Speaker 1: Welcome to The Hidden Gin, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Hi, and
Speaker 1: welcome to this very special bonus series of The Hidden Gin.
Speaker 1: The interviews. In these episodes, you'll hear me talk to
Speaker 1: people from all walks of life who have had GIN experiences,
Speaker 1: are drawn to the stories of Gin, and draw lessons
Speaker 1: from these stories. You'll hear from artists, scholars, writers, journalists,
Speaker 1: and Gin exorcists, and even from me as I discuss
Speaker 1: how and why this series came about in a very
Speaker 1: personal conversation with my husband. Thanks for listening and enjoy.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's just start at the top then, um,
Speaker 1: can you can you please introduce yourself? Tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about who you are and what you do. Sure.
Speaker 1: My name is Ali ALONEI I am an assistant professor
Speaker 1: of history at Penn State Abington working on medieval Islam
Speaker 1: in the modern global Middle East. I specialized in Muslim politics,
Speaker 1: Islamic esoterrorism, and folklore. Wow, so I discovered you. I
Speaker 1: don't know how I discovered you. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I searched for the word gin on Twitter. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I encountered your Twitter account, but it is
Speaker 1: a has been a gold mine, and that's been to
Speaker 1: treat to follow you online. Do you do you have
Speaker 1: a special affinity for the Gin? Like what's going on here?
Speaker 1: I mean, I love the Gin and I think that
Speaker 1: they're a fascinating sort of creature that doesn't often get
Speaker 1: talked about outside of sort of Muslim circles. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so while you say Jin and Muslims, I mediica. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and exactly what you're talking about. Most people don't who
Speaker 1: want Muslims. And so I've always had this connection, and well,
Speaker 1: why don't I share a little bit about the Gin
Speaker 1: and talk about it. I had already been doing it
Speaker 1: in my classrooms for a long time. Whenever top history
Speaker 1: of Islam, there's always several weeks kind of dedicated to
Speaker 1: like esoterrorism, cultural aspect, sharing Gin stories. Its awesome opportunity
Speaker 1: for Middle Eastern students and South Asian students and the
Speaker 1: African students to share their own experiences. And then I
Speaker 1: was like, going, what I could just open this up
Speaker 1: a little bit more and talk about it more publicly,
Speaker 1: and so I did. I started using Twitter as a
Speaker 1: way of sharing aspects of Islamic esoterrorism, astrology, folklore, but
Speaker 1: then also the gym as well. Can I see what
Speaker 1: you cut your own? Like? Ethnic and cultural background is sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I come from an ad again background, going and raised
Speaker 1: in the United States by families all again. So let
Speaker 1: me start. I'm gonna ask you a real personal question now,
Speaker 1: have you before we get into all the questions about Jin,
Speaker 1: have you ever had a personal encounter with Jin in
Speaker 1: your own life? Well, my family has had a pretty
Speaker 1: interesting experiences with Jin there. It's not uncommon to talk
Speaker 1: about various sort of encounters Um, some very kind of
Speaker 1: famous ones, usually around the funeral. My great grandfather was
Speaker 1: known to speak to gin Um and I. I've had
Speaker 1: me not kind of interesting, weird and eerie encounters out there,
Speaker 1: whether they're Jin or not. You know, it's people a
Speaker 1: good side. But one kind of interesting moment was I
Speaker 1: came home for school. I was reather to be on
Speaker 1: I think maybe early high school, late middle school, and
Speaker 1: I walked in and there was just this cat in
Speaker 1: my house. The doors of the lock, the words flocks.
Speaker 1: Had no idea how this cat got in and completely
Speaker 1: had made itself at home, just very well acts. When
Speaker 1: I walked in it doesn't startled, just kind of looked
Speaker 1: up from where it was napping, as if you're interrupting
Speaker 1: my nap um in a very sort of regal manner.
Speaker 1: And as is customary for anyone who's grown up in
Speaker 1: a Muslim background, you kind of know that maybe that
Speaker 1: could be a gym, and so this sort of protocol
Speaker 1: around it, you don't you don't try not to send it.
Speaker 1: You're trying not to be rude. So I simply said,
Speaker 1: thanks for visiting, but it's time for you to go, uh,
Speaker 1: and kind of opened the door, and it got up
Speaker 1: and walked right out, every kind of interesting in eerie
Speaker 1: encounter and and kind of like maybe it was just
Speaker 1: a really funky cat or maybe it was something else,
Speaker 1: who knows. Wow, So you, at a pretty young age
Speaker 1: like knew the protocol to like ask to leave your home.
Speaker 1: Oh oh totally why, I mean, I grew up my
Speaker 1: my fascination with folklore was really fostered by by my
Speaker 1: my family. My grandmother would tell me stories growing up.
Speaker 1: In those stories always in evolved kind of some elements
Speaker 1: of instructions and elements of teaching, so like you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you knew how to you know what prayers
Speaker 1: to say. I had to course see you know, you
Speaker 1: knew if you were scared at night what you would do. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you encountered the sort of new Minnesota the gym,
Speaker 1: you kind of had some ideas because you have been
Speaker 1: familiar with the stories you we were growing up, UM
Speaker 1: and by about middle school of high school, you kind
Speaker 1: of figured out if I'd need a gym, just don't
Speaker 1: piss it off. Well, did you ever have any any
Speaker 1: of the weird encounters you have? Have any of them
Speaker 1: ever been frightening? Uh? There was one slightly fright I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it was like frightening the sense that I
Speaker 1: was scared for my life. But it was one of
Speaker 1: those like what what is even happening here? It was
Speaker 1: actually an Afghanistan? And so I visited Afghanistan once I
Speaker 1: graduated high school. UM, and in one of the ruins
Speaker 1: there was a blind kid. This was a sort of
Speaker 1: historical flight that had slightly been turned into a shrine.
Speaker 1: People would go there and they would lock locks, like
Speaker 1: little key locks that they would say prayers and they
Speaker 1: would lock it. And that's a way to lock your
Speaker 1: prayer or light candles. Kind of a folk practice that
Speaker 1: isn't considered part of Orthodox Islam, but was part of
Speaker 1: the course sort of popular practices found there. And one
Speaker 1: of the kids there, and I don't know if the
Speaker 1: kid was part of the shrine or custodian of some sort.
Speaker 1: He was a blind kid. And I had my camera
Speaker 1: with me at the time, and he was with his
Speaker 1: I think grandfather, our great grandfather, and he was also blind.
Speaker 1: And they knew I had camera, Like I didn't know
Speaker 1: how they knew because I had to leave the camera here.
Speaker 1: It wasn't clinking, it wasn't clanking, um. And there was
Speaker 1: something very kind of surreal and slightly otherworldly about both
Speaker 1: of them, um, and the way they had this like
Speaker 1: they could see me even though like I'm under present,
Speaker 1: sure they can't see me. These two are blinding. They
Speaker 1: shouldn't be able to. Are you they were blind? I
Speaker 1: guess it's yeah. I mean that's the real question. They
Speaker 1: could easily as not. But they weren't wearing sunglasses or
Speaker 1: any type of covering. And their eyes were white, um,
Speaker 1: and slightly damaged. So maybe they had side Maybe you know,
Speaker 1: my young teenage mind was slightly imaginating or or making
Speaker 1: it more than it there was. But this, this particular
Speaker 1: trine was known for dealing with the blind. There was
Speaker 1: a small spring next to it where people would kind
Speaker 1: of wash their faces and their hands, and it was
Speaker 1: meant reputed to kind of cure warts and acne and blindness.
Speaker 1: There were kind of the things associated with this. So
Speaker 1: the Custodians were generally believed to be blind themselves. Know,
Speaker 1: maybe they were running some great, you know, scam or
Speaker 1: or you know, I was imagining it, but it was
Speaker 1: a very unnerving, not frightening, but very unnerving kind of experience.
Speaker 1: They were. It was they were far more sure and
Speaker 1: confident and authoritied than I had expected, and they seemed
Speaker 1: to kind of see right through me, which was a
Speaker 1: very weird experience. Do you think they could have been gin?
Speaker 1: Is that what you're like? Suspicions? Yeah, the suspicion was
Speaker 1: they were they could possibly have been non not exactly human,
Speaker 1: because later when I asked my uncle's so, who were
Speaker 1: those people by the door, and was like, which people? So, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the two the kids and the grandfather, And
Speaker 1: he didn't see that, So maybe he wasn't paying attention,
Speaker 1: or or maybe he was doing his own thing, and
Speaker 1: maybe I imagined it um. But that was for me,
Speaker 1: that only was the experience itself kind of unnerving. They're
Speaker 1: kind of the personality, if you will, for the vibe
Speaker 1: to use the millennia the word right, the vibe that
Speaker 1: they were giving um, but also the afterwards of it,
Speaker 1: which was I experienced if a my uncle didn't and
Speaker 1: and he was like, yeah, I didn't see anyone there.
Speaker 1: Oh that's crazy. Well so let me I know that
Speaker 1: was very interesting. Did you put your camera down and
Speaker 1: then walk into the shrine or what did you do?
Speaker 1: I did. I did put the camera down. There was
Speaker 1: no arguing. I mean I went in there as was
Speaker 1: sort of like amateur want to be historian at the time.
Speaker 1: I want to take pictures and I want to bring
Speaker 1: them back. But there was like, yeah, I'm not arguing
Speaker 1: with these people. I'm not. I'm not they this is
Speaker 1: they're in charge. I'm not. I'm the visitors. I'll put
Speaker 1: my camera down. Did make a fuss, went in, Uh,
Speaker 1: saw a couple of the candles, didn't lightened the well,
Speaker 1: put any locks, but I kind of walked around. It's
Speaker 1: really hot, uh and and kind of dimly lit, mostly
Speaker 1: just candles. And then when I walked back out and
Speaker 1: did a small donation but thank you, and took my
Speaker 1: camera with me. But then I asked my uncle once
Speaker 1: we got back to the car. He was just, again,
Speaker 1: I don't know who you're talking about. And they were
Speaker 1: sitting right in front too. Um. It wasn't like they
Speaker 1: were in an alcove where they were off kind of hidden.
Speaker 1: They were very much right there. Um. And so the
Speaker 1: experience was surreal. And then later as I started to
Speaker 1: kind of gelve more academically into the gym, that became
Speaker 1: a very common theme amongst them as sort of guardians
Speaker 1: of shrines and places in nature, um, where they would
Speaker 1: kind of perch and sometimes appear as people were, as animals,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So who knews what that experience was. It
Speaker 1: could have been the heat, It could have been an
Speaker 1: overthrought imagination, but it was it was. It was unnerving.
Speaker 1: It was probably the most unnerving encounter I'd had something otherworldly. Wow.
Speaker 1: So let me, um, I want to talk about like
Speaker 1: they so from from the research times one and I have,
Speaker 1: there's so much I mean, like it's there's so many
Speaker 1: rabbit holes. Oh my gosh, it's been this is like
Speaker 1: more complicated than like solving a wrongful conviction. It's it's
Speaker 1: like one whole after another after another. There's just such
Speaker 1: a I mean, there's centuries and centuries and centuries of
Speaker 1: you know, resource materials. Crazy. But one of the things
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out is this that you know,
Speaker 1: I I am getting a little bit confused about how
Speaker 1: like gin are categorized. And I've seen it in so
Speaker 1: many different ways. Beforest of all, there seems to be
Speaker 1: like there's a clear um, there's clear evidence for the
Speaker 1: fact that people believed in the existence of Gin before Islam,
Speaker 1: right like they were worshiped by the pre Islamic Arabs.
Speaker 1: There's connections to like Assyrian and Babylonian and all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff. Um, But like how they're categorized is a
Speaker 1: little bit confusing to me. And I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: I've read one place where there are like basically four categories.
Speaker 1: Like the categories would be so the ones who live
Speaker 1: among us, there's the one that attached themselves to children,
Speaker 1: and then it seems there's all these categories of really
Speaker 1: scary ones. So it's like the fret the marred them. No,
Speaker 1: I don't understand all those separate categories. Are they all
Speaker 1: under one category of like the bad ones? Or how
Speaker 1: do how a would I to understand these? You're you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right here, and you're completely fair to be confused.
Speaker 1: Everybody is confused, and that's because the categorizations overlap and
Speaker 1: they're contradictory and vary from author to author. Uh. Sort
Speaker 1: of classically, the general referred to in sort of types
Speaker 1: that there are those that fly, there are those that
Speaker 1: are amongst us, and those that takes sort of humans
Speaker 1: animal shape. That's one way of categorization. And then you'll
Speaker 1: find a more sort of atomized categorization, which they had names.
Speaker 1: There's the afreet than the rid, the gene, the whole uh.
Speaker 1: And then they're even further types of sort of categorization,
Speaker 1: some that are very kind of local um and all
Speaker 1: of them are you know, from an academic perspective, they're
Speaker 1: all right. That's just because people are going there dealing
Speaker 1: with something that is intangible. They're dealing with either sort
Speaker 1: of a literary experience that they're writing about the gin
Speaker 1: in the world of fiction and literature, or they're dealing
Speaker 1: with it in a sort of religious cosmological sense, or
Speaker 1: they're dealing with it in a vocal or sense, in
Speaker 1: which it's the oral stories that are told. And so
Speaker 1: as a result, there's a great deal of diversity or
Speaker 1: approaches towards classifications, and all of them are useful in
Speaker 1: their own ways. UM. I've discussed some of the classifications
Speaker 1: and kind of the threads that I've done, but even
Speaker 1: then it's just a sort of limited approach. There's so
Speaker 1: many different ways. UM. And there was a period of
Speaker 1: time and particularly during the medieval era about the nineth
Speaker 1: century to the thirteenth century, in which Muslim writers were
Speaker 1: really just trying to classify the whole world. They were
Speaker 1: writing about various animals in different places in the world,
Speaker 1: even people. They were classifying people, and so the gym
Speaker 1: were kind of caught up in this moment of sort
Speaker 1: of compilation, this moment of encyclopedia writing. UH. And and
Speaker 1: sort of part of this attempt to systematize the world
Speaker 1: will understand at least the world in a sort of
Speaker 1: orderly fashioned UH. And there's a debate, you know, some
Speaker 1: some authors talk about the freet is not separate from
Speaker 1: the movie, and the two are actually the same, uh,
Speaker 1: and others are a little bit more like, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's a difference between these. So there is a great
Speaker 1: deal of sort of slippage in the categories, and they're
Speaker 1: not as fixed um as we might think, And many
Speaker 1: Gin kind of overlap with one another. Someone will say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's in the freet now that you will say, oh,
Speaker 1: that work is actually on the rid, and then we'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's both. So there is a lot of overlap. I
Speaker 1: feel better knowing that because I thought this is really
Speaker 1: so complicated that I cannot come something that is that
Speaker 1: there are aren't somewhere. You're feeling exactly the way all
Speaker 1: of us feelings were come. That's exactly how it is. Okay, okay, good.
Speaker 1: One of the things, you know, I was talking to
Speaker 1: a friend of mine, um who about you know, just
Speaker 1: Gin experiences and stuff, and he made his comment he said,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I mean, he comes from
Speaker 1: a South South Asian background as well, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's like, you know, it just seems
Speaker 1: like the GIN kind of skipped over North America and Europe,
Speaker 1: like they're all why are they all like why are
Speaker 1: they all concentrated back like where we come from. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Clearly you are very skeptical. But you know, now,
Speaker 1: of course there's also the idea that a lot of
Speaker 1: those kind of supernatural experiences that people do experience in
Speaker 1: in in the West might you could attribute to Gin.
Speaker 1: We we think everything is gin, but are there places
Speaker 1: that you're gonna find It seems like they're parts of
Speaker 1: the world, like places like in Morocco or Omana. So
Speaker 1: there's just certain places where it just seems like it's
Speaker 1: they're like they're just populate those places. Yes, certainly, I
Speaker 1: mean there's there's kind of two different approaches. One is
Speaker 1: the approached the general universal and that because they're a
Speaker 1: hidden race alongside humans, that they that wherever you find humans,
Speaker 1: so too where you kind of find Gin. And some
Speaker 1: would argue that the sort of folklore parallels that we
Speaker 1: find our evidence of that. Now, academics would simply say
Speaker 1: that these are people who are encountering similar you know,
Speaker 1: luminous experiences, are supernatural experiences and trying to make it legible.
Speaker 1: But it is quite striking that, for example, far off
Speaker 1: places in northern Europe refer to concepts like elves and
Speaker 1: dwarves and trolls that have a lot of similarities to
Speaker 1: some of the stories about the gin. Um. Similarly that
Speaker 1: the concept of the sheet and sort of Celtic world,
Speaker 1: a sort of hidden race, are fairy very similar to
Speaker 1: the Gin, but it's also simultaneously true. They seem to
Speaker 1: congregate in certain places and in some places have reputations
Speaker 1: of being uniquely haunted by jin Oman as you rightly
Speaker 1: pointed out as one of those right very famously kind
Speaker 1: of asas the most Gin haunted place in the worlds Um,
Speaker 1: but so too we find South Asia, India has especially
Speaker 1: Islam has ribed in India and Bacon the kind of
Speaker 1: language of the Gin is very popular that indead it
Speaker 1: is uniquely haunted. Afghanistan another place that's considered uniquely haunted.
Speaker 1: Islands and the Indian Ocean are also considered to be
Speaker 1: kind of places that are unique to the Gin. And
Speaker 1: I think some of this has revolved around the type
Speaker 1: of lore that gets told that's really kind of strong
Speaker 1: storytelling cultures. That's where we have more stories coming out
Speaker 1: of those places. But also because of their histories and
Speaker 1: locations themselves, jin are then said to believe, you know,
Speaker 1: the belief is that sure, they live amongst us, but
Speaker 1: they're uniquely kind of associated with ruins, and they're associated
Speaker 1: with sort of ancient places. Uh. And so in the
Speaker 1: kind of popular Muslim imagination, places like Oman and South
Speaker 1: Asian and Afghanistan and these islands often are tied to
Speaker 1: like all these with ancient civilizations. So these are places
Speaker 1: with a lot of ruins or oh there these is
Speaker 1: a lot of these natural, untouched formations. Therefore, of course
Speaker 1: these places have to have their GIN to have these
Speaker 1: kind of two parallel traditions that are looking side by side.
Speaker 1: But one GIN is really universally can find them anywhere.
Speaker 1: And Muslims make legible kind of supernatural experiences in vic
Speaker 1: to the gen Uflo abduction, well that's a gen haunting
Speaker 1: class of gen um as well. Circle yeah, crop circles
Speaker 1: gen So there's all like everything is made legible within
Speaker 1: that idea of the gym. And then there's other parallel tradition.
Speaker 1: It's more like well of concentrations and them out in
Speaker 1: the world. And so maybe you're not going to find
Speaker 1: a lot of them in North America, but if you
Speaker 1: go to Oman, you're going to find a lot of them.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you though, if and I'm sure you
Speaker 1: have in all your years of like studying this examined, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, Gin stories from different parts of the world.
Speaker 1: Are there kind of common themes you see here? And
Speaker 1: are there sometimes like real divergences like in stories let's
Speaker 1: say you hear from like let's say Bosnia versus in
Speaker 1: a kneese ower. You know, can you can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that. Yeah, there are very common
Speaker 1: themes amongst amongst Gin stories and you can see them, uh,
Speaker 1: kind of globally. And that's that's an example of the
Speaker 1: way in which as Islam spread, so to the stories
Speaker 1: of the Gin spread with them. And so those themes
Speaker 1: are found everywhere. The idea of a headed race, that
Speaker 1: they're kind of mischievous, that they're associated with the night,
Speaker 1: that they're linked to animals, those are all very common.
Speaker 1: No matter where you go, from north of North Africa
Speaker 1: all the way to Indonesia, those are very common. But
Speaker 1: then they're also kind of regional variations. So for example,
Speaker 1: in North Africa you'll find more kind of symbiotic relationships
Speaker 1: with the Gin, in which the Gin, as troublesome as
Speaker 1: they can be, can be invited in for a sort
Speaker 1: of consensual possession, that is possession that is actively sought out,
Speaker 1: and these are found in certain sort of Sufi circles.
Speaker 1: The Busines, for example, will engage in this type of
Speaker 1: activity in which the gin will actually possess certain saints
Speaker 1: or sages or mystics and then kind of work miracles
Speaker 1: and offerings and sort of do oracular activities. That's very
Speaker 1: uniquely North Africa, and you find it in Morocco, you
Speaker 1: find it some other places. Sudan is another place you
Speaker 1: find it. You're not going to find that, for example,
Speaker 1: in Lebanon, you're not going to find that insula. You're
Speaker 1: not going to find that intact area where the gen
Speaker 1: are far more kind of problematic. They're kind of a pain,
Speaker 1: and you live alongside them, but you don't want them
Speaker 1: to possess you. That's a bad experience, it's a it's
Speaker 1: an invasive experience. And then contrast, I would say Indonesia
Speaker 1: and Malaysia, where the gin have a much sort of
Speaker 1: clear shamanic component to them. They're associated more actively with
Speaker 1: healing and medicine and practices that are very clearly part
Speaker 1: of local and pre Islamic folk belief. So there there's
Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons why I find the
Speaker 1: Gin so fascinating is that it's simultaneously shows us the
Speaker 1: way that Islam spread and is localized, but also shows
Speaker 1: us the way in which various pre Islamic practices are preserved.
Speaker 1: Whether it's a cult of possession or it's a shamanic
Speaker 1: healing tradition, those things end up getting incorporated in the
Speaker 1: sort of folk Islamic practices, and the Gin are front
Speaker 1: and center in that. And how people approach the Gin,
Speaker 1: how they see the Gin, their relations and hip to
Speaker 1: the Gin, really tells us these kind of unique and
Speaker 1: diverse traditions, and most of it is pre Islamic that
Speaker 1: just kind of endures or reimagined within a sort of
Speaker 1: Islamic cosmology. Can I ask you, have you come across
Speaker 1: any kind of like narratives or belief let's say amongst
Speaker 1: the first people in North America, um that might coincide
Speaker 1: or overlap or somehow connected Gin traditions a certain degree.
Speaker 1: A lot of the kind of land spirits and major
Speaker 1: spirits found within the first people in First Nations traditions
Speaker 1: have some similarity to the Gin, particularly if we if
Speaker 1: we were to look at them in a sort of
Speaker 1: in their pre Islamic form as these sort of intermediary
Speaker 1: entity between the sort of celestial world and human world,
Speaker 1: particularly if we see them as nature spirits, uh and
Speaker 1: not just sort of infernal, then yes, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of there's a lot of commonality. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say they map out exactly, uh, and there's some very
Speaker 1: clear differences, but I would say that they're mostly you
Speaker 1: can find similar traditions almost globally. Um. For example, when
Speaker 1: I was talking about, um, the house gym that that
Speaker 1: exists in leaving offerings of milk, that's found in Slavic countries,
Speaker 1: that's found in Russia, that's found in northern Europe. Uh,
Speaker 1: this idea of a house spirit or house help that
Speaker 1: you can work with, and you find similar amongst even
Speaker 1: in South America. There are some good traditions amongst the
Speaker 1: indigenous populations in Brazil of a certain type of fiery
Speaker 1: serpentine land spirits. And they sound when you discussed them,
Speaker 1: when you're kind of dissect that they sound very much
Speaker 1: like gin. So there are a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: overlap and and there are a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: parallel traditions that uh, someone can look at and go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds gin like to me, this sounds like it
Speaker 1: could be a gin um. And you know, there's a
Speaker 1: variety of different explanations for one thing, that again, people
Speaker 1: wherever they are encountering nature the world. The other in
Speaker 1: similar fashions. When you when you said people leaving milk out,
Speaker 1: the first thing I thought of was Santa Claus. Maybe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have no idea that's any connection, right right, it's
Speaker 1: a you know that that that whole Santa Clause narrative.
Speaker 1: As much as it's commercialized and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a made up almost a certain extent, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: corporate holiday, it has much older folklore roots. The idea
Speaker 1: of leaving out some type of offering, and it was
Speaker 1: always either sweets or milk m to goodly spirits of
Speaker 1: some sort or to appease spirits. Sound home almost globally.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, maybe sand Across the original was that
Speaker 1: he's a gin as crazy. We'll be right back after
Speaker 1: the short break. I want to ask you about something
Speaker 1: I thought. It's interesting I and it just seems like
Speaker 1: a very common experience, and of course it could be
Speaker 1: attributed to two different things rather than gin. But my
Speaker 1: own husband has had this experience and I know a
Speaker 1: number of men who have said they've had this experience where, um,
Speaker 1: it sounds like sleep paralysis. They wake up, they're paralyzed.
Speaker 1: They sense or see or feel this presence on top
Speaker 1: of them, either pinning them down, holding them around the
Speaker 1: throat and things. And it seems like if a female,
Speaker 1: like for some reason, the sense is that this is
Speaker 1: a female entity. Can you talk a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: Like what is I don't know if it's just me,
Speaker 1: if like I just happen to know like four or
Speaker 1: five people who have similar experiences. But it seems like
Speaker 1: is that the sleep straight up sleep paralysis or what
Speaker 1: do you think? Well, it's interesting is that the experience
Speaker 1: of sleep paralysis, uh, you know in psychology is almost
Speaker 1: uh universally found within gin lore. And one it tells
Speaker 1: off that you know, ancient people are trying to make
Speaker 1: sense of whatever their experience fundamentally is, um, and that
Speaker 1: we've been experiencing sleep replixes sent time immemorial. Um. I
Speaker 1: mean we can go all the way back to the
Speaker 1: Mesopotamian and the language about the litlit to these kind
Speaker 1: of female spirits that cause nightly emissions that cause paralysis. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, they they've been that story and that narrative
Speaker 1: has been in folklore for ages. The gin also are
Speaker 1: associated with it, and the gin um have this kind
Speaker 1: of connection with the night terrors that waking up that
Speaker 1: in that in that state of trying up just nightmares,
Speaker 1: but true night terrors and sleep paralysis. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: is often associated with female female gin and there is
Speaker 1: a sort of kind of gendered analysis that could be
Speaker 1: done there. Why is it a female? But there it's
Speaker 1: interesting because the gin that are said to cause those
Speaker 1: sort of night terrors out heroize one kind of famous
Speaker 1: a gen that does that. Haraja is another very famous
Speaker 1: gin that's associated with a sleep paralysis um that they
Speaker 1: are female and they're simultaneous considered as terrifying and seductive.
Speaker 1: They have kind of this bose quality to them um.
Speaker 1: And then other instances they are they're not even gendered.
Speaker 1: They're simply seen a sort of shadowy figures, which is
Speaker 1: another very common way that the gin are described. If
Speaker 1: they're not described in sort of very explicitly monstrous or
Speaker 1: animal like terms, they're just described as shadows. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so so for a lot of people that sleep paralysis experience,
Speaker 1: which involved the inability to move in the scene. You know,
Speaker 1: this kind of visitation by the shadowy figure is seen
Speaker 1: as a gin phenomenon. And there's some really interesting and
Speaker 1: cool that's being done by anthropologists and psychologists who are
Speaker 1: kind of exploring the intersection there between mental health between
Speaker 1: you know, something very natural, but the narrative, sort of
Speaker 1: ethnographic narrative. And also people tell about well, I had
Speaker 1: this experience and then I recited that I don't see
Speaker 1: and it lifted off of me. I was able just
Speaker 1: to move again. There's some really kind of interesting work
Speaker 1: that's just starting to be done on the in that arena,
Speaker 1: but very comment so um, I'd have to look up
Speaker 1: the names that there's a couple of people, uh that
Speaker 1: I've come across whose works are really really good and
Speaker 1: they're based mostly from the correct me in West African
Speaker 1: ethnographic work. Oh no, no, I think it's East African. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm it's East African ethnographic work and it involved a
Speaker 1: mixture of mental health analysis combined with ethnographic looks and
Speaker 1: the the article and I can find it intended to
Speaker 1: be interested um interviewing women healers who deals specifically with
Speaker 1: night terrors and how how they deal with those night
Speaker 1: terrors and the kind of medicine, the natural remedies that
Speaker 1: they prescribe. Um. And it's a really really interesting kind
Speaker 1: of work, and it is growing. Uh and and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of exploration of the components of health,
Speaker 1: mental health, psychology, and you know, religion and esotery or
Speaker 1: folk religion will say, uh and and I think the
Speaker 1: gin and night terror is right dead in the center
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, I mean it is. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we've all experienced this where you have, especially
Speaker 1: with older folks, but back home, there are times when
Speaker 1: you know that somebody clearly has mental health issues or
Speaker 1: they need some kind of psychological or psychiatric diagnosis and assistance,
Speaker 1: but the family and says, no, it's a gin, it's
Speaker 1: a gin possession or you know, and for that reason,
Speaker 1: you know, there are people who don't get maybe the
Speaker 1: help that they need. Um yea. And so it's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that has to be really difficult, like as a
Speaker 1: line to try to I mean, I guess where I
Speaker 1: have fallen on that when I have encountered that personally,
Speaker 1: what the people I know is for me to say, okay,
Speaker 1: it's like totally do the Gin exorcism, but also like
Speaker 1: just try both, like do everything at the same time,
Speaker 1: Like why does why why take your chances? Um? But
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's just if it's a shame reaction,
Speaker 1: like we would prefer to think of our loved one
Speaker 1: as being possessed then being mentally ill. I'm not quite sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think the discourse of Shane plays it
Speaker 1: plays a big rule there um as well. I think, um,
Speaker 1: there's a there's certainly some sort of language about well,
Speaker 1: this isn't normative behavior, therefore it must be attributed to
Speaker 1: something expernal um. And so I think that there is
Speaker 1: there's a sort of space there where Shane plays a
Speaker 1: big role. Uh, that there's a way of kind of
Speaker 1: you know, deflecting, Okay, this is this person isn't ill,
Speaker 1: this person is just dealing with the gin. Yes, we
Speaker 1: resolve that everything can go back to normal. Um. And
Speaker 1: so I think that the there's definitely something there. And
Speaker 1: but there's also really great work being done by mental
Speaker 1: health professionals in the Muslim community to help kind of
Speaker 1: push back on the stigmas of mean mental health and
Speaker 1: and kind of give people the language, the vocal they
Speaker 1: need to address, you know, their experiences. Um you mentioned, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the gender issue. I mean, do we know
Speaker 1: for sure from or what do we from? What we know?
Speaker 1: Do we know for sure that gin are like human
Speaker 1: beings like you know, have kind of you know, specific
Speaker 1: like male feme. Could there not be three or four
Speaker 1: or fire or other kinds of genders that we don't
Speaker 1: know about in the gen world, Well, the gin are
Speaker 1: are just arrived as shape shifters, and so a male
Speaker 1: Jin are also female gin and female general also male gym. More,
Speaker 1: we are told that they have families and they have children,
Speaker 1: and they obviously copulate, and they obviously uh you know, reproduce.
Speaker 1: But they're they're accurately description non binary, and they really
Speaker 1: kind of shift all over the place. There's very famous
Speaker 1: examples and even within the written lore itself of Jin
Speaker 1: being referred to sometimes as males, sometimes like females. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's just we don't know. Um. I mean May Moon
Speaker 1: is a very famous Jennings of Jin king associated with Saturday.
Speaker 1: But in North Africa he's Maimuna. He's a female Gin.
Speaker 1: Now some go, well that's his that's his sister, and
Speaker 1: ithers gonna know that's him. He's both he simultaneously and
Speaker 1: Jim King and a Jin queen uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: it depends on which day you get him. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so they kind of fallen and there's much more nebulous abstract.
Speaker 1: While they're very clearly certain gendered anxieties about the GIN,
Speaker 1: and you can certainly see the sort of projections of
Speaker 1: male authors in particular on the GIN on the whole,
Speaker 1: Lure is actually for more nebulous and for more kind
Speaker 1: of diverse, that Gin do shape shift, that GIN do
Speaker 1: have kind of multiple genders there. And then there's even
Speaker 1: Lure that's that's even you know, sort of weird ablis
Speaker 1: the you know, Islamic concept of the devil is said
Speaker 1: to have both genitals. So there's this kind of fascinating
Speaker 1: discussion about gender that's being happened with the GIN, and
Speaker 1: they exist kind of in this really nebulous state. So
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty accurate to say that that in
Speaker 1: the kind of contemporary terms, they're they're non binary. There
Speaker 1: aren't as fixed in in gender as we might imagine
Speaker 1: them degree or even in terms of sexuality. They're kind
Speaker 1: of their own thing um, reflecting a sort of diverse experience,
Speaker 1: but they they have been known to fall in love
Speaker 1: with humans, to pursue sexual involvement with human beings. UM.
Speaker 1: I have one friend who you know, according to her
Speaker 1: and I, she is incredibly competent and smart and reliable
Speaker 1: and trustworthy, and I have no reason not to believe her.
Speaker 1: Four years apparently was just some a gin was obsessed
Speaker 1: with her and just followed her from place to place
Speaker 1: to place, and she had some terrifying experiences, um, and
Speaker 1: made it very difficult for I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it made she thinks it made it difficult for
Speaker 1: her to get married. She eventually get married and I
Speaker 1: think was rid of the gin. But that was the
Speaker 1: first time I had heard of anything like that. UM.
Speaker 1: But I noticed, I think when you did an am
Speaker 1: a on your Twitter, there's some one of the women
Speaker 1: who responded said something about, you know what happens of
Speaker 1: the gin follows you around, Like how do you get
Speaker 1: rid of that? So it just it seems like those
Speaker 1: stories are not so uncommon, that yeah, gin can fall
Speaker 1: for you and get obsessed with you and totally I
Speaker 1: mean one of the main kind of ways that they interact,
Speaker 1: and they did a threat on on the kind of
Speaker 1: interaction with humans. Is the most popular one is the dissertation. Right,
Speaker 1: they just kind of show up, uh, And then that's
Speaker 1: kind of you know, in the sort of lure as
Speaker 1: well as in the kind of interviews that you have
Speaker 1: with people, though it's just mostly an act of curiosity,
Speaker 1: that kind of showing up and they're kind of looking around.
Speaker 1: Possession is another one that you'll find, but just as
Speaker 1: equally common as as love. Now there's some of those
Speaker 1: are complicated by stories of abduction, and it talks about
Speaker 1: that the gin falls in love with a person and
Speaker 1: therefore they're abducted into the gin would uh that that
Speaker 1: there's language around that, but there's also instances of them
Speaker 1: just kind of stalking. So that becomes a very kind
Speaker 1: of common motif amongst certain groups, that the gin will
Speaker 1: fall in love and they become obsessed with the person,
Speaker 1: and then they'll just kind of follow follow that person
Speaker 1: around throughout their lives. This can be described by people
Speaker 1: as an intrusive experience, as one that is disruptive and destructive,
Speaker 1: often explaining this is why I can't get married because
Speaker 1: as a gym that's been following around as you as
Speaker 1: your friends said, that's actually not uncommon. We do hear
Speaker 1: that quite a bit. Um. In other instances, it's not
Speaker 1: always disruptive. Sometimes it can be positive. For example, kind
Speaker 1: of the oldest case of this is a woman that
Speaker 1: we have from from a narration that indicates that Um
Speaker 1: male Jim had fallen in love with her, I mean
Speaker 1: followed her around, and in turn for his affection, he
Speaker 1: taught her medicine, he gave her skill certain skills. So
Speaker 1: it's a kind of complicated relationship that can be disruptive,
Speaker 1: it can be intrusive, uh, and that other instances it
Speaker 1: can be more positively, for example, in Indonesia Malaysia, those
Speaker 1: relationships can be seen a sort of more positive light.
Speaker 1: But if a jingles in love with you, that's a
Speaker 1: way of developing a sort of hidden skill, gaining a
Speaker 1: secret knowledge that you might be inclined towards, certainly shamanic
Speaker 1: healing practices. UM. It's similarly, even the abduction stories can
Speaker 1: sometimes be told in a formal positive light when individual
Speaker 1: indicating that, oh, you know, her son had been taken
Speaker 1: by a female jin, but he was happily married and
Speaker 1: had kids off in the gin world, So there's there's
Speaker 1: a sort of the stories. They're very but it is
Speaker 1: a common experience. It's idea, but I wouldn't say like
Speaker 1: everybody's had, but it's certainly more common than people might think.
Speaker 1: The idea but jin falling in love and then you know,
Speaker 1: following around that is a common story, folklore, narration, and
Speaker 1: for some people a very real experience for them. I
Speaker 1: did notice that you commented on a tweet by this
Speaker 1: gentleman I think he calls himself Dawa Man or something
Speaker 1: where this like a clear clip of him giving a
Speaker 1: talk saying, you know, sisters don't go outside looking beautiful
Speaker 1: because um, yeah, your reaction was kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: but but in essence, wasn't he kind of right then?
Speaker 1: I mean, like in that sense or what did you find?
Speaker 1: What was off putting about that for you? So the
Speaker 1: issue is that there's always going to be within folklore
Speaker 1: components of it that regulate behavior, that regulate people's actions,
Speaker 1: And that's old, It's always existed. There's no denial of
Speaker 1: the fact um that that that idea of all you
Speaker 1: need to cover yourself up with the gin are going
Speaker 1: to fall in love with you, That that's not unique
Speaker 1: to him. My You know, his history has always been
Speaker 1: quite repugnant and familiar with in British Muslim circle. Um.
Speaker 1: But setting that aside, that that is an old mare
Speaker 1: and that's an old concept, it's not a new concept, um.
Speaker 1: And we've had people who made mention of it, other
Speaker 1: people who have disputed, who pushed back on it. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think that that particular approach is problematic for a
Speaker 1: variety of different reasons. First, because I think that what
Speaker 1: the Gin offer are kind of a variety of different
Speaker 1: things that I mentioned this is that first, there's an
Speaker 1: academic approach of the Gin. It's a really great way
Speaker 1: of understanding of the way in which Islam has spread
Speaker 1: and with which Islam has localized. For people who are
Speaker 1: more mystically inclined, or who are more inclined towards spirituality,
Speaker 1: the GIN offer an opportunity to explore the complexities of
Speaker 1: human of the human psyche, but also to experience the
Speaker 1: numerals that force that is not us out there, so
Speaker 1: to speak. And for the faithful, it's a way of
Speaker 1: understanding the sort of complex cosmology, it's very beautiful cosmology
Speaker 1: that is at the heart of Islam. Um. All of that,
Speaker 1: I think is great and beautiful aspect of the gin.
Speaker 1: But I think once we start falling into the category
Speaker 1: of sort of fear mongering or or regulating behavior, then
Speaker 1: I think it can be a problem. Uh. And there's
Speaker 1: no doubt that a great deal of gin lore can
Speaker 1: be a trip can be seen as a sort of
Speaker 1: superstitious or fear oriented or designed to regulate behaviors. Don't
Speaker 1: do this and don't do that. Um. And I recognize them,
Speaker 1: and there's there. They're worthwhile, uh, you know, exploring and examining.
Speaker 1: I'm just not very comfortable with the sort of prescriptive
Speaker 1: component of this. Hey, women, you should do this because
Speaker 1: the gen are going to do that. That is always,
Speaker 1: to me sounds far more predatory than anything else, and
Speaker 1: it is almost always by some guy who's telling women
Speaker 1: how to live their lives. And it's that The issue
Speaker 1: for me is that there is a sort of prendation
Speaker 1: on fear and using that fear, exploiting that feeling to
Speaker 1: regulate women's bodies that I think should be resisted, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm also guessing if if a ginn wants to
Speaker 1: see what he looks like, what you look like, he
Speaker 1: can I mean, he doesn't have to wait for you
Speaker 1: to step onto the street. You're right. So one of
Speaker 1: the things that that that's even within the sort of
Speaker 1: logics of the lower itself, it doesn't quite make sense
Speaker 1: the people who who have said it. And again this
Speaker 1: is not unique to Della man development. This has been going,
Speaker 1: you know, thousands, hundreds of years. We've had medieval writers
Speaker 1: say with all sorts of people. But it doesn't quite
Speaker 1: fit within its own logics because the gin lived within
Speaker 1: your house as well, So are you going to are
Speaker 1: you going to be veiled in your own home? They're
Speaker 1: gonna see you. The idea that if you have to
Speaker 1: walk out veiled constantly really is to constantly on guard
Speaker 1: that the Gin might accidentally see you doesn't quite fit
Speaker 1: because one, they live within your house too, They're invisible,
Speaker 1: Therefore they're going to see you at some point or another.
Speaker 1: And three were told that they have various abilities and powers.
Speaker 1: And one that's so if there's an entity that has
Speaker 1: all these abilities and powers and perhaps can almost practically
Speaker 1: read the human mind, um, I doubt that. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not waiting for a glimpse of your head job
Speaker 1: to fly off the side. Yeah, they're they're they're not
Speaker 1: waiting for ankle glimpses or yet. Okay, speaking of the
Speaker 1: gin that live in your house, there's one category of
Speaker 1: gin and then I'm kind of fascinated with that. I
Speaker 1: guess I don't quite understand where they fall on the
Speaker 1: spectrum of um innocuous too, maybe problematic. And that is
Speaker 1: the gin that they say that that the tradition is
Speaker 1: that every person is assigned one gin, Like there's one gin?
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that whole story,
Speaker 1: like what why do they exist? And another places I've
Speaker 1: read that maybe it's not a gin, maybe it's some
Speaker 1: kind of a double id get, Like it's a little
Speaker 1: confusing to me. Yeah. Yeah, So there's Amazon or the
Speaker 1: Koeen as it's known in Arabic is that it's known
Speaker 1: as the attending gym. The gym is associated with an individual.
Speaker 1: They're born with it and may they have it throughout
Speaker 1: their life. On the whole, there's generally seen, I think
Speaker 1: within traditional Orthodox Aslamic approaches as a tempting force. That
Speaker 1: they're sort of force that is aimed attempting individuals are
Speaker 1: the associated with doubt, they're associated with anxiety, they're associated
Speaker 1: kind of with as as a force that that that
Speaker 1: that gets us to stumble all and counteracted by uh,
Speaker 1: you know, for the angels that are meant the guard
Speaker 1: in the people that keep them from doing us. And
Speaker 1: there's this idea that they's a sort of balanced there
Speaker 1: between this gin and the angels around us, with us
Speaker 1: with heavily leaning towards the angelic sub But when you
Speaker 1: go down to the sort of folklore component that is
Speaker 1: outside the actual orthodoxy, what people are saying, what ordinary
Speaker 1: people believe, that's where it gets a little bit complicated.
Speaker 1: The Korean sometimes is seeing not just as a gin,
Speaker 1: but has a dopple ganger as a sort of shadows
Speaker 1: sells to a certain extenter of a shadow that follows
Speaker 1: us throughout life, and in that instance it's also seen
Speaker 1: as a bit disruptive. But there are other lower components
Speaker 1: to it, generally associated with esoterism, in which the gin
Speaker 1: is seen as a sort of alchemical process. That is
Speaker 1: that you'll goal in life is to take this gin
Speaker 1: that begins at birth as a sort of untamed gin
Speaker 1: and tamed them to become an ally and once you've
Speaker 1: done that, you've reached a sort of spiritual potential. rEFInd
Speaker 1: this within certain is esoteric circles. And then this is
Speaker 1: taken even further and some occult practices in which the
Speaker 1: Korean is seeing not just as an attending gin, but
Speaker 1: as a familiar spirit in which you can work with
Speaker 1: in order to achieve certain magical effect, its creation of
Speaker 1: talismans or whatnot. So there's a sort of diverse, complicated
Speaker 1: approach to the Korean, but traditionally it is seen within
Speaker 1: the sort of orthodox approach within Islam as attempting force,
Speaker 1: as a as a force that exists in your life
Speaker 1: to tempt you, as a force that exists in your life,
Speaker 1: as a sort of negative side to you or sort
Speaker 1: of dark shadow to you. You know. It almost um
Speaker 1: it brings to mind that image of like the person
Speaker 1: with a double on one shoulder and needs all the
Speaker 1: other shoulder. I guess it's like connected to that, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: very much so. Whereas in the Islamic tradition, the idea
Speaker 1: that you have multiple angels, uh, you know, working on
Speaker 1: your side with one Korean that is that is not
Speaker 1: you know, but definitely that sort of the idea of
Speaker 1: the devil and angel right there. So when the person dies,
Speaker 1: does that jin die yes. So the idea is that
Speaker 1: generally the gin is associated with that person's life. Once
Speaker 1: that person dies, the Korean dies as well. But again
Speaker 1: it gets messy and complicated and sometimes contradictory. There are
Speaker 1: stories of how the Korean continues on after because Jin
Speaker 1: has such long lifespan, so there is some debate from
Speaker 1: the whole most most kind of narrations indicate that the
Speaker 1: gin also dies, that it is intimately tied to the
Speaker 1: human life, and so too is its strength, age, etcetera.
Speaker 1: The more pious a person is, the weaker the Krena is.
Speaker 1: That doesn't have much of an influence, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of a shadow that exists there. The more you know,
Speaker 1: rebellious a person is, and the stronger the Korena is.
Speaker 1: So it is kind of intimately tied to our personal
Speaker 1: lives or experiences or destinies, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: I saw a tweet that I think you're responding to somebody.
Speaker 1: Somebody asked like, how how can they died? Can they
Speaker 1: be killed? And you said, well, it seems like Jin
Speaker 1: mostly died by accident. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, So the ginns are this is kind
Speaker 1: of one of the again one of the kind of
Speaker 1: interesting components of how kind of um you know, contradictory
Speaker 1: some of the information sometimes can be, but also speaks
Speaker 1: of a kind of vast diversion creative stories that are
Speaker 1: told on one end, which told that the Gin are ancient,
Speaker 1: that they live thousands and thousands of years, that they
Speaker 1: are immensely strong and mensely powerful, and the very few
Speaker 1: things can kind of hurt them, classically salt iron things
Speaker 1: like that. Um. But on the other instance, we have
Speaker 1: all sorts of stories to talk about. You know, someone
Speaker 1: spat their seed into a hole and it accidentally killed
Speaker 1: the gin, or they sat rock into a cavern has
Speaker 1: accidentally killed the gin. So for whatever reason, it seems
Speaker 1: like they're constantly getting killed accidentally, and that leads to
Speaker 1: all sorts of problems. That's when the Gin are offended, uh,
Speaker 1: and then they they wreak their their vengeance upon that person,
Speaker 1: but through possession, abduction, et cetera. The other common way
Speaker 1: in which that they're killed is an animal form, so
Speaker 1: the stories of hunting. But the gin took on a
Speaker 1: snake form and go on the head that snake, and
Speaker 1: then the cousin gin shows up and you killed my cousin.
Speaker 1: So that's the other sort of aspect to it, is
Speaker 1: that either they're killed accidentally or they're killed an animal form.
Speaker 1: Those are the kind of two common ways that we
Speaker 1: hear about their gaps, other than that they're supposed to
Speaker 1: be and thensally strong, long lives, so they're very supposed
Speaker 1: to be very difficult to kill. But apparently when you're
Speaker 1: not intending to, you can kill a GM. So let
Speaker 1: me see this. Um, you mentioned how in in something
Speaker 1: like a North African tradition, there's like a tradition of
Speaker 1: like actually inviting a summoning like possession. I've read something
Speaker 1: about like a gin cannot enter your home until you
Speaker 1: invite it? Am I thinking about a vampire? Maybe? I am? Actually,
Speaker 1: but let me do this. Have you ever, like what
Speaker 1: do you know about the summoning like gin? Like? Have
Speaker 1: you are they? Is it different in different cultures how
Speaker 1: it's done? Is there like kind of an orthodox way
Speaker 1: to do it? I know it's I know it's considered prohibited,
Speaker 1: it's not considered permissible, right yeah, yeah, yeah, the gin
Speaker 1: there's a variety of different way There is sort of
Speaker 1: a textual tradition that's found, Uh, this is would be
Speaker 1: I guess the best way to approach it would be
Speaker 1: or call it would be ceremonial. So there's a sort
Speaker 1: of approach into which the gin can be summoned, and
Speaker 1: it generally involves a certain formula, knowing the gin the name,
Speaker 1: having some type of purification ritual that's done beforehand, lots
Speaker 1: of incense, smoke. One author talks about how you have
Speaker 1: to burn a special type of incense uh, and then
Speaker 1: you can use that and the gin will kind of
Speaker 1: appear through the smoke there. Uh. And that that's sounding
Speaker 1: sort of magical operations of what not within these medieval texts.
Speaker 1: That's one approach, and that seems to be the kind
Speaker 1: of common method found within I would say literary circles
Speaker 1: and sort of scholarly circles. That that's one way to
Speaker 1: do it. But there is a great deal of variation locally, uh,
Speaker 1: And so there are more sort of possession oriented ways
Speaker 1: rather than summoning a gin, the gin can be invoked
Speaker 1: that is brought inside a person uh. And then through
Speaker 1: the possession speak to people, engage with people, give you know,
Speaker 1: foretell the future, things like that, and that's found more
Speaker 1: commonly in North Africa. There's bizarre rituals in Egypt which
Speaker 1: involved dancing and possession. Found from Egypt to Sadan, there
Speaker 1: are the Buffer rituals and Morocco West Africa that involved
Speaker 1: actually getting possessed uh. And then this very elaborate sort
Speaker 1: of ceremony that is done um. And then there are
Speaker 1: a slightly more kind of shamanic for lack of a
Speaker 1: better word, approaches that we find in Indonesia and Malaysia,
Speaker 1: and which is a sort of symbiotic relationship. The gin
Speaker 1: are and revoked through a sort of pack making deal UH.
Speaker 1: Gin is found or located through a particular you know,
Speaker 1: natural ceremony, going out to a tree, going to a cave, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And a relationship is built like an actual pact is
Speaker 1: signed between the individual, the healer and and the gin,
Speaker 1: and then that gen warps with that healer. So there's
Speaker 1: some great deal of sort of variety and how they're invoked,
Speaker 1: but there is a core sort of operation, if you will,
Speaker 1: written roughly around the medieval era. It's still used by
Speaker 1: some people in which gin can be summoned, gin can
Speaker 1: be brought to manifest themselves. And then there are others
Speaker 1: that say you can't necessarily manifest it, but you can
Speaker 1: certainly invoke the power, since you'll find gin also make
Speaker 1: their appearance in sort of talisman making, the creation of
Speaker 1: sort of magical objects of some sort. All of this
Speaker 1: falls well without or outside Orthodox Slam and is considered
Speaker 1: deeply prohibited by black kind of orthodox religious scholars, but
Speaker 1: as a common feature of popular Islam not always falls
Speaker 1: into the black magic. I was gonna say, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: some people call black magic, of some practitioners themselves wouldn't
Speaker 1: call it that. For example, the practices in Indonesia are
Speaker 1: seen as healing oriented, but orthodoxis Mom would definitely look
Speaker 1: at it. All of this as a form of a
Speaker 1: form of black magic. Uh, definitely outside what is considered
Speaker 1: permissible within Islam um. And but but there's a great
Speaker 1: episode of folk level and popular level. There's a great
Speaker 1: dealer kind of you know, flexibility there. Uh. And some
Speaker 1: people quite overtly invoked from malicious books is but other
Speaker 1: people see it as as a sort of healing practice.
Speaker 1: And so in some ways it has some parallels with
Speaker 1: We could look at sort of the folk healing practices
Speaker 1: of the Mediterranean, granny magic, kitchen magic, or the sort
Speaker 1: of shamanic practice that we find and wed on North
Speaker 1: America and South America. What can I ask you? What,
Speaker 1: what is like the power dynamic there? Who is the
Speaker 1: who is a charge? And that in those relationships? Is
Speaker 1: it I've read that you know? And and also like
Speaker 1: you know in the story of the creation of Adam
Speaker 1: of course that that man is superior, but go gener powerful.
Speaker 1: So what's the power dynamic here? Yeah? So, um, humans
Speaker 1: are considered superior in Islamic cosmology. Um, but the Gin
Speaker 1: are clearly very powerful in their own sort of way.
Speaker 1: So Orthodox Islam will generally a sort of Orthodox scholarly
Speaker 1: tradition would indicate that any type of relationship between gin
Speaker 1: and humans is a sort of corruption, that the Gin
Speaker 1: is corrupting the human beings. So even if a person
Speaker 1: thinks that they're got this powerful relationship or the upper
Speaker 1: hand of the Gin, the gin is is subverse that
Speaker 1: they're doing some things of which is why a lot
Speaker 1: of these folk practice that involved direct relationships with the
Speaker 1: Gin are seen as not permissible within Orthodox as law.
Speaker 1: Within the sort of folk and popular expression, it's generally
Speaker 1: a far more symbiotic relationship in which the Gin and
Speaker 1: the human are scene as in partnership for some particular function,
Speaker 1: whether it is to heal people or to give oracular advice,
Speaker 1: or to foretell the future or whatnot. It's seems far
Speaker 1: more symbiotic than what orthodox is Slam would it be.
Speaker 1: So there is there's some great there's divergence there in
Speaker 1: terms of the pallodynamics, and I have to wonder that
Speaker 1: you can ask, I have to wonder what is the
Speaker 1: gin getting out of this? I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 1: if they're telling the future for a human being, or
Speaker 1: they're helping heal, helping somebody heal others, what's the gin
Speaker 1: getting at well. Traditionally it said that if the gener
Speaker 1: involved in methical relationship, it's because they are getting something
Speaker 1: generally there in love with that person, or there's an
Speaker 1: ancestral line there, or that they're building a relationship right
Speaker 1: they're working together, there's some type of something that they're
Speaker 1: getting out of it. Again, classically, in sort of an
Speaker 1: orthodox interpretation would see that as what they're getting out
Speaker 1: of it is the ability to just mass with people.
Speaker 1: So there so the argument there is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why you shouldn't be engaged in these nonpredictable acts
Speaker 1: or non permitted acts is because that no matter what
Speaker 1: you think you're getting out of it, in reality you're
Speaker 1: kind of being screwed over about by the Gin. But
Speaker 1: for people who whoo, who are engaging these kinna foke
Speaker 1: with popular practices, the gin and humans have a relationship
Speaker 1: in which they live side by side in the day
Speaker 1: is mutually beneficial. One of the mutual kind of mutually
Speaker 1: beneficial aspects of it is offerings. So for example, and
Speaker 1: many of these these kind of popular practices that we
Speaker 1: will find, if you're working with the Gin, you're generally
Speaker 1: giving them something back. Milk, candle, Hannah is a common
Speaker 1: offering that is given to the Gin. Various kind of
Speaker 1: things that they get in return, like gifts, um, and
Speaker 1: then in turn they bestow their own it's whatever those are.
Speaker 1: Have you um. Have you ever witnessed an exorcism? I
Speaker 1: have um once. It was an interesting experience. There's a
Speaker 1: very it was. It was a formal exorcism, not like
Speaker 1: a uh sort of emergency, oh someone's been possessed. This
Speaker 1: was in a ceremonial sort of context, and it was
Speaker 1: part of a sort of like if you're still or whatnot,
Speaker 1: you come to this place there's an open air shrine
Speaker 1: in Morocco. Uh. And what you'll do is been the
Speaker 1: mystic or or the saint or the healer or whatnot
Speaker 1: will then perform a sort of a ritual of sorts
Speaker 1: in which you will invoke the gin that is hiding
Speaker 1: within you. There's an element of performance. Music is played,
Speaker 1: songs or song uh, certain incenses or burn and this
Speaker 1: kind of ritual action that it was very kind of
Speaker 1: stylized to a certain extent, which is different from sort
Speaker 1: of other experiences of exorcisms, which are much more kind
Speaker 1: of focused on intervention of some sort of some sort
Speaker 1: uh and they're really kind of intense. This was a
Speaker 1: much more sort of formulaic, stylized approach, almost by the numbers,
Speaker 1: like people with people kind of line up who feel
Speaker 1: like they have something going wrong in their lives, they
Speaker 1: can't get married, they can't whatnot. And then they take
Speaker 1: their turn coming up to this person and they performed
Speaker 1: this exorcism and cleansing. And it involved a bundle of
Speaker 1: herbs that would be rushed and kind of slapped on
Speaker 1: this person. Uh. The person would be the limbs would
Speaker 1: be tied by some type of cloth uh and then
Speaker 1: various forms of waters were sprinkled, and the waters looked
Speaker 1: like they had some type of herbs and then some
Speaker 1: some something other than it wasn't just water. Prayers are recited,
Speaker 1: songs were recited, music was aid, uh, and then the
Speaker 1: person was unbound from the cloth and like, oh you're
Speaker 1: free now. Some of them, some of the people that
Speaker 1: came forward had very like a sort of intense reactions.
Speaker 1: They would struggle against the clock, they would fight, they
Speaker 1: would screen, they show out and others and very sort
Speaker 1: of benign non reaction to what was going on. Um.
Speaker 1: But it was a very stylized experience that I saw.
Speaker 1: But I did I did see this um as part
Speaker 1: of this kind of world travel that I did trying
Speaker 1: to look for gin lore. I've not I've noticed in
Speaker 1: actually including that that little clip from Dala Guy that
Speaker 1: he also says that in the UK seems to be
Speaker 1: full of young young brothers who are like performing extra
Speaker 1: some of them on YouTube. In fact, um it's uh so,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't do know anybody who does that
Speaker 1: like here out here in your area and on the
Speaker 1: East coast, because I'd love to see that there are
Speaker 1: people that do extra so ism in the United States.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how open they'd be to being filmed
Speaker 1: or or talked to, but they do exist more often
Speaker 1: not it's word of mouth and or through a mask.
Speaker 1: Somebody knows somebody who does this sort of work. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are specialists of some sort that they see themselves
Speaker 1: as kind of some sort of spiritual figure. They are
Speaker 1: either in a mom or shape or on the law
Speaker 1: or something. They are almost most exclusively male in in
Speaker 1: these circles. Um. And and they do perform at one
Speaker 1: particular form of exorcism that was done in the United States.
Speaker 1: But I saw um was involved in chains, chains that
Speaker 1: or all that I heard, I didn't actually see this one.
Speaker 1: The change were being thrown over a person in order
Speaker 1: to trap the gin, and they repeatedly throwing the change
Speaker 1: over and over and the person would step out of it.
Speaker 1: So they do exist. Um. They seem to congregate in
Speaker 1: New York or Virginia and northern California. They're probably everywhere, um,
Speaker 1: but those are the kind of the places the people
Speaker 1: that I've spoken to the big general will come from
Speaker 1: those kind of three areas. But I think any kind
Speaker 1: of population of Muslims probably has a few exorcists or
Speaker 1: exerci who end up who end up having to do
Speaker 1: it because nobody else is going to do it. You
Speaker 1: who end up doing that type of stuff. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of it's also a business there component of there's
Speaker 1: a financial exchange. Some of them can be quite exploitative,
Speaker 1: but they do this and they I think they're a
Speaker 1: little bit more open up in the UK, a little
Speaker 1: bit more underground. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as
Speaker 1: much as I did. Now there are as many people
Speaker 1: in the world with gin stories as there are gin
Speaker 1: so if you have one you'd like to share, make
Speaker 1: sure to email it to me at the Hidden Gin
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. That's the Hidden Gin th h
Speaker 1: I D d N d J I n N at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. And until next time, remember we are
Speaker 1: not alone. 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 Robbiah Chaudry and produced
Speaker 1: by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Our theme song was created
Speaker 1: by Patrick Quartets. For more podcasts from i heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.