WEBVTT - Exorcism 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.920 Welcome to the Hidden Gin, a production of I Heart 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:09.320 Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkey. Listener discretion 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:32.839 is advised. I have five maternal uncles, each one of 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.800 them a little bit crazier than the last. One of 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.120 these uncles, one of my favorites of the entire group. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.720 In fact, had been engaged to be married half a 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.239 dozen times. He had been trying to get married for 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.800 nearly fifteen years, but every single time the engagement would 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.480 get broken off for some reason or another. Year after 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:53.880 year went by and he could never go from being 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:58.320 engaged to actually getting married. He was in his late thirties, 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:00.320 a point by which he should have been well settled 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:02.320 down with a few kids of his own. And he 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:04.720 was a really nice guy, decent looking, He had his 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.960 own plays, had a great job, travel the world. No 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.160 one could figure out why he just couldn't seal the deal, 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.000 until finally, when he was advised to go see a 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:19.360 local woman known for her supernatural abilities. Maybe he was 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:21.720 told she could figure out what was wrong, and so 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.080 he went to her. He dragged a friend along with 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.800 him to her tiny, crumbling home on the outskirts of 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.240 the city. A little bit nervous about whether what he 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.399 was doing was even kosher. He had heard that this 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.920 medium healer whatever she was, dealt in black magic, and 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.160 that made her dangerous. But he said his prayers and 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.560 sucked up his fear because at this point he was desperate. 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.400 She was younger than he had imagined, rail thin, sunken eyes, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.720 swaddled up in numerous shawls despite the blazing heat, and 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.640 she sat in a small, dusty courtyard on a low 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.880 woven seat and motion for my uncle to sit on 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:02.840 a sheet spread out on the floor in front of her. 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.400 She asked him his name, his parents names, and his 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.639 date of birth. Then she closed her eyes and mumbled 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.400 some prayers. After a very long five minutes or so, 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.400 her eyes flew open, and she told my uncle, I 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.680 know what's wrong. Someone has done black magic on you. 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.959 They've conjured a jin to block your marriage. So every 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.720 time you get close to getting married, this gin interferes 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.760 and whispers dark things into your heart or your fiance's heart, 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.160 and turns you against each other. The person who did 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.240 this magic on you as a woman who wants to 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.880 ruin your life, and her name starts with an end. 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.320 Now many of the women closest to him, including cousins 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:46.359 and sister in laws, and even his own mother had 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.040 names that started with the letter N. But he had 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.359 a feeling he knew exactly who it was, a sister 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.200 in law that he didn't trust, and he wasn't about 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.520 to let her get away with it. The healer told 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:00.640 him exactly what he needed to do to break the 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.320 curse and handed him a list of items he'd have 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:06.600 to retrieve and return to her with along with her fee, 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.680 the equivalent of about two U s. Dollars. She also 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.360 handed him a small plastic container, which she told him 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.320 was a vial of holy water from the spring of 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.720 Zum Zum in Mecca. He was to take this vial 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.560 and place it under his bed and return with it 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.200 and the other things she needed after a week. Seven 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.280 days later, he returned to her with all she had 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:31.480 asked for, hair stolen from the brush of the person 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.639 he suspected to have done the black magic, a black 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.680 rubber slipper, a basket of dried red chilies, and a 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.080 bundle of cash he washed as she placed the hair 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.120 on the dirt floor of the courtyard and poured the 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.120 holy water over it. Then she took the black rubber 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.720 sandal and began slapping the now wet patch on the floor, 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.880 screaming the sister in law's name, and to hell with you, 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:58.080 to hell with you, over and over. My uncle had 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.880 never seen anything like it. He was mortified. As she 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.000 grew more frenzied, bouncing up and down, slapping the muddy 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.480 strands of hair with all her might, until suddenly she 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.920 collapsed in silence. After a few minutes, she collected herself 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.000 and emptied the bag of dried chilies on top of 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.560 the rubber sandal, which was still laying in the watery 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.080 mess she had made. Then she set the little pile 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.520 of dried chilies on fire. Now, if you have never 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.400 burned dried chilies, the smoke is thick and peppery and choking. 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:31.479 And as this smoke rose, she blew it towards my uncle, 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.240 who sat their eyes watering, holding back coughs. He tried 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.120 to get up, but she signaled him to sit back down, 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:39.760 where he suffered until the fire went out and there 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.320 was no more smoke left. The healer then gathered up 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.679 some of the ashes into a cotton pouch and handed 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.560 him to my uncle, telling him to bury them where 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.520 no one would find them, and that once they were buried, 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.039 the curse would be broken. Now, my uncle told me 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.600 this story about a year after all of this had 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.240 taken place, and he laughed as he told did, and 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.840 I laughed with him, tears streaming down our faces as 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.679 he re enacted how that woman had slapped the black 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.080 slipper on the ground over and over, howling for his 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.720 sister in law to go to hell. The entire thing 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:15.800 had been ridiculous, he admitted, but he had gone ahead 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:18.640 and buried the ashes even though he was pretty sure 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.360 that the healer was a fraud. But I wasn't so sure, though, 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.480 because at the time he told me this, seventeen years ago, 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.040 I was visiting Pakistan and we were sitting in our 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:34.760 family home preparing for his wedding. I'm Robbiadrey, and I'll 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:38.320 be your guide into the world of the hidden Gin. Welcome. 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.480 While most gin, you could argue, are busy in their 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.240 own lives, going about their gin business, we do know 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.320 that business isn't always confined to their own realm. There 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.400 are places here on earth with a gin are known 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.800 to live and linger ruins and graveyards. But then sometimes 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.919 the GIN will decide to take up residence in your residence. 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.479 Hollywood has produced dozens of films unhaunted houses, and ghost 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.960 hunters on TV have long entertained us with shaky visuals 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.000 of darkened locations, so we are all familiar with what 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.080 a potential haunting looks like. The most benign of them 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.159 are just the entity making its presence known, like moving 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.640 things around, playing little tricks on the residence, or staking 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.040 acclaim in a corner of the house as their own. 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:34.159 Believe it or not, I've had such experiences, and while 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.080 I do admit being freaked out, it was mostly just 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:41.320 a nuisance. But there are much more extreme circumstances, of course, 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.520 where the Gin are committed to driving out people from 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.320 their homes, and they do so by terrifying them in 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.800 all sorts of ways. Over the years, I've heard dozens 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.880 and dozens of stories about household objects being smashed, doors 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.960 being slammed at all hours of the night, chairs with 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.440 people seated in them, being dragged across the room, toilets 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.440 and tubs overflowing on their own, and so on and 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:08.480 so forth. And you can witness similar things yourself online. 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.120 That is, there are endless YouTube videos of purported house 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:16.400 hauntings and human gin possessions. Entire accounts dedicated to just 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.800 these sorts of things, though I am rather skeptical of 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.200 the gin hunters who seem to find them in every 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.520 dark house they go into. Forget finding jin, though, it's 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.200 getting rid of them. That's a much tougher task, whether 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.080 you're exercising them from a place or from a human body. 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.040 It's not for the faint of heart, and certainly not 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.240 for the lay person, because when the possession is serious, 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:41.680 most of us are hardly equipped to get into a 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:46.560 fist fight with a gin. Enter the world of gin exorcism, 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.520 a realm full of quacks and frauds, but also powerful 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.400 spiritual healers that risk their lives to drive out dark 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.120 gin from human bodies and abodes. But before they can 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:02.360 exercise a gin, a gin has to first take possession. 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:11.480 It's believed that there are certain parts of a house 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.160 or dwelling that you're most likely to find the gin in, 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.080 usually the darkest, dirtiest, or most abandoned parts of a residence, 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:23.280 which is understandable, like the bathroom or a dank basement, 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.440 maybe a dusty attic, but the gin are also drawn 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:31.680 to in between places. That's why they're most active in 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.880 this sliver of time between day and night, between dusk 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.040 and dawn, and it's also why they lurk under thresholds, 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.520 neither inside or out, but just on the boundary, but 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.240 also right at the opening openings to a home or 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.439 to a room. And similarly, the gin also need openings 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:54.120 into human beings, a crack or vulnerability that will let 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.000 them in, and they have a number of tricks up 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.640 their sleeves to get on the inside, as it were. 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.320 According to Moroccan lore, a jin can be invited to 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.240 possess someone if the victim can be tricked into eating 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:10.200 something called the ahm. In the early part of the 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.800 twentieth century, the French artist Aleen R. De Lenz, one 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:15.800 of the first women ever to be admitted to the 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.160 Art School of Paris, moved to Morocco with her husband, 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.280 which was at the time colonized by France. Once settled 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.400 in her new country, Aleen dedicated herself to the revival 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.280 of what she deemed native arts, and herself went on 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.079 to create over a hundred paintings and write dozens of 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.160 short stories and numerous volumes about the lives of the 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.200 people that she lived among. She was particularly fascinated with 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:44.000 the lives of Moroccan women and their cultural norms and practices, 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.440 which are central to many of her writings. De Lenz 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.360 died young at the age of forty four in nineteen 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.680 twenty five, and shortly after her death, her final book 0:09:53.760 --> 0:10:00.760 was published, Practices of Moroccan Harems, Witchcraft, Medicine, Beauty. The 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.199 book was a collection of magical rituals and recipes used 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.120 by Moroccan women and healers for almost every issue you 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:11.320 could imagine, including recipes to and I quote, give a 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:16.239 deflowered bride the appearance of virginity, ashore a husband's fidelity, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.880 bring misfortune upon a co wife, augment the size of breasts, 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.800 and for irritated mothers in law, detaching a newly married 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.480 son from the two beloved new wife. If a wife 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.120 wanted to dominate a marriage, according to this book, all 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.040 she had to do was, after being intimate with her husband, 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.719 urinate into her cupped hand and then pour the contents 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:43.680 into her unsuspecting husband's tea while reciting this chant, I 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.000 made you drink my water so that you do not 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.520 see but by my eyes you do not hear, but 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.800 by my ears you do not speak, but by my words. 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.840 If a woman wanted her husband to desire her more, 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:00.200 she had to preserve a fresh, plump date inside her 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.000 well private regions and then mix it into her husband's food. 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.280 To stop an abusive husband from beating his wife, he 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.920 had to be fed soup made with hyena's brains, and 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.600 so on and so forth. Among these recipes was the 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.959 preparation of the arm, the food that, if eaten, would 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.800 cause a person to be controlled in a variety of ways. 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.640 The magicians and healers who prepared that the arm claimed 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.480 that it was in fact prepared at the guidance and 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:31.800 direction of the Jinn themselves. The preparation was described in 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:36.240 de Lenz's book like this, The coast coast is rolled 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.040 by the hand of the dead, mixed with the crushed 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.600 bones of the dead as a fatida, fallen hair reduced 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:47.760 to cinders, powder of dry toronto would have figged finally pulverized. 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.599 This is at the base of all magic drugs administered. 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.440 Unknown to the victim. That hand of the dead thing, 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.480 by the way, wasn't taken lightly. Local doctors once reported 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:01.760 to de Lend that two women were caught digging up 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:04.200 a grave so that they could steal the hands from 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.040 a cadaver and use them to prepare food for one 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.000 of their husbands. They weren't trying to get him possessed, 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.840 though the ritual was supposed to have the effect of 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.319 a love potion and filled the spouse with endless desire 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:20.720 for his wife. Instead, once the women were caught, the 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.520 husband actually divorced the wife. Now, if you want to 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.040 cause an actual gin possession, more foul things have to 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:30.199 be added to the base of this concoction. To take 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:34.200 things further, dung and feces, choice foods of the gin 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.320 are added to that the um, resulting in a filthy 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.800 mix that no person in their right mind would voluntarily eat, 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.040 which is why the victim has to be tricked into 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:48.720 eating it, And that trick involves the person's own personal jin, 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.480 the kareen. You'll remember earlier in the season, we talked 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:54.960 about this jin, the one that every person is born 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.600 with and dies with the front of me for life, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:01.200 that you just can't shake. According to de Lenz's book, 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.839 the way to get the evil gin on the inside, 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.440 as it were, was for it to team up with 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.760 the victims screen and influence it to make their person 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.719 eat the filthy the arm which the evil gin was 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.000 attached to. And once that the arm is inside your 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.679 belly and running through your bloodstream, so is the possessing 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:35.360 gin itself. You might be relieved thinking that you're safe 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.319 from gin possession because while no one you know would 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:40.800 or could go to such lengths to saddle you with one, 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.560 I mean, no one dislikes you that much, right, But 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.040 not all gin possessions are orchestrated by a human enemy. 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.480 Sometimes the gin go about possessing people completely of their 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.839 own volition. They might do it for revenge if a 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.120 human hurt them or another gin, usually without knowing it, 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.640 but they can also be driven by lust, desire, jealousy 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.840 of a person, wanting that person to themselves, not unlike 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.760 a real life stalker. In such cases, these gin can't 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.360 rely on their victim eating the arm to enter the body, 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.960 so they have to find other openings, and according to tradition, 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:19.280 every opening in the physical body is fair game for 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.840 the gin, and not just the obvious ones like the nose, mouth, 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.840 and ears, even the fused fontanels in the skull like 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.880 that soft spot on the top of the head. The temples, 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.280 the eye sockets are considered gateways into the inner space 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.400 of a human being. Then, of course, there are the 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.480 openings of the nether regions, which according to tradition, are 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:43.040 just as vulnerable to invasion as any other opening in 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:47.600 the body and should be guarded accordingly. But these openings 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:51.840 also don't have to be physical. Overwhelming emotions such as 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.520 fear or despair are exactly those cracks that render a 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.480 person less able to fend off a gin attack. Fright 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.400 is in a specially powerful break in a person's psychic 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.520 defense mechanism, which is one reason evil gin will do 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.280 all they can to scare the heavy jeebs out of you. 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.400 It's not just for kicks, it's to create breaks in 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.960 your armor that lets them right on into your body. 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.160 The idea that demons or even Satan could take possession 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.560 of a person is as old as the belief in 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:25.040 these beings themselves, and ancient scrolls were found in the 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:27.680 caves of Gormran on the shores of the West Bank 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:31.320 and Palestine that attest to that belief. You may have 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.160 heard of them. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.160 in ninety, but date back a few centuries before the 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.120 birth of Jesus of Nazareth. A prayer found in the 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:46.040 scroll reads, do not let Satan or an unclean spirit 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.800 rule over me. Do not let pain or an evil 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:53.840 inclination take possession of my bones, demonstrating that the Jews 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:58.520 of this period acknowledge that this was a real possibility. Now, 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:00.600 given that we've all seen the x or sist, you 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:02.880 might believe that we all know the signs of demonic 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.280 possession when we see it. I mean, what else could 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.720 explain speaking in tongues while your head spins three sixty degrees. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.800 But the signs aren't always so obvious. An online blog 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.920 aptly named gin Exorcist tells the story of an average 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.000 housewife who suddenly began acting really strange. The blog has 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.720 only two entries, both written by the son of the 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:29.040 suspected victim of possession. His mother was generally a sweet woman, 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:33.120 sensitive and kind hearted, and when family problems arose, she 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.920 took them to heart pretty deeply. One day, having been 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.760 unable to sleep the night before because of family issues, 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.320 his mother fell with a thud in the kitchen. When 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.720 they found her, she was on the floor having passed out, 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.400 maybe from exhaustion, but she seemed okay afterwards and fell 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.480 into a deep sleep for the rest of the evening. 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.400 But around one am, the family woke suddenly to the 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.160 sound of crashing glass. They found the mother standing in 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.680 front of her dress or mirror, which she had smashed 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.560 with a perfume bottle as she screamed repeatedly, you're a 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.320 bad mother. I'm going to kill you. She then turned 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:10.720 to her husband and demanded to know who he was, 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:13.679 and then she passed out again, and when she came to, 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.360 she didn't recognize anyone in the family, not even her children. 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.640 At this point, of course, the family started freaking out 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.720 and called nine one one, thinking she was having a 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.240 psychiatric break, But when she was taken to the hospital, 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.040 all the tests checked out just fine. They weren't able 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.679 to find any medical reason for the fainting and memory loss, 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.640 and so she was released to go home. The next day, 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.280 she seemed fine, but the family had started wondering whether 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.720 they were dealing with something supernatural, so the Sun reached 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:43.840 out to a cleric to ask how they would know 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.439 if this was Gin related. The cleric told him to 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:51.080 look out for some common but relatively unrecognized symptoms of 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:56.320 gin possession joint pains, abnormal headaches, extreme temperature changes in 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:01.280 the body, excess of yawning, laziness, and nightmare. He also 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:03.840 advised that they recite a number of prayers and blow 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.240 into a glass of water to give the mother to drink. 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:11.040 If she complained that the water tasted weird or like ash, 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.720 that meant a gin had taken over her. They never 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:16.680 did get a chance to do the water test because 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.600 it turned out they didn't need it. That same night, 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:23.560 the mother began speaking in someone else's voice, the voice 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.760 of the gin that was possessing her. He spoke through 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.200 the mother in a deep voice as she either stared 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:33.800 ahead unblinking or closed her eyes with a smirk. His name, 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.840 he said, was a mus Rooney. He was a gin 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.800 from India, he told the family, and he liked living 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.840 with them and liked living in her body, where he 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:52.000 had dwelled for the past twelve years. We are never 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.200 told whether the family was able to exercise Musrooney the 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.520 gin from the mother, because the blog stopped short of 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.399 the next entry. But they were on the right path, 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.800 because according to the customs, the first thing you need 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.679 to try to do when exercising a gin is to 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.440 determine the jin's name, if that is the general give it. 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.879 The gin will ordinarily resist giving too much information about themselves, 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.600 because the more they give up, the less power they have. 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.040 Knowing the name of a gin, where it's from, what 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.439 it's lineages, gives you leverage over it, and kind of 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.240 a similar way to knowing all that information about someone 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:33.000 you're interrogating. It can take repeated intense questioning, coupled with 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.840 irritating the gin, for example by tugging on their victims 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.480 ears or pulling their hair. Establishing the name of the 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:43.120 gin is most important in cultures where exercising a possessed 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.000 person is less about driving out in evil gin and 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.600 more about establishing what you could call a working relationship 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:55.840 with it. The book The hammad Sha, a study in 0:19:55.920 --> 0:20:00.440 Moroccan ethnopsychiatry, details how the latter approach is much more 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.720 likely to be taken on in that region. That's because 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.080 in Morocco, certain powerful jin's like La la Aisha, the 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:11.440 camel footed she demon or her consort Sidney Hammu are 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:15.200 not just believed to exist, they're also venerated and feared 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.280 If these gin are responsible for a possession, the victim's 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.840 best bet is to just join the very Sufi order 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.119 connected to the gin in order to appease it. In 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.720 one particular case, a man who was a member of 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.800 the Sufi order called the Miliana dreamt on three consecutive 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:34.919 nights that the Jin La la Aisha had grabbed him 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.919 by the neck and slammed him onto the ground. She 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.520 said to him in the dream, either you work for 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.919 me or I'll have your neck. Over the course of 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:45.960 those days, the man grew so sick and weak he 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.560 could no longer walk. Finally, his wife bought him a 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.879 black tunic and red turban the colors beloved to La 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.200 la Aisha, and after performing a ritual to join the 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:01.200 Jin's order, he recovered. He told the author quote, Aisha 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.240 asked me to perform her rituals for the rest of 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.600 my life. I will always work for La la Aisha. 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.480 Now women hold a special place among these orders when 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.080 it comes to dealing with gin, acting as what are 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.800 called the law or exorcism sears. They're brought in especially 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.520 when a gin can't be identified, and they use their 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:28.960 powers of divination to cast and read Cali shells. That's right, 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:31.760 those pretty speckled shells that are often made into jewelry 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.240 in our part of the world are in fact central 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.560 to one of the oldest divination rituals in the world, 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.160 used to connect with ancestors, spirits, and yes jin, most 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:47.280 commonly in West Africa. Once the gin is identified, elaborate 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:51.119 communal rituals are often undertaken to appease the gin, and 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:53.520 one of the most well known such rituals in North 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:58.760 Africa is the Czar exorcism ceremony. The Czar exorcism is 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:03.240 meant to appease no other than the Tsar itself, malevolent 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.760 demons that most frequently attached themselves to women. It's believed 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.800 that there are eight demon jins called sar Roach who 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:16.000 all serve at the pleasure of the Jinn, King Warobal Mama, 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:20.560 and any of these could be behind a possession. The 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:23.200 czar ritual itself is not only done mostly by women, 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.359 it's also often led by women. In the two thousand 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.040 and three book Women and Demons Culled Healing in Islamic Egypt, 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:33.600 the author witnessed a ritual for herself and Cairo when 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:38.159 she accompanied a well known exorcist named Sika Zahara to 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.720 a ceremony meant to cleanse the gin from a victim 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:45.879 known as the Czar Bride. The ceremony took place in 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:47.600 the dead of the night at the home of a 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:50.359 woman who lived in a house made out of a 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:54.720 grave right in the center of the Cairo Necropolis. The 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:58.320 Necropolis is a massive one thousand year old cemetery called 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.040 the City of the Dead, but it houses not only 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:04.840 the dead, but also thousands of living Egyptians who make 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:08.879 their homes right next to the deceased. A group of 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.119 women were already gathered in this grave house, and the author, 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:15.879 also a woman, was immediately doused with incense and seated 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:19.879 on the floor so the ceremony could begin. The Czar Bride, 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:22.720 a woman in her fifties, was dressed in white with 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:24.919 a head dress and ornaments, and the rest of the 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:29.120 women formed a circle around her. Amid drums enchanting by 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:32.960 shaik A Zara, the women let out a high pitched euilation, 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:39.200 a joyous sound signifying celebration. Suddenly, the drumming and chanting stopped, 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:41.960 and the bride was led into the center of the room, 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:45.440 where two turkeys were brought to her. Sik A Zara 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.160 apologized to the birds and then slaughtered them and smeared 0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:52.240