halfway across the world
Speaker 1: to see him, and so Jackson found himself picking her
Speaker 1: up at the airport and escorting her along with another friend,
Speaker 1: to the exorcist's home in Bahala, driving through a dust
Speaker 1: storm and then right into a fearsome thunderstorm as they
Speaker 1: reached the town, more Lump Salim was a large, imposing figure,
Speaker 1: but welcoming. They settled in with cups of cardamum coffee
Speaker 1: in the middle of a room scattered with amulets. The
Speaker 1: exerci carefully opened a massive book filled with rice paper pages,
Speaker 1: each one covered in Arabic scribbles, symbols, and diagrams. Now
Speaker 1: the room was brightly lit with neon tube lights, but
Speaker 1: suddenly a shadow, dark and defined, raced across the walls
Speaker 1: of the room, and incomprehensible whispers filled the air. Everyone gasped.
Speaker 1: No one had moved, there was nothing that could have
Speaker 1: created that shadow that clearly flew across the room, and
Speaker 1: certainly the whispers had erupted out of nowhere. Suddenly, more
Speaker 1: Lem Salim declared Al Malak as the black Prince of
Speaker 1: the Gin, that was the gin that the young woman
Speaker 1: was afflicted with. The exorcist lit some frankincense, had the
Speaker 1: woman lay in the center of the floor and began
Speaker 1: reciting scripture and chanting prayers over her, his hand resting
Speaker 1: on her forehead. The woman exhaled a deep sigh and
Speaker 1: a rush of cold air filled the room, and as
Speaker 1: more Lem Salim continued to pray, she suddenly sat upright
Speaker 1: and screamed ferociously as the thunder outside roared. She had
Speaker 1: to be wrestled back unto laying down again by the
Speaker 1: two men witnessing the exorcism, and Muam Salim shook a
Speaker 1: vial of holy water over her body. She groaned, twisting
Speaker 1: and turning trying to get free from the men, and
Speaker 1: her fingers and toes curled tightly. Another shadow flew across
Speaker 1: the wall as Muallem Salim thundered, he who returns over
Speaker 1: and over again, he who whispers evil into the hearts
Speaker 1: of men, whether he be from among the Gin or
Speaker 1: men be gone. The storm outside seemed to parallel the
Speaker 1: climax of the exorcism. Suddenly dying down and Baxter Jackson
Speaker 1: watched as the young woman's body relaxed and her eyes,
Speaker 1: which had been rolled back in their sockets, returned to normal.
Speaker 1: They helped her up a bit weak, said their goodbyes
Speaker 1: to the exorcist, and returned to their car. There, the
Speaker 1: woman said she felt better, lighter, like a weight had
Speaker 1: been lifted from her, but that didn't mean she thought
Speaker 1: she was cured, because before coming to Amman to meet
Speaker 1: maua lump Slim, she had gone to the Uae and
Speaker 1: had an exorcism there with another shake. But according to her,
Speaker 1: after the ritual, the Jin had returned with a vengeance,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately her story didn't end there. The respite she
Speaker 1: got from the Black Prince of the Jin was only temporary,
Speaker 1: and eventually she decided to travel to Indonesia to give
Speaker 1: yet one more exorcist a try. While the young woman
Speaker 1: in this story unfortunately wasn't able to rid herself of
Speaker 1: the Jin that haunted her, she's lucky that the exorcist
Speaker 1: she saw didn't resort to more extreme measures, because in
Speaker 1: the world of gin, exorcism is perfectly acceptable to beat
Speaker 1: a gin out of you. According to the thirteenth century
Speaker 1: theologian Ibnthemia, it's permissible to strike a possessed person as
Speaker 1: many strikes as it took to get rid of the gin,
Speaker 1: because it was the gin who felt the pain of
Speaker 1: the strikes, not the human, who, even Theamia said wouldn't
Speaker 1: feel a thing, and the screams coming from the person
Speaker 1: being beaten, well, no need to be concerned about those either,
Speaker 1: because that was the jin screaming, not the human, which
Speaker 1: means something must have gone very wrong. In the case
Speaker 1: of Abdul Khalam, a forty eight year old Bangladeshi man
Speaker 1: who died in February after an exorcism, abduk Alam had
Speaker 1: been acting kind of strange lately, so the family thought
Speaker 1: he might be suffering from a gin possession. They took
Speaker 1: him to a local exorcist, who, along with his assistance,
Speaker 1: held abdu ke Alam underwater until he nearly drowned, and
Speaker 1: then beat him badly to drive the gin out. The
Speaker 1: next day, Galam was found dead, having succumbed to his injuries.
Speaker 1: The exorcist may have driven the gin out, but also
Speaker 1: took Glam's life in the process. Charges were filed against
Speaker 1: the exorcist, but he's not loan and having used possession
Speaker 1: as an excuse to physically abuse a person. In fact,
Speaker 1: a social worker in one British community told a reporter
Speaker 1: that she had seen numerous times women who, when seeking
Speaker 1: help to get out of abusive situations, be silenced by
Speaker 1: others as being possessed, and she had also seen cases
Speaker 1: in which family members or a spouse claiming a woman
Speaker 1: was possessed by a gin beat her mercilessly. In other words,
Speaker 1: gin possession was used both as an excuse to dismiss
Speaker 1: allegations of abuse, but also as an excuse to actually
Speaker 1: abuse these victims. Unfortunately, the world of gin possession and
Speaker 1: exorcism is ripe for abuse, and a field like this
Speaker 1: is also an open invitation to some who take advantage
Speaker 1: of the desperate, especially because it can pay pretty well.
Speaker 1: Like most things in life, jin exorcism is commodified. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve, the BBC reported a profile of
Speaker 1: an East London exorcist named Abu Mohammed, with a video
Speaker 1: showing him performing an actual exorcism. His waiting list is
Speaker 1: many months long, and he charged back then around a
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for a one hour session. Not too steep,
Speaker 1: but not a bad source of income if you're booked
Speaker 1: back to back for months. It's fair to say, though,
Speaker 1: that his prices are on the low end of the
Speaker 1: spectrum when you consider that Mohammad Yowafi, a famed Jordanian exorcist,
Speaker 1: charges an average of three thousand dollars for an exorcism. Once, however,
Speaker 1: he charged an Arab millionaire thirty thousand dollars to cleanse
Speaker 1: his palatial residence of a Jin king and the king's
Speaker 1: entire Jin army, which had apparently taken up residence there.
Speaker 1: The millionaire was so happy with the results that he
Speaker 1: gifted Yowaffe an expensive watch as an extra bonus. You'll
Speaker 1: find Jin removers and exorcists all over the internet selling
Speaker 1: their services, though traditionally the good ones don't need to advertise.
Speaker 1: They're known by word of mouth, and if anything, they
Speaker 1: prefer to work as privately as possible. And while some
Speaker 1: may take advantage of people seeking answers, there are plenty
Speaker 1: of them who are actually pretty committed and sincere in
Speaker 1: wanting to help. They really believe that there are dark
Speaker 1: forces that attack people, and they believe they can make
Speaker 1: a difference, and sometimes they're able to serve an even
Speaker 1: greater purpose in bringing people together in unexpected ways. Coptic
Speaker 1: Christians and Muslims have lived side by side for centuries
Speaker 1: in Egypt, and while at times political circumstances have led
Speaker 1: to not just tension between the communities, but even unfortunately
Speaker 1: actual violence. There is one certain space that has managed
Speaker 1: to evade such crises, and that is the Church of
Speaker 1: Father Samaan Ibraheim, one of the very few priests in
Speaker 1: all of Egypt who is allowed to perform exorcisms, and
Speaker 1: every week he performs mass exorcisms that draw people from
Speaker 1: every walk of life and every faith to him. The
Speaker 1: story of how Father Ibrahim came to this work is
Speaker 1: a legend unto itself. Decades ago, he saw a vision
Speaker 1: that inspired him to build a church for the people
Speaker 1: who lived by the Kutham Mountain, a place itself connected
Speaker 1: with miracles. That congregation in the nineteen seventies and today
Speaker 1: consists of the poorest Christian community in the city, called
Speaker 1: the Zabalein, which literally means garbage people. The Zabalein, nearly
Speaker 1: all Christian, have for nearly a hundred years now, been
Speaker 1: the city's primary garbage collectors and sorters, entire families making
Speaker 1: their living by hauling away, sorting, and recycling mountains of trash,
Speaker 1: and their largest community, around thirty thousand of them, live
Speaker 1: in what is nicknamed Garbage City at the foot of
Speaker 1: the Mautham Mountain, where Father Ibraheim established his church. It's
Speaker 1: no ordinary church, though. The discovery nine of an incredible
Speaker 1: cave under the mountain, a cave with pillars already made
Speaker 1: to rock, was an answer to the priest's prayers. He
Speaker 1: had been looking for an expansive area for worshippers to gather,
Speaker 1: but finding no such space in the city crowded with
Speaker 1: people in garbage. This cave was assigned from God to
Speaker 1: gather under the earth itself, and so in that cave
Speaker 1: was built what is now known as the Cave Cathedral,
Speaker 1: and every Thursday night, live streaming online, thousands gather in
Speaker 1: the Cave Cathedral, many of whom are Muslim, to get
Speaker 1: Father Ibrahim's help in exercising their demons. Numerous news stories
Speaker 1: have been written about these exorcisms, and in two thousand
Speaker 1: and fourteen, a vice journalists decided to go witness one
Speaker 1: for himself. He sat through a two hour rather ordinary
Speaker 1: church service, after which spurts of howling rose from different
Speaker 1: parts of the cathedral. Men and women apparently afflicted with
Speaker 1: gin began clawing at the priest, begging for his attention
Speaker 1: and for a few drops of the holy water that
Speaker 1: he was throwing around. Muslim women with their heads covered
Speaker 1: in hijab, lined up with bottles of water for the
Speaker 1: priest to bless them with his own saliva. Others grunted
Speaker 1: and groaned in the pews, thrashing around until the priest
Speaker 1: laid his hands on them. The entire affair lasted about
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, and the journalists who witnessed it didn't seem
Speaker 1: all much impressed. But he asked one woman how she
Speaker 1: felt after it seemed her demon had been banished. She
Speaker 1: told him I feel great, thanks to God. The conclusion
Speaker 1: reached by the journalist was this that we just view
Speaker 1: the problems in our heads differently. Some see them as
Speaker 1: mental or emotional health issues, and others as external forces
Speaker 1: of good or evil. And so a gin exorcism, whether
Speaker 1: or not an actual jin is a problem, or whether
Speaker 1: or not the exorcism itself is real, is just one
Speaker 1: way to bring some comfort to those who seek spiritual catharsis.
Speaker 1: And as for the phenomena of possession itself, well, some
Speaker 1: theorize it's a form of resistance to helplessness, cultural and
Speaker 1: social restrictions, and bad personal situations. It can be a
Speaker 1: pathway of empowerment to women who find spaces to dance
Speaker 1: and smoke and drink and wield spiritual power during exorcism
Speaker 1: rituals when they aren't able to do so anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Or it could be an expression of powerless men unable
Speaker 1: to overcome social expectations. Maybe for some, possession is an
Speaker 1: instrument of expressing despair and anguish, of heartache and pain.
Speaker 1: Remember the mother who was possessed for twelve years by
Speaker 1: the Indian gin named mus Rooney. When the gin was
Speaker 1: questioned about why, having lived inside of her for twelve years,
Speaker 1: did he finally decide to manifest now, the gin told
Speaker 1: the family it wasn't to torment the mother. Far from it.
Speaker 1: He emerged as a lesson to them because they didn't
Speaker 1: treat their mother right. A pretty convenient possession for the mom,
Speaker 1: you could say. But if you're like me, it's still
Speaker 1: hard to dismiss gin possession outright. And that's because you
Speaker 1: can't really pick and choose how far you want to
Speaker 1: go in your supernatural beliefs. Like I've said before, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like being a little pregnant. Once you're in,
Speaker 1: you're in. Once you believe there's something out there, something
Speaker 1: we can't understand or ever fully know. Where do you
Speaker 1: draw the line. If you believe ghosts, for example, are possible,
Speaker 1: then why aren't fairies and UFOs and angels and demons
Speaker 1: and God and Satan and yes Jin possible? And if
Speaker 1: they're possible, how do you know what they can and
Speaker 1: can't do, what they will and won't do? You don't,
Speaker 1: and neither do I, because no matter how hard we try,
Speaker 1: and believe me, people have been trying for thousands of years,
Speaker 1: will never fully know the world of the Hidden Gin.
Speaker 1: If you loved today's episode, I'm gonna ask you a
Speaker 1: big favor. Please stop my iTunes and leave me a
Speaker 1: rating and a review, even if it's just one short sentence.
Speaker 1: Not only is that how other listeners discover the podcast,
Speaker 1: but it's also what keeps the podcast going. And for
Speaker 1: every thousand reviews that I get on iTunes, I'll release
Speaker 1: another Patreon episode absolutely free. That's right, We're on Patreon,
Speaker 1: So if you're a GIN enthusiast, check out the Companion
Speaker 1: Patreon series at patreon dot com slash Hidden Jin again,
Speaker 1: that's patreon dot com slash Hidden Gin, and remember Jin
Speaker 1: is spelled d J I n N. That's where you're
Speaker 1: gonna find an amazing series of interviews between me, scholars, experts, artist, historians,
Speaker 1: and every day lay people who have had extraordinary experiences
Speaker 1: with Jin and everybody can check out the first episode
Speaker 1: absolutely free. It's me and my husband sharing our gen
Speaker 1: stories and it was a lot of fun. And if
Speaker 1: you have any Gin stories, well, I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. Email me at the Hidden Gin at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. Once again, it's The Hidden Gin Gin with
Speaker 1: a D at g mail dot com and you might
Speaker 1: just hear back from me, or you might hear your
Speaker 1: story on this show. And finally, don't forget to follow
Speaker 1: us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Speaker 1: with the handle the Hidden Gin. There you can tweet,
Speaker 1: post insta, dm me. I'd love to hear from all
Speaker 1: of you, and believe me, I read every single message.
Speaker 1: The Hidden Gin is a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast is
Speaker 1: written and hosted by Robbia Chaudry and produced by Miranda
Speaker 1: Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. Music for the show was provided by
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Our theme song was created by Patrick Cortez.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.