In severe cases, djinn take up permanent residence in a body, and must be forcibly expelled through exorcism by a skilled sheikh. Djinn who fall in love with people may enter a person's body in order to be closer to their love. This is not a desirable condition for the person, but in such cases, the djinni will usually not harm the person unless he or she does something to upset or anger them. If an evil djinni takes up physical residence, the danger is much greater-the djinni's intention is maximum damage, even death.
Not all forms of djinn possession are this extreme, however. Some cases involve being "touched" by a djinni-that is, the djinni comes and goes as it wishes and causes mild, temporary possessions. A person may have episodes of unusual behavior and not remember them after the djinni departs.
In some milder possessions, efforts are made to reconcile with the djinni rather than expel it. The djinni is engaged in dialogue. Speaking through its victim, it explains its grievances and what it wants in order to stop its possession. Some of the exorcism rituals are known as zar. Victims are usually women who are having problems with their husbands. As a result, they become possessed by djinn. The djinn, who love worldly pleasures, demand appeasement through jewelry and other gifts, sweets, and favors that must be performed by the offending husbands.
Possession is considered a substantial risk of crossing a djinni, or inadvertently injuring one. Sudden emotional and physical shocks rip open a person's natural protection and enable a djinni to breach the mind and body.15 Exorcisms are not always successful-djinn often sneak back into the body.
They Magically Grant Wishes
In folk tales, djinn who are imprisoned in vessels and rings must grant three wishes to whomever liberates them, after which they are free. Unfortunately, stories about wish fulfillment are seldom straightforward; usually the wishes backfire, working too well, or not at all how the wisher had hoped. As the djinn themselves warn, every wish has a consequence. In most tales, the first wish is usually successful but the next two are not, and the protagonist finds himself in increasing trouble because of the wishes. The wishes must be worded very carefully, for a djinni will find a way to follow them to the letter, but in unexpected ways. Even if he tries to be clever, the protagonist never outwits the djinni, and usually the person's final wish is to undo the first two.
This theme continues to be played out in modern tales of the djinni/genie. Earlier, we mentioned the story The Thief of Baghdad, about a boy who finds a genie's bottle on a beach. In the film Wishmaster (1997), the protagonist liberates a particularly evil djinni. For one wish, he asks for one million dollars ... and receives it in an insurance payout when his aunt dies in a plane crash the djinni had caused.
In "The Man in the Bottle," an episode of The Twilight Zone (1960), a down-on-their-luck pawnbroker and his wife are offered an untraditional four wishes by a djinni who comes out of a wine bottle. Dubious, they ask him to repair a broken glass cabinet. When the djinni does this instantly, they get excited and ask for one million dollars. He complies. They give away a lot of the money-and then the tax man comes to claim all but five dollars.
For a third wish, the husband asks to be the leader of a powerful, modernized country in which he cannot be voted out of office. Suddenly, he becomes Adolf Hitler, about to commit suicide in his bunker at the end of World War II. In a panic, the man uses his fourth wish to erase everything that had happened. Everything is back to normal. When he gets home, he finds the wine bottle that contained the djinni is broken. His repaired glass cabinet breakseverything is as it was before the wishes. He tosses the wine bottle into a trash can on the street. The djinni's smoke reforms the bottle anew, and it lies in wait for someone else to release it.
They Can Shapeshift into Any Form
Shapeshifting is one of the most important abilities of djinn. We have saved it for last so it can be fully discussed and reinterpreted. We believe that some cases of paranormal activity may actually have had shapeshifting djinn behind them.
Artful shapeshifting is a primary Trickster trait. Magical transformations are a great asset in confounding humans, who never know quite what they're dealing with. As a result, people can land in great trouble before they realize it. One must take care not to throw water or stones at dogs and cats, especially black ones, for they are likely to be djinn in disguise. Once doused or hit, they and their clans become angry and will strike back in revenge. Similar precautions apply to snakes, another favored form. Djinn also like to mimic the shapes of birds and goats.
Djinn can take the form of mice to enter homes at night. If the residents have been foolish or absent-minded enough to leave lamps or candles lit, the djinn-mice overturn them, resulting in the home being consumed by fire-an excellent example of their fiery Trickster nature.
Djinn also shapeshift into human form, especially to fool people for the purposes of misleading and persuasion. The one form they cannot ever take is that of the Prophet Muhammad himself. Muhammad makes appearances in visions and dreams for the purpose of guidance. He assured his followers, "... whoever sees me in a dream, he surely sees me, for Satan cannot impersonate me (appear in my figure)."" However, nothing prevents a djinni from taking on the human form of a sheikh or an admired authority figure, whom people will mistake as a representative of the Prophet.
It probably occurred to djinn long ago that they could take on the forms of supernatural entities, at least some of whom are real beings in their own right, using them as disguises for interacting with human beings. This masquerade shapeshifting of the djinn has long been acknowledged in Middle Eastern lore. Author Umar Sulaiman al-Ashqar of the University of Jordan comments:
Taking on supernatural entity forms appeals to the Trickster in djinn, especially the green djinn, who like to amuse themselves at humanity's expense. The thought of a ghost wandering around a house or lingering on property frightens many people because of sudden appearances, strange noises, disembodied voices, odd smells, and phantom forms with grotesque features. Prevailing beliefs about ghosts hold that they are a type of recording, imprint, or memory left behind by the person who has died, or that they are the restless souls of those stuck between the worlds of the living and the dead. Some ghosts seem to lack intelligence or awareness of the living, while others interact and attract attention. In either case, perhaps they are not remnants of people, but djinn having a bit of fun. Djinn activity may not account for all ghosts, of course, but perhaps they have created or piggybacked on the haunting phenomenon. Perhaps some of our most famous ghosts are not ghosts at all. It may be difficult, if not impossible, to ever know the difference.
Another common haunting phenomenon is poltergeist activityunexplained disappearances and reappearances of objects, banging noises, mysterious rains of stones, lights flicking on and off by themselves, appliance malfunction and/or breakage, property damage, breakage, and disappearance; and other mayhem. Poltergeist is German for "noisy spirit," and unexplained destructive activities are often blamed on demons, angry ghosts, other spirits, and black magic spells. Poltergeist activity also befits the Trickster nature of djinn as a way of creating chaos and disorder.
Throughout history, people have reported encounters with mysterious creatures never before seen in the natural world. Sometimes only a few sightings are ever reported, but other times, such creatures seem to exist in a parallel world, popping in and out of ours for reasons unknown. Werewolves, dogmen, Bigfoot, swamp monsters and Jersey Devil-type flying creatures may be entities in their own right-but their forms could also be borrowed by Trickster djinn. Masquerading as a supernatural creature may be for a djinn what donning a costume at Halloween is for humans. The object is to have some fun, perhaps at the expense of others.
The famous Mothman wave of 1966-67 provides a good example of a possible djinn shapeshifting case. Mothman was a winged, red-eyed humanoid that suddenly began appearing in the area around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, (in particular, an abandoned TNT plant) in November of 1966. Mothman was described as being six to seven feet tall. It did not seem to have a head, and its eyes were set near the tops of its shoulders. It shuffled on humanlike legs, and it made a strange, high-pitched squeaking noise. It could take off straight up into the air without moving its wings and flew as though gliding, without flapping its wings.
Mothman terrified witnesses. If they were in cars and sped off, it took off after them, keeping pace in a chase. It never aggressively attacked people, however. It would seem to tire of the chase and break off and vanish. Such behavior is ascribed to green djinn, who sometimes like to toy with people but quickly grow bored and abruptly stop.
Although Mothman received much attention due to its unusual appearance, the real activity in the wave was centered more around UFO/extraterrestrial high strangeness. There were many sightings of mysterious lights, craft, and aliens; electrical and telephone disturbances; poltergeist phenomena; phantom dogs and mysterious creatures; phantom people; and sinister "Men In Black," dark, cadaverous, mechanical-like men who harrass UFO contactees and threaten them to keep silent. A dog disappeared and wild animals were found mutilated. Mothman was blamed for all the phenomena, but was never caught in the act of doing anything but observing and chasing people. The famous paranormal investigator and author John A. Keel traveled to West Virginia to investigate the wave, documenting activity in his book, The Mothman Prophecies (1975). Keel said at least a hundred people had sightings of Mothman.
The bizarre activity continued into 1967, declining toward the end of the year. On December 15, 1967, the 700-foot Silver Bridge that crossed the Ohio River at Point Pleasant collapsed, killing forty-six people. Some people linked the bridge collapse to Mothman, though no direct evidence was ever found. The collapse of the bridge was accompanied by a halt in Mothman sightings, and Mothman soon disappeared from the area. Since then, sightings of the creature have continued sporadically in Point Pleasant and all over the world, but there have been no more waves comparable to the one in 1966-67.
Keel believed Point Pleasant was a "window" or portal that temporarily opened to a parallel reality. We also believe in such por tals, some of which may be open constantly, not just temporarily. It is possible that a portal did open at Point Pleasant, and many things poured through-including opportunistic djinn. All of the mystery beings-Mothman, Men in Black, phantom dogs, phantom people, and aliens-could have been djinn in disguise. The collapse of the Silver Bridge fits the Trickster motif, a nonsensical but lethal end to a windup of intense paranormal activity.
Sometimes djinn masquerades are more deadly in nature. Folklore and mythologies around the world are filled with supernatural predators of many shapes and names. Their main characteristics are luring unwary people to their doom and ambushing people as they travel, especially at night. In particular, fairy lore is full of such hostile beings, such as the water fairies who drown people, the wispy lights that lure travelers over cliffs and into bogs, and the savage trolls who jump out from beneath bridges. The djinn might make use of these and other nasty forms.
Finally, an excellent example of what may have been a deadly djinn case comes from American supernatural history: the Bell Witch Cave. The Bell Witch "haunting" occurred in the nineteenth century in Adams, Tennessee, and involved spectral creatures, poltergeist activity, bedroom invasion, and death. It was blamed on a witch's curse, but has numerous hallmarks that can be interpreted as djinn in origin. We make those comparisons in the following analysis."
Different versions of the story are told, but the main features are consistent. Sometime in the early nineteenth century, John Bell bought a thousand acres of land near Adams and set up a prosperous farm. He and his wife, Lucy, had eight children. In 1817, life went from good to miserable. The first signs were mysterious creatures Bell saw-a large, black dog-like thing on his property that vanished when Bell fired at it with his shotgun, and a turkey-like bird. Both are favored djinn forms.
After that, severe poltergeist outbreaks occurred in the house. Knocking, rapping, and scraping sounds were heard in the home and outside on the doors and windows. Everyone in the family was upset by the sounds of invisible rats gnawing on things, and invisible giant dogs clawing the floors. The disturbances went on for about a year and then escalated to attacks upon the family at night while they were asleep in their beds. Covers were pulled off, invisible hands slapped everyone on their faces and yanked their hair. The Bells' twelve-year-old daughter, Betsy, got the worst of it; she was slapped, pinched, hit, bruised, and stuck with pins. At first, her parents thought she was playing tricks on them, but then became convinced that something sinister was afflicting the entire family.
Word about the problems spread, and the Bell farm became an object of curiosity. It was discovered that the invisible assailant was intelligent, for it responded to communication. When ordered to cease in the name of the Lord, it did-but only temporarily. It often resumed activity with greater intensity. This is characteristic of djinn, who will temporarily stop their harassment, only to resume it much more powerfully.
After a time, the unknown spirit began to whistle and speak. As we saw above, the djinn are especially known for whistling and whispering. The entity gave different explanations of itself. It said it was a "spirit from everywhere, heaven, hell, the earth. I'm in the air, in houses, any place at any time. I've been created millions of years. That is all I will tell you." This description is a striking fit with the djinn.
The spirit also said it was the ghost of a person who was buried in the woods nearby, and whose grave had been disturbed. Its tooth was beneath the Bell house. The Bells searched in vain for a tooth. A djinn would have laughed to see them on their wild goose chase.
The spirit then said it was the ghost of an immigrant who died and left a hidden fortune, and had returned to tell Betsy where it was stashed. It gave a location, and the Bell boys dug for hours but found nothing. The spirit laughed aloud over that one. Djinn are known for promising riches and then not delivering.
Meanwhile, the local residents were forming their own opinions about the spirit's identity: they decided it was a witch. The spirit said, "I am nothing more nor less than old Kate Batts' witch, and I'm determined to haunt and torment old Jack Bell as long as he lives." Kate Batts was a neighbor with whom Bell had previously had bad business dealings. She threatened to get even. There was no evidence that she ever suited actions to words, but from then on, the spirit was called "Kate." It was a suitable guise for a djinni.
From a djinn perspective, bad business was indeed involved. As we have noted, djinn are extremely territorial and protective of their turf. Like the little man in the hole in chapter 5, they can become enraged if humans invade or damage their property. A djinni could have once occupied the land on which Bell established his farm. The Bells' arrival was nothing less than a home invasionand the djinni reacted with characteristic anger.
The spirit seemed to spin out of control. It visited other people besides the Bells, blasting them with insults. It made predictions, another hallmark of "fortune-telling" djinn. But most of all, it continued to torment John Bell and his family.
A "witch layer," or professional exorcist, attempted to visit, but his carriage broke down. When he finally made it to the house, he attempted to kill the spirit with a silver bullet, but instead he was slapped around. Frightened, he left. Had he been knowledgeable about djinn, he would have brought iron weapons instead, for djinn, like fairies, are seriously weakened by iron.
The spirit's final action was to make John Bell ill-certainly a favored djinn tactic. John repeatedly fell ill with strange symptoms, and lay in bed twitching and convulsing, as though possessed. "Kate" claimed credit. Bell's health deteriorated. He was found dead in his bed on December 19, 1820, three years after trouble had first began. A strange bottle of liquid never before seen was found in the medicine cabinet. Lucy fed it to their cat, which promptly convulsed and died. "Kate" claimed she poisoned Bell to death, and she laughed hysterically in triumph. The djinni had its revenge.
However, the spirit was not done with the family. It turned full force on Betsy and tormented her over her engagement to a man, forcing her to break it off. Djinn who fall in love with humans are known to do the same. Betsy, however, married another man-but apparently someone the djinni/spirit didn't mind.
"Kate" announced she would leave but would return in seven years. A cannonball-like object then rolled out of the chimney and burst into smoke, and the spirit vanished. Smoke and mist are associated with djinn, as they lack forms in their natural state.
Since then, haunting phenomena have continued on the property, which is now privately owned and operated as a tourist attraction. The original Bell home no longer exists, but has been replaced with a replica. It is said to be haunted as well. The activity may spring from the land itself, which would be characteristic of a place frequented by djinn.
Nearby is a small cave that extends about five hundred feet into a bluff over a river. The cave is renowned for unusual phenomena, including apparitions, photographic anomalies of misty shapes, glowing balls of light, whispering voices, and sounds of breathing. Caves, as we have seen, are a favorite home of the djinn. A disturbed Native American burial site lies above the entrance to the cave. The bones of the woman buried there were stolen, which has given rise to belief in a curse-bad luck will come to anyone who takes anything from the cave, even so much as a stone.
Rosemary has visited the cave with Troy Taylor, founder of the American Ghost Society. Taylor has made numerous trips to the Bell Witch site and believes the cave to be a portal and the home of "an ancient, primeval spirit." It probably is, and it may belong to a djinn.
In Closing
The djinn are the "artful dodgers" of the paranormal, assuming different forms and slipping between dimensions at will. They have the ability to severely disrupt human life. In the following chapters, we compare djinn in more detail to other supernatural entities with whom we in the West are more familiar, and we examine ways to counter their effects.
O FULLY UNDERSTAND THE CONNECTION between angels,
demons, and djinn, we must delve into the Prophet Muhammad's
revelation of the Qur'an. According to tradition, Muhammad received
the Qur'an in a series of dreams and trancelike inspired states in
which he was visited by the archangel Jibril. But was Muhammad
actually visited by a djinni instead?
Muhammad is considered to be the last receiver of all divine revelations before the end of the world. His name means "the Praised One" or "He Who is Glorified." In all, there are two hundred names for Muhammad, such as "Joy of Creation" and "Beloved of God." Mention of his name is customarily followed by one of several invocations, such as "God bless Him and give Him peace" or "May peace be upon Him."
Muhammad was born in Mecca around 570 CE; tradition holds that his lineage goes back to Ishmael and Abraham. Some accounts claim he was illiterate, but he had a successful business career and probably was at least semi-literate. In 590, he married a woman twice his age. After twenty years of marriage and a successful career as a merchant of skins and raisins, his spiritual life unfolded. He felt a call to withdraw from the world, and pray and meditate to reach enlightenment. At the root of his spiritual searching was his acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah, the immaculate conception of Mary and the virgin birth, in addition to his conviction that Judaism and Christianity had distorted God's revelations to Moses and Jesus, and that the pagan Arabs lived in ignorance of God's true will.
Muhammad would often leave his wife and children in Mecca to make a four-hour journey to the Cave of Hira, located a short distance from the city on the top of a mountain. Hira is a small cave, about fourteen feet in length by six feet wide. There he would stay in complete isolation for several nights, deep in thought, prayer, and meditation.
In the year 610, while in the cave one night during Ramadan,' Muhammad was visited by a "creature" who ordered him in an authoritative, almost threatening voice, "READ!"
Muhammad replied to the creature, "I do not know how to read."
The creature grabbed him with such a great force that he almost suffocated. It released him, and repeated the same command three times. On the third time, the creature gave him what later became the opening lines of sura 96:
Tradition holds that after issuing its commands, the creature disappeared. Muhammad went to sleep and awakened in the morning to hear words that seemed to be written on his heart: "0 Muhammad, you are the Apostle of God and I am fibril."
According to the Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya, a biography of the Prophet by Ibn Kathir, written in the fourteenth century, Muhammad ran from the cave, all the way back to Mecca, trembling with fear. He ran into his house and found his wife and implored her, "Cover me, cover me." His wife asked him what was the matter. He told her of the creature he encountered in the cave and said he had to leave because he feared for his life. It is not clear at this point whether Muhammad thought the creature was a djinni or angel, but it was obvious he was very afraid of the creature that had accosted him.
From historical accounts of djinn and demons, we know they often make people do things they don't want to by threatening them or using physical force. In Biblical accounts of angel encounters, people often feared the angels because they usually appeared when God was unhappy with a person; the angel was sent to chastise or punish. In the Arabic world, however, djinn would have been even more feared than a powerful angel.
Muhammad was able to see the creature from any angle he looked, implying it was multidimensional in nature. However, there is no record of an exact description of the entity. Muhammad was skeptical of the creature's true identity. He saw it on several occasions after the first encounter, but no one else could see it. The creature followed him from the cave and often appeared in his home. Muhammad's wife, Khadija, wanted to discover the true identity of the creature and so told her husband to inform her when the entity was present. When the creature finally appeared, she asked Muhammad to sit on her left thigh and asked him, "Can you still see the creature?"
He replied that he did.
She then threw off her veil and asked Muhammad to sit on her right thigh. Khadija then asked him, "Can you still see the creature?"
He replied, "No, it is gone."
Khadija then told Muhammad, "Be firm, by the name of Allah, he is an angel and not a demon."
Islamic scholars interpret the test above as meaning that an angel would not stay to look at the uncovered part of a female body, but a demon would. Also, the creature was visible only when he sat on her left thigh and not her right. The pre-Islamic people believed that the proper sequence of things was from right to left. If the creature was also visible on the right, this meant to them that it would have been moving from left to right and against the balanced movement of the universe and against the will of Allah. Only evil djinn can do this-angels can't. This test convinced Khadija that the creature was an angel, and not just any angel, but the Archangel Jibril. Muhammad still remained skeptical.
Three years passed after the first revelation before Muhammad felt ready to call himself a prophet. He preached to his own clan, the Hashimites, that if they did not worship God instead of their idols, they would be punished. The followers of the new religion were called Muslims, which is derived from a term that means "they who surrender to God." His evangelizing was not without conflict and even holy war.
Critics called Muhammad "djinn-possessed" and said he was not a true prophet because God hadn't sent down His angels to him. Later, Muhammad began publicly describing the creature as an angel, but doing so failed to quiet his opponents and critics, who accused him of retro-fitting an angel onto his revelations in order to be accepted as a prophet.' Regardless of exactly how it happened, the first night of Qur'an revelations is referred to as the "Night of Power." According to tradition, the Qur'an was revealed gradually over the rest of Muhammad's life, in nearly daily trance states and frequent dreams at night, with the final revelation coming just months before his death in 632. The transmitting entity is sometimes described as an angel, sometimes as a mysterious man. The holy book totals 6,666 verses and forms the doctrine of Islam. Muhammad himself never explicitly stated how he received all of it. Surah 17:106 states that it was sent from God gradually so that it could be recited to people at intervals.
The "Night of Power" is part of Ramadan, held in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, a time of fasting, prayer, and pilgrimage. fibril and other angels descend on the faithful on this night, and will continue to do so until the end of all time:
Was the Creature an Angel or a Djinni?
Muslim scholars today still debate whether or not Muhammad actually had a visitation by the angel Jibril; some feel it could have been a djinni. According to Zakara Botrous, a well-known expert on Islam and the Qur'an, the creature Muhammad saw in the cave lacked an angel's characteristics. The angels of the Islamic belief are pure and can do no wrong, and would never try to force someone to do something by strangling them. The entity that appeared to Muhammad greeted him with aggression and threats. We make no claims to know whether the prophet Muhammad encountered an angel or a djinni, but whatever attended him in the cave succeeded in its task, for Islam is the largest of the world's major religions today.
In discussing the events surrounding the revelation, we also are not diminishing or questioning the truth of the word of God as revealed to Muhammad. In all great religions, divine word is channeled through prophets who transmit the word to the masses. The stories of how they received the word vary even within their own religions, and become embellished over time with legends that lack historical data. Details of events remain uncertain or obscure, but at the core is the word itself, to which the faithful anchor their spiritual lives.
Contrasts and Similarities Among Angels, Djinn, and Demons
The ancient world that birthed Judaism, Christianity, and Islam teemed with supernatural entities who had the power to intervene or interfere in humanity's affairs, and their characteristics overlap. Numerous similarities and ambiguities exist among angels, demons, and djinn that provide ample opportunities for djinn to masquerade as one or the other. In many ways, djinn resemble some of the descriptions of early angels, in that they are capable of being either kindly and helpful toward people, or coldly righteous and rigid. Djinn also embody the demonic traits of cruelty, deceit, destruction, and chaos.
In the ancient world, angels were God's divine messengers and were morally righteous, but they were capable of destroying entire populations without mercy. Demons were lesser, interfering entities of good, bad, and neutral persuasions, but were usually responsible for anything bad that happened. Djinn were closer to demons in behavior, but with original ties to the angelic realm, as we saw in an earlier chapter. Djinn lore absorbed into the Western tradition tended toward demonic overtones.
The distinctions between djinn and demons are often confusing: djinn can act like demons and have more associations with demons-but they also have similarities to angels. According to M. S. Al-Munajiid, a prominent Saudi sheikh, lecturer, and author, scholars are in disagreement over the difference between djinn and demons. Some of them say that the word djinn goes far to encompass the djinn as well as the demons because the word also includes believing and unbelieving djinn. Allah says, "And among us there are righteous folk and among us there are far from that. We are sects having different rules." (Al-Jinn: 11) "And there are among us some who have surrendered (to Allah) and there are among us some who are unjust. And whoso hath surrendered to Allah, such have taken the right path purposefully." (Al-Jinn: 14)
However, the word shaitan is used to refer to the unbelieving djinn. Allah says, "... and the devil was ever an ingrate to his Lord." (Al-Isra, 27)
In the Western tradition, demons do not choose between good and evil: they are the embodiment of all that is evil, and are completely and totally dedicated to it.
According to Islamic tradition, angels and djinn exist in the world beyond, sometimes referred to as the invisible world. Humans were formed from clay, djinn from smokeless fire, and angels from a type of spiritual light called poor. This light has structure, and so angels, like djinn and demons, can shapeshift into any form. While djinn follow their own whims and desires, angels take on other forms only when God has directed them to do so.
Parts of the invisible world can be perceived on the human level by babies, animals, saints (including religious authorities) and the simple-minded. Djinn see more of the invisible world than we can, but angels see even more. Evil djinn serve the forces of darkness and destruction, and seek to turn people away from God, dooming them to hell.
As in the Judeo-Christian world, angels in Islam are viewed as positive, protective forces. They are God's messengers and taskmasters, obeying His will. Our modern perception of the shiny, comforting angel of the West evolved over time, however. In early Hebrew lore, some angels didn't look kindly upon humans. In fact, some were downright hostile and didn't want to share Paradise with them, considering it their own privileged territory. When asked by God to bow before his creation, some refused. They were not cast out of heaven as fallen ones, but were incinerated into oblivion. God destroyed these refusing angels until He found those who agreed to honor Adam. Nonetheless, there remained unfriendly angels who attempted to bar access by humans to the various levels of heaven. The mystical merkabah tradition features prayers and secret words that can circumvent such angels.
As mentioned earlier, early Judeo-Christian angels were the "muscle" for enforcing God's rules. When displeased with people, God sent angels to beat, punish, chastise, and even kill them. In the story of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God sent angels to level these cities off the face of the earth. In modern times, westerners have a more idealistic and sanitized view of angels, considering them to be pure spiritual allies in the struggle against evil.
In Islamic tradition, angels are always obedient to God; there are no defiant or fallen angels. When God ordered angels to kneel before Adam, all complied. The role of defiance fell to the djinn.
The defiant djinn and the Western fallen angels have points in common besides their defiance and expulsion from God's presence. The fallen angels followed Lucifer, who committed the sin of pride, and fell from heaven to the underworld. From there, they have reign over mankind to tempt, possess, and cause every illness and misfortune among us.6 Though they are completely evil in magical lore, they can be forced to aid and educate people, a risky undertaking.
The djinn who refused to kneel to Adam followed Iblis, who by some descriptions was a once-great angel, but now equal to Satan. The evil djinn live in another dimension but also operate on earth, trying to deceive and lead people astray, causing possession and misfortune.
Another kind of wayward Western angel has similarities to the evil djinn: the Watchers. A brief reference to them is made in Genesis 6:1-4, and more information about them is given in the book of Enoch. Called "the Sons of God," they were angels set in heaven to watch over humanity. They coveted women and decided on their own to come down and cohabit with them. In exchange for sexual favors, they taught people the "forbidden arts" of science, metallurgy, chemistry, and divination, among others. Their hybrid offspring, the Nephilim, were cannibalistic monsters, abominations that so offended God that he brought on the Flood to cleanse the earth and begin anew with Noah and his sons.
Evil djinn are credited with teaching humans the forbidden arts, too. Djinn-human offspring are not quite as fantastic as cannibalistic monsters, but they are considered abominations, and such unions are forbidden. In both Western and Eastern traditions, angels act as a mouthpiece for God, who does not speak directly to people, with the exception of certain prophets. Angels speak from behind veils or in revelations, dreams, and visionary experiences.
Guardian Angels and the Qur'an
In both Christian and Muslim traditions, people are born with guardian angels that provide protection, guidance, and companionship. The Christian guardian angel evolved from helping and protecting beings such as the fravashi of Zoroastrianism (pre-existent souls with human-angel characteristics who reside in homes and communities); the karabu of the Assyrians (half-human, half-animal winged guardians of temples and buildings); the daimones of the Greeks (personal attendant spirits); and the genii of the Romans (guardians of places). The Bible does not refer specifically to guardian angels, but Psalm 91:11-13 does indicate that God provides angels to watch over people:
He will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.
In Islam, there are two recording angels who sit on either shoulder, recording all the thoughts and deeds of a person through life:
Behold two (guardian angels) appointed to learn (his doings) learn (and note them) one sitting on the right and one on the left. Not a word does he utter but there is a sentinel by him ready (to note it). Al-Qaf, 50.17-18.
The record is presented after death in preparation for judgment Day. In another tradition, two angels appear after death to ask a soul questions about its most recent life, and for the purpose of presenting a life record of good and bad thoughts and deeds. If they give the soul their book to hold in the right hand, it means that soul will go to heaven. If they present it to the left hand, the soul will go to hell.
Another tradition holds that one of the entities is not an angel, but a wicked djinni. The good angel whispers in one ear and the bad djinni whispers in the other, both in a battle for a person's moral conscience. The role of the bad influence in Western tradition falls to the demons, while angels are considered to be solely an influence of good.
In addition to recording angels, Islam also holds that every person has a qarin, a special companion spirit or djinni permanently assigned to a person at birth.' The qarin combines features of the Greek daimones, who whispered both seduction and advice, and the Christian guardian angel. By some accounts, the qarin is ambiguous in intention, with a primary purpose to seduce and lead its assigned person astray by whispering temptations in the ear. (`Qarin " also refers to a nonbeliever who can lead a Muslim person astray.) By other accounts, the qarin provides companionship, comfort, and protection, including against illnesses and possession by other djinn. The qarin can be of either gender. It is called a double and a brother or sister who lives below the earth.
Some believe that people are assigned qarin of the person's gender, while others believe it is always the opposite gender. An opposite-gender qarin is jealous of any romantic partners a person may have, and will thwart relationships and potential marriages. When humans are said to marry a djinni, it may be with their qarin. Parents warn children not to spend too much time looking into a mirror because the qarin will react in a jealous rage. A qarin who is displeased with its human can cause headaches, illnesses, nightmares, bruises, and other physical discomforts, insomnia, depression and loss of appetite.' When the qarin exerts an evil influence, it disavows responsibility for actions on the basis of the free will of the mortal: "His companion (devil) will say: `Our Lord! I did not push him to transgress (in disbelief, oppression, and evil deeds), but he was himself in error, far astray."'9 In other words, the djinni says to God, "It wasn't me who made this person sin, I just helped him follow his own desires." Thus, the qarin reveals a Trickster nature in the deliberate and often malicious sowing of discord and chaos.
Muhammad acknowledged the qarin, but said his own converted to the faith, and functioned only in benevolent ways: "`There is no one among you but a comrade from among the djinn is assigned to him.' Sahaba e Karam present in that occasion asked: `Even you, O Messenger of Allah?' He said: `Even me, but Allah granted me victory over him and he became Muslim (or: and I am safe from him), so he only enjoins me to do that which is good'."1° The qarin knows everything about its assigned person, including all his or her weaknesses. Giving in to temptation and evil feeds the qarin, enabling it to gain in power and strength. Only leading a righteous life can weaken it.
Knowledge of the Past, Present, and Future
According to Islamic thought, the future is not yet part of the created world and is known only by God and a select few of his angels. Forty days before an event takes place, a message about it is sent down from the Highest Assembly to the heaven where angels called katibin write it down as destiny." Once written, destiny is irreversible and cannot be changed, even if the person learns about it. Angels do not reveal destiny without God's permission. Certain sheikhs say they are inspired by angels and can know and reveal the future. However, some believe the sheikhs are really talking to djinn masquerading as angels.
Djinn know the past, the present, and what is taking place at another location (clairvoyance or remote viewing), but they do not know the future. Before Islam, they had the power to know the invisible, but they abused it by revealing their secrets to humans in exchange for gifts and control over a person's freedom.12 God took their power away and shut them out of the seventh heaven. They climb up stairs or fly up to sit at the door and eavesdrop on the angels, who chase them away with stones. If hit, the djinn fall like burning stars (meteors)."
King Solomon proved the djinn have no knowledge of the future by concealing his death, in order to show people that they should not let the djinn fool humanity into thinking their ethereal counterparts ever had such knowledge.
It is said Solomon died leaning on his stick, and his corpse remained propped up on it for an entire year. Meanwhile, the djinn, thinking he was still alive, went on as slaves building his temple and city. At last, ants ate through the stick and the corpse collapsed. The djinn suddenly realized he was dead and had no more hold over them, and they fled.14 In Western tradition, angels are consulted for fortune-telling, although it isn't an official function. Theirs is not to reveal the future-unless God tells them to-but to stand by to provide aid when called upon by people as they go through the trials and experiences that are the results of choice.
Western demons are said to be clairvoyant, and able to know and tell the future. They know the secrets of people past and present, and are capable of commanding any language. In cases of possession, demons reveal these abilities; the speaking of dead languages or claims of the ability to tell the future are taken as proof of possession.
Possession
In ancient times, illnesses, afflictions, aberrant behavior, and misfortune were blamed on demons who were said to have the power to enter the body and take over one's body and mind. Djinn have this ability, too, and the traits of their possession described in the previous chapter can be applied to demons as well.
In Islamic and Christian traditions, the invading entities find ways to sneak into the body. The djinn often enter when a person's aura is weakened or split from trauma. In Western lore, demons enter through the breath, such as when a person sneezes, or hiding on bits of food. Giving in to temptations and sin will, of course, make one susceptible as well.
Certain individuals-religious authorities and healers-have the ability to exorcize demons through prayers, incantations, fumigations, and issuing holy commands. Exorcisms can easily go wrong when an unskilled exorcist challenges powerful, crafty demons or djinn; a person who performs this sort of task must be knowledgeable and powerful in his or her own right. In the Western tradition, the Catholic church has strictly ritualized exorcism, with rules governing how and why demons can possess people, and how they must behave in exorcisms. Demons do not just upset life, but use possession as a way to mock the Church and God, spewing forth blasphemies and obscenities through His most beloved creation.
Sexual Union
Angels and demons do not marry and have families, but the djinn do, just like us.
It is interesting to note, however, that angels, demons, and djinn are all capable of having sexual relations with human beings. Such unions are not considered desirable for mortals, and the offspring are usually oddities, if not downright monstrosities. Demons are considered to be sterile, but can impregnate women through a bothersome and awkward process of first using a female form to seduce a man to collect his sperm, and afterwards changing to a male form to impregnate a woman.
Both djinn and demons can approach humans sexually as seductive lovers in beautiful or familiar forms. Certain demons, the incubi (male) and succubi (female), are more sexually aggressive, especially in cases of hauntings and possession.
Eating and Drinking
The angels and demons of Western lore do not eat. In Genesis 18 and 19, two angels who are shapeshifted into the guises of men visit Abraham and tell him he and his elderly wife, Sarah, will bear a son. Abraham and Sarah offer them a meal and the strangers eat, and then depart to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Whether or not the angels actually consumed the food was a subject of great theological debate in Christianity. Theologians opined that angels, being non-corporeal, cannot eat, and so they only gave the illusion of eating in order to conceal their identities. Djinn eat and drink. They are allowed the bones over which the name of Allah has been said, and they can give animal dung to their own animals to eat." There are many more points of intersection among djinn, angels, and demons, and we have summarized the most important ones in the table on the next two pages:
In Closing
Making distinctions among supernatural entities and drawing boundaries is problematic at best. The problem increases in complexity when concerning the strongest and most prominent forces who represent the absolutes of good and evil. The nature, characteristics, and traits of entities often blur together. They are not "either-or," but "both-and." For example, can we confidently recognize an angel as an angel, certain it is not something else in disguise? The djinn are renowned for masquerades, and so are demons in the Western supernatural world. Saint Paul observed, "And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light."16 Theologians wrote that demons could also appear as the Virgin Mary, saints, and even Jesus himself. The literature of the saints contain numerous accounts of holy men and women being deceived by demons. If the most dedicated holy people can be so deceived, how can ordinary mortals hope to know exactly what they are dealing with when they have entity encounters?
The answer is not easy, and we suggest that we often do not know-we think we are dealing with one particular entity when in fact we may be dealing with djinn.
NE OF A DJINNI'S FAVORITE disguises is that of a fairy,
an intermediary being found in mythologies around the world. Fairy
beliefs are universal and strikingly similar across cultures. In
all places, and at all times in history one can find fairies in
mythology and folklore. Usually, they appear in stories as small,
supernaturally gifted beings that live inside the earth and harbor
longstanding grudges against the human race.
Though Western fairy lore predates Christianity, much of it has acquired Christian elements. In Western lore, fairies seem cute, pretty, and harmless. In modern depictions, they are usually small beings (usually with wings) that tend to things in nature. Modern fairies of this type occasionally interact with humans, usually in good or sometimes comically mischievous ways. Traditionally, however, fairies are not as innocent, not even in Western lore. Underneath their gossamer glow lies a dark side that crosses into djinn territory.
Popular Western notions about fairies have been increasingly sanitized since Victorian times, before which they were among the most feared of supernatural entities. In earlier times, even the good-natured fairies were believed to use their supernatural powers against people more than for help, and people went out of their way to avoid them or, if they absolutely couldn't, at least placate them. Fairies offer a good disguise for the stealthy, shapeshifting djinn, enabling them to hide in plain sight in a supernatural part of our world. This masking in no way negates the existence of fairies, the varieties of good and bad fairies, or anyone's experiences with them. But have all our encounters with fairies been with them-or with djinn?
The use of fairy disguises probably appeals most to green djinn and red djinn. The green djinn are fascinated with people, as are many fairies, and both can fall in love with humans and follow them around. Green djinn love to play, and fairies are renowned for their nocturnal dancing, singing, and bewitching brews. Green djinn also love pranks and jokes, a trademark fairy activity.
The guise of ill-tempered fairies suit the red djinn, the ones looking for ways to cause serious strife with humans. Most of the fairies documented in Western folklore have a dim view of humans at best. Like many blue djinn, they avoid people, believing them to be inferior and not worth their attention. But cross them-especially those who have mean streaks and bad tempers-and disaster strikes. Angry, wronged fairies will destroy homes, fortunes, and health, using some of the same tactics employed by angry, terrorizing red djinn.
Fairies have already been compared to extraterrestrials, most notably by the folklorist Thomas E. Bullard, and by ufologist Jacques Vallee in Passport to Magonia (1969). In our research, we found an even stronger connection to the djinn. The connections shared by djinn and fairies that also link to extraterrestrials add even more intrigue if it can believed that a masquerade of shapeshifting is indeed in effect.
We have identified numerous similarities and links between djinn, fairies, and leprechauns. We mention leprechauns separately because it is uncertain whether or not they technically belong to the class of fairies. In some descriptions, they are called fairieseven "Ireland's national fairy"-and in other descriptions, they are separate entities that interact with fairies.
Origins of the Word Fairy
Fairy is generally thought to come from the Latin word fata, or fate, which refers to the Fates of mythology: three women who spin, twist, and cut the threads of life. Fairy came into usage in medieval times and was often used to refer to women who had magical powers. Fairy, originally spelled faerie, referred to the state of being enchanted.
According to lore, fairies themselves do not like the word, but prefer such labels as "the Good Neighbors," the Good People," the Gentry," "the People of Peace," "the Strangers," "Themselves," the Seelie (Blessed) Court," and similar terms. Compare them with the djinn, often referred to by similar names, such as "God's Other People," "Them," "One of Those," and "Those Other People." Fairies are also called "the Little People" because of their diminutive size: most are described as two to three feet in height. However, in some accounts, fairies do not care for the term "Little People" either, considering it and "fairy" to be disrespectful.
A connection between fairies and Persian lore was made by Lady Jane Wilde (1826-1896), an Irish poet and wife of Sir William Wilde. Lady Wilde was interested in Irish fairy stories, and wrote extensively on them. She said the word fairy originated in ancient Persia, and in these passages described characteristics shared by both fairies and djinn:
The belief in a race of supernatural beings, midway between man and the Supreme God, beautiful and beneficent, a race that had never known the weight of human life, was also part of the creed of the Iranian people. They called them Peris, or Ferouers (fairies)... Every nation believes in the existence of these mysterious spirits, with mystic and powerful influence over human life and actions, but each nation represents them differently, according to national habits and national surroundings ...
Lady Wilde believed the Irish names for fairies, sidhe, orfead-rhee, is a modification of the Persian term peri. The sidhe and the peri were comparable to the Egyptian and Greek concepts of demons, she said, and all were "a race midway between angel and man, gifted with power to exercise a strange, mysterious influence over human destiny." Her descriptions certainly fit the djinn as well.
They Were Early Inhabitants of Earth Who Lost Their Dominion
Fairies, like the djinn, preceded humanity as a sentient race that inhabited the earth. In Irish lore, the original fairies were the Tu- atha De Danaan ("the people of the goddess Danu"), said in some accounts to be directly descended from the gods. The fairies took up residency in Ireland, and possessed supernatural and magical powers. Over time, they lost battles to invaders and used their powers to retreat into the earth, into a parallel world where they could remain invisible and undisturbed.
They Are Outcasts from Their Realms
The djinn were cast out because they did not bow down to Adam, but rebelled under Iblis. Fairies have a number of origins, according to lore. In addition to being the original inhabitants of earth, they are said to be nature spirits, the souls of the pagan dead who cannot enter heaven, the ancestral dead, the guardians of the dead, supernatural creatures who are part human and part monster, and fallen angels. When Lucifer and his followers were thrown out of heaven, some didn't become demons of hell but fell to earth and became fairies. Although there are no equivalents of fallen angels in Islam, the fall of the djinn, and the transformation of Iblis into an evil parallel of Lucifer/Satan, has strong associations with the "fallen angel" explanation of fairies.
The belief that fairies were fallen angels is particularly strong in Irish and the Scottish Highland lore, where folklorist Alexander Carmichael recorded an oral version of the fallen angel story in which the fairies are cast out with the "Proud Angel," Lucifer.
In October of 1871, Carmichael and his traveling companion, the folklorist J. F. Campbell, were forced to wait out a storm on the island of Barra. They spent their time listening to the local folklore. One of the storytellers was a ninety-two-year-old man named Roderick MacNeill, who had never worn shoes and never been ill, and who climbed about the sheer cliffs like an expert. MacNeill's account of the fairies follows:
The Proud Angel fomented a rebellion among the angels of heaven, where he had been a leading light. He declared that he would go and found a kingdom of his own. When going out at the door of heaven the Proud Angel brought dealanaich dheilg- nich agus beithir bheumnaich, prickly lightning and biting lightning, out of the door-step with his heels. Many angels followed him-so many that at last the Son called out, `Father! Father! The city is being emptied!' whereupon the Father ordered that the gates of heaven and of hell should be closed. This was instantly done; and those who were in were in, and those who were out were out; while the hosts who had left heaven and had not reached hell, flew into the holes of the earth mar nafamhla- gan, like the stormy petrels.
These are the fairy folks-ever since doomed to live under the ground, and only permitted to emerge when and where the King permits. They are never allowed abroad on Thursday, that being Columba's Day, nor on Friday, that being the Son's Day, nor on Saturday, that being Mary's Day, nor on Sunday, that being the Lord's Day.
On certain nights when their bruthain, bowers, are open and their lamps are lit, and the song and the dance are moving merrily, the fairies may be heard singing light-heartedly-
Variations of the fallen angel story are told in Western fairy lore. In some, the angels who become fairies were the unwitting dupes of the Proud Angel, and they fall into a netherworld where they are too wicked for heaven and too virtuous for hell; over time, they become increasingly dark and demonic in nature.
In these stories, we find strong parallels between the djinn and fairies: the fairies were angels in heaven who rebelled and vowed to form their own kingdom and they fell into holes on earth. The djinn rebelled and were banished and formed their own kingdoms, preferring to live in holes in the ground and caves. Deprived of their place and status, both djinn and fairies developed deep and long-standing grudges and the desire for revenge.
Some fairies and djinn removed themselves deeper into their own realm, content in the knowledge that foolish humans would at some point bring about their own demise, and they would be able to reclaim their places in the world. Others find opportunities to strike out against humans.
They Are Linked to the Demonic
As we see in the sections above, both djinn and fairies have become associated with the demonic and devils. As punishment for disobeying God's order to bow before Adam, Iblis was thrown out of paradise and became Shaitan, or Satan, and his djinn followers came to be regarded as demonic in nature. In fairy lore, fairies are sometimes described as servants of the devil and witches, helpers in the carrying out of hexes, curses, and harmful magical spells.
Both djinn and fairies are also agents of possession.
They Are Hidden
A story given in Celtic lore says that fairies are the offspring of Adam and Eve,' and earned their nickname "the hidden people" because of Eve's sin. After the fall, Adam and Eve have a great many children. One day, God was walking through the world, and he called on Eve and asked her to present her children. Ashamed at the great number of them, Eve sent half of them to hide, and presented the ones she thought were the best. God was not fooled, and said, "Let those who were hidden from me be hidden people."5 So the fairies became invisible and hidden from sight-just like the djinn.
They Believe They Are Superior to Humans
Iblis proclaimed to God that the djinn, made of smokeless fire, were superior to humans, made of mere clay. Iblis went to Adam and made his attitude clear: " [Adam] if you are given mastery over me, I will surely disobey you. And if I am given mastery over you, I will destroy you."6 After Iblis was cast out of Paradise, he sized up Adam and found him to be hollow and without self-control; in other words, an easy target. He vowed revenge on Adam's descendants and told God: "Now, because You have sent me astray, verily I shall lurk in ambush for them on Your right path. Then I shall come upon them from before them and from behind them, and from their right and from their left, and you will not find most of them beholden [to You]." 7
Fairies consider themselves to be superior to humans and know they have the ability to destroy them. Y.W. Evans-Wentz, an American anthropologist who collected fairy lore in the British Isles, Ireland, and Europe, heard many such descriptions. In the area around Ben Bulben Mountain in County Sligo, Ireland, a man gave him this description of fairies, who called themselves the Gentry:
They Have Long Life Spans, But Not Immortality
Time is something that fairies and djinn have in plenty. Both have much longer life spans than humans, though no one knows to what extent. As we noted in chapter 2, djinn live for thousands of years. In fairy lore, fairy life spans are much longer because of the different passage of time in their world than on earth. Time passes much more slowly for fairies, and a day to them can be a year to humans.
There is no immortality for either djinn or fairies, however, and at some point, both must die. Their fate in the afterlife is uncertain, since, according to lore, both are damned in the eyes of God. Djinn and fairies await their fate at the Last Judgment.
According to Lady Wilde, when that day arrives, the fairies "are fated to pass into annihilation, to perish utterly and be seen no more."9 Some of them nervously await salvation. Irish and Scottish stories tells of fairies asking a sympathetic human to inquire on their behalf about their fate. The human consults a sympathetic saint or priest, who always gives an unhappy answer: the fairies are doomed and have no hope of ever reentering heaven. Upon hearing this, the fairies always break out in great cries and lamentations.
When Iblis and the djinn were cast out of paradise, Iblis asked for reprieve until the Last Judgment Day when the dead are raised. However, he openly acknowledged that he would spend his time subverting and corrupting humans: "Do you see this [creation] that you have honored above me? If you give me grace until the Day of Resurrection, I will verily seize his seed, save but a few "10 Even so, God granted his request."
As for the fate of the djinn, the Qur'an states that djinn who become believers, that is, convert to Islam, will be taken to paradise while evil-doers will be sent into the hell fires along with evildoing humans.
They Are Organized Into Societies and Families
Djinn marry and have families that are organized in clans, and who are ruled by kings. Fairies also marry and have families, work at jobs, and are ruled by kings and queens. Both djinn and fairies keep pets, most notably dogs and cats.
They Must Pay Tributes to the Devil
In chapter 5, we noted that the djinn who serve a djinn king must pay him a tribute once a century. There are different kinds of tributes, but one of the most commonly cited is a human soul, which the djinn ensnare with enticements of physical pleasures, money, and power.
In fairy lore, fairies must pay a tribute to the devil every seven years, usually one of their own who is chosen by the devil himself. To avoid this terrible payment, stories tell of fairies kidnapping a human infant or sometimes a young child and offering it instead.
The famous story about Thomas the Rhymer, a Scottish laird and poet who lived in the thirteenth century, features this element of the Devil's tribute. According to the Ballad of True Thomas, which circulated in various versions through the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, the handsome Thomas was kidnapped by the Queen of Elfland, who became infatuated with him. For seven years, he enjoyed himself in the beautiful realm of the elves. Toward the end of the seventh year, the fairies grew worried, for the devil's tithe was soon due, and they feared that the devil would choose Thomas because of his good looks. Reluctantly, the Queen of Elfland sent Thomas back to the Land Above (earth), and bestowed upon him the gift of prophecy.
They Have Supernatural Powers
Djinn and fairies possess supernormal strength and the power to be invisible at will. They can levitate themselves and whatever they carry and fly through the air. They materialize, pass through walls and solid objects, and can vanish into thin air. A woman in Ireland told Evans-Wentz about fairies, "When they disappear they go like fog; they must be something like spirits, or how could they disappear in that way?"12 Fairies especially do not like to be seen by humans, and will punish those who accidentally espy them. Evans-Wentz tells the story of an Irish man who noticed a group of small fairies playing hurley while he was watering his cow. They saw him watching them, and immediately beat him so badly he could barely speak. During the night, however, they took pity on him and rubbed his face with a magical ointment to heal him.13 In other stories, fairies will temporarily or permanently blind the person who sees them, by striking them across the eyes.
One of the most famous powers attributed to both djinn and fairies is the ability to grant wishes: as the imprisoned djinn is bound to grant three wishes to whomever frees him, fairies grant wishes to humans who do them good deeds. For example, an Irish story tells of a woman who finds a fairy dog in a state of exhaustion. She takes it home and nurses it back to health. Eventually the fairies find out where their dog is and come to fetch it. In gratitude, they ask the woman if she would like a dirty cow yard or a clean cow yard. She answers "dirty," because a cow yard would have to be empty in order to be clean. The fairies multiply the number of cattle she owns.
Djinn wishes seldom work out well, and fairies have been known to rescind their wishes, owing to their capricious nature. A com mon story in fairy lore is of the fairy bride who bestows wishes and favors upon her human husband as long as certain conditions are met. If the conditions are broken-no matter how long they have been married-the fairy spouse and all the wishes, usually goods and livestock, vanish back into fairyland. Sometimes, the punishment seems impulsively devised. For example, fairies will pay for services rendered by humans, but with odd conditions, such as "do not look at your money until you get home." Of course the foolish person peeks at the money to see how much he has been given. Immediately, the money turns to something worthless, like dead leaves or ash.
Both djinn and fairies have supernatural healing abilities, and if motivated, may use them for our benefit, sometimes even granting us powers. Fairies sometimes give powers as an outright gift. Djinn are more likely to use powers as bargaining items in pacts, an exchange of favors for a soul.
They Are Masterful Shapeshifters
The djinn assume any form they wish, from animals to humans to angels. It is thought that instead of whispering to people directly, Satan will instead appear in human form, though usually with a strange-sounding voice or an indescribably strange appearance. Likewise, djinn may appear in front of humans and inform them of their nature, but they have been known to lie, often claiming to be angels. Sometimes they call themselves "invisible men" or they claim to be from the spirit world."14 The "invisible men" perform miracles in order to look like servants of Allah, and some of them aid the infidels against Muslims. 'I
They Live in a Subterranean World
The djinn prefer to live in caves, holes, and other remote locations where they will not be bothered by people. In chapter 5, we saw the case of the man who was hiking and stepped on the "roof" of a hole occupied by a small man who may have been a green djinn. The description of the tiny man and his home in the ground might also be interpreted as a fairy emerging from his underworld den.
If mortals enter a djinn abode, they become trapped unless the djinn take pity and permit him to find his way out.
Fairies live beneath the ground in a secret land where they, too, will not be disturbed. The doorway to their world is often in a mound or fort, called a howe or knowe in Scotland, and a rath in Ireland. The doorway-akin to an interdimensional portal-is usually closed to mortals, but the occasional person may accidentally stumble through. Once through the door, the unlucky traveler becomes lost to the physical world, and is unable to find a way out without help. While in the fairy realm, people are subjected to fairy time, which is much slower than the way time passes for us normally. If the trapped people succeed in returning to the Land Above (as the mortal world is called), they may be shocked to find that their families and everyone they knew are long dead, while for them it would seem that only a week or two had passed.
Sometimes fairies forcibly bring people to their realm, such as in the case of Thomas the Rhymer. Sometimes they grant access to people they like. In 1692, a Scottish minister named Robert Kirk of Aberfoyle was said to have been given repeated entry to the fairy realm. He enjoyed great favor until he broke one of their cardinal rules by traveling into the court of the evil fairies. As punishment, he was sentenced to permanent captivity in the fairy realm.
The area of Cnoc Meadha in western Ireland was renowned as a fairy stronghold. Inside the hill was reputed to be an entrance to their underground realm, where cave-like excavated passages led to the palace of Finnbheara, the king of the Connaught fairies.
Some fairies live among rocks, and some like to live in mines. Mine fairies are called kobolds, knockers, and Tommyknockers, and are heard knocking away in the tunnels with their hammers. Sometimes they help miners, and sometimes they hinder them.
There are few descriptions of the djinn world; those who have been there describe it as a horrific, terrifying place. Fairyland, on the other hand, is usually described as beautiful and pleasant, with a dreamy, ethereal quality to it. All who live there have nearly eternal youth. However, the evil fairies of Irish lore, such as members of the Unseelie Court (Unblessed Court), live in a dark and gloomy realm.
Fairies who live in dismal places often glamorously disguise them if they are able to entice humans into them. A Welsh story concerns an elderly couple whose maid disappeared, and was believed to have been abducted by the fairies. When the maid gave birth, fairies summoned the elderly woman to come to their realm and attend her. She was led to a cave that opened into a fine and beautiful bed chamber. She was given a magical ointment to rub on the infant's eyes, and was cautioned not to let any of it touch her own eyes. She accidentally touched her left eye with the ointment:
When the old woman was returned to the mortal world, she was warned not to tell anyone that she could see fairies. Every day she saw them, moving invisibly in the world right next to humans. One day she spied Eilian's husband stealing from the market and she confronted him. He took a bulrush and struck her left eye, blinding it for the rest of her life. Her fairy sight was gone.
They Are Territorial of Their Turf
Both djinn and fairies prefer privacy and do not appreciate humans trespassing on their territory, especially their homes. Both are found in remote areas-the caves, holes, and deserts characteristic of the Middle East, and secluded lakes, mountains, caves, forests, and glens elsewhere in the world.
Fairies are especially fond of certain kinds of trees on their turf, including elder, oak, ash, blackthorn, and hazel. They guard them jealously, and woe betide the person who cuts them down.
A cottager in Ireland once tried to cut a branch of a sacred elder tree that was hanging over a saint's well. The fairies who looked after the tree became angry. Twice they stopped the man by sending him a false vision that his house was burning. He raced home, only to find nothing amiss. He should have realized fairies were intervening, but he was determined to cut the branch, and he succeeded on his third try. Again he had a vision that his house was burning, and he went home. He found his cottage burned to the ground.18
The invisible paths that fairies use for their travel in the mortal world are called fairy tracks. It is especially risky to disturb them by building something upon them. The fairies will come right through the structure and create poltergeist-like phenomena, such as sudden openings and closings of doors and windows. Furthermore, the occupants will sicken, their crops will fail, and their animals will die. Z'
They Engage in Tricks and Acts of Malevolence
Both djinn and fairies punish people who displease them in many ways. Punishment may be slight, in the form of mischievous tricks that in older times meant things like stealing firewood, spooking livestock, or hiding lamp oil. In modern times, these creatures continue their pranks, affecting electricity in houses and interfering with lights, appliances, computers, and car batteries.
More serious punishments can adversely affect the health of people, animals, and crops. In the most extreme cases, djinn and fairies are not above murder. Acts of aggression against humans are usually the result of provocation, but some will strike on a whim.
Fairies and green djinn are both playful by nature and they love jokes and pranks, most of which are relatively harmless. They enjoy confusing travelers and leading them astray, causing worthless objects to look like great treasures, and wasting people's time. An oral account from the Isle of Man, a place rife with fairies, involves a postman making his deliveries in his horse-drawn cart in 1884. He was on a lonely road at about one o'clock in the morning when suddenly a swarm of red-suited little men came out of the bushes and surrounded him, halting his horse. They jumped aboard his wagon and started throwing the mail bags off. The man loaded them back on, only to have the little men throw them off again, laughing with great glee. Other little men danced wildly in the road. This went on for hours until dawn broke. The little men vanished and the postman was exhausted. Neither he nor anyone else could explain why this attack took place, except that the fairies enjoyed upsetting people.22
Other acts are harmful to people, sometimes in deadly ways. The djinn lift people up into the air and toss them like toys. According to the scholar Al-Asqar:
Fairies who feel wronged by people punish them by ripping them through the air at great speed, dropping them down into brambles and brush until they are bloody. A Welsh fairy tale tells of a farm wife who once found a fairy dog, and took it home but treated it cruelly. When the fairies found out, they picked her up and sent her on harrowing flights through the air. She was dipped into bogs and swamps and tossed through briars, until all of her clothes were torn off and she was scratched and bleeding .2' The Sluagh, or "the Hosts," are wicked fairies renowned for their murderous nature. They swoop down and capture mortals, carrying them over land and sea. Then they drop their victims into mud and bogs, sometimes killing them. A Scottish account tells of a child snatched up one night by the Sluagh. It was returned the next day, lifeless, with the palms of its hands stuck into holes in the walls of its house.25 The Sluagh also levitate cattle and abduct them for their food. When they have consumed all the meat, they take the hides and roll up old men in them, and let them fall to the ground.
They Cause Possession
Since ancient times, illnesses and afflictions-including strange behavior that today would be diagnosed as mental illness-have been blamed on spirits who have entered a person's body and possessed him or her. Both djinn and fairies are among the types of entities who possess people.
Certainly, some cases of alleged possession in earlier times can be explained by a lack of understanding of disease and illness. However, cases of entity possession seem to be on the rise worldwide. They are usually attributed to demons, but djinn and fairies may also be responsible.
They Are Weakened by Iron
In folklore, iron is one of the best and most universal weapons against anything evil: demons, djinn, fairies, vampires, the demonic offspring of Lilith, and a host of other bad supernatural entities. Iron saps strength and power. It is unknown exactly where this belief originated, but it was widespread even in ancient times. One reason may be the fact that human blood contains iron and has an ironlike smell. Iron weapons and tools thus held the sympathetic magic of the life force, and could be used against things not human.
In some cultures, such as the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Aztecs, iron was sacred and was believed to come from heavenperhaps because iron is found in meteorites. The ancient Greeks and Romans would not allow iron in their temples or sacred rituals because it would repel spirits. For the same reason, ancient Saxons did not use iron rune wands in cemeteries in order to not disturb the dead.
Both djinn and fairies loathe iron. Recall the earlier story of the enslaved djinn who built King Solomon his temple: the djinn were afraid of having to work with iron tools. Solomon commanded them with a magical ring made of copper and iron, engraved with a talisman, a pentacle. The great king also imprisoned even the most powerful of djinn in bottles made of brass laced with magnetic iron (magnetite) to neutralize their "magic."
In Arabian lore, great desert whirlwinds were said to be the flights of evil djinn, and could be warded off with the cry of "Iron! Iron!" In India, iron amulets are worn to repel djinn.
According to the minister Robert Kirk, fairies told him that they were uncertain how their weakness against iron developed, but they knew it could burn them. In the old days when fairies still lived above ground, they discovered they had no protection against the iron swords and weapons of the early human invaders, much to their horror. Worst of all was cold iron, that is, pure iron not smelted from ore and hammered without melting. It was easier to retreat than to confront such weapons. Evidently there were some fairies who were never bothered by iron, or who gained immunity against it, for there are iron-working fairies in lore, especially among the mine fairies.
To keep fairies away, people used to put sharp iron scissors and tools in their homes. They tried to prevent fairy kidnappings of newborns by putting iron scissors underneath pillows or hanging them over beds. Iron nails and horseshoes were hung over doorways of homes and stables, and sometimes buried beneath thresholds.
They Mate with and Marry Humans
Djinn are capable of sexual intercourse, and they marry and breed among themselves. They also intermingle with humans. Not only is this undesirable from a human perspective, it is forbidden according to Muslim law. The Qur'an states that Allah "created for you mates from yourselves that you might find rest in them, and He ordained between you love and mercy."27 This prohibition especially applies to djinn, because they are the closest entities to humans. The offspring of djinn-human unions are considered abominations: they are said to be sterile and aggressive to such a point that they exhibit sociopath behavior. Such children also are said to exhibit great psychic powers and have a strong influence on human beings. The children of a female djinni are said to be invisible, like her, but the children of a male djinni appear more like humans.28
One alleged offspring of a djinni-human union is the famous Queen of Sheba, who captured the interest of King Solomon. Although the Qur'an never mentions her by name, Arabian stories refer to her as Bilgis.29 According to lore, her father was a human king by the name of Al-Hadhad and her mother was a djinni named Marlis. The story goes that Marlis was pursued by evil djinn (red djinn) and was injured in a battle. Al-Hadhad found her wounded, and rescued and hid her. They fell in love and had a child together.
When Bilqis was fifteen, she was quite aggressive and uncon- trolable. She quickly rose to the position of queen by eliminating all those who stood in her way. It was said that her methods of persuasion were only surpassed by her beauty, and because of this, Solomon was enchanted by her. The great king's advisors told him he shouldn't become involved with the queen, as she was the daughter of a djinn and a relationship was forbidden by God. Solomon wouldn't let go of his interest, and thought of a way to secretly find out if Bilqis was indeed half-djinn.
The offspring of a human and djinn were believed to have a great amount of hair on their legs and feet that would give away their true identity. When Solomon invited the queen to his palace, he had the floor that led to his throne made of a shiny, glass-like material. When Bilqis entered the great hall, she thought it was water, so she raised her skirt, enabling him to see her feet and ankles. He was relieved to see them hairless. However, in an Arabian tale-which many scholars feel is embellished-Bilqis craftily removed all the hair from her legs and feet before visiting Solomon's palace.
In another version of this story, the djinn spread the lie that Bilqis had the feet of an ass. They knew she was the daughter of a djinni, and if she married Solomon, their children would be even more cunning and powerful than Solomon himself, as they would have djinn blood. The enslaved djinn were afraid that any djinnhuman offspring would further enslave them.
It is clear from the sparse historical accounts of the Queen of Sheba that, djinn or not, she had considerable power and influence. She influenced the other rulers, including the pharaoh of Egypt, not to attack Israel because she wanted the kingdom for herself. Today, this type of power might be considered a kind of psychic mind control.
Since the days of the legendary Queen of Sheba, Middle Eastern people of both sexes have claimed sexual unions and marriages with djinn. In the United Arab Emirates is a clan that claims descent from a female djinni, despite their normal appearance. The claim is unsupported.30 Other modern accounts of human-djinn marriages exist. Young men who cannot afford to marry women sometimes visit a priest or sheikh who will marry them to a female djinni. They know the djinni will be jealous and will insist on strange conditions within the marriage. These husbands cannot talk about their djinn wives, or else they will drive them insane or possess them in unpleasant ways. The men cannot look at any mortal female, and they must always knock before entering a room. Stories resembling urban legends are told of the horror that awaits the man who enters a room occupied by his djinni wife without knocking:
Green djinn can develop fascinations and romantic attachments with humans. While sexual or legal union may not always be the result, the green djinn's infatuation can interfere with normal relationships.
Fairies are renowned for falling in love with humans and marrying them, producing hybrid children. A love-struck fairy will follow a human around, much like an infatuated green djinn. Fairies try to lure their beloved into their own world, where they can be imprisoned. Sometimes if they cannot succeed with enticement, they resort to kidnapping. In fairy lore, if a young mortal wife or husband dies, they are believed to have been carried off by the fairies. They die to the mortal world, but remain alive in another form in the fairy kingdom.
Humans may fall in love with fairies and can marry them, for fairies bring many blessings to such a union. A human husbandfairy wife union is more common in lore than the reverse. Sometimes, humans can convince fairies to live in our physical world. Like the djinn-human marriages, human-fairy relationships have conditions. If the human spouse fails to live up to the requirements set by the fairy spouse, the blessings, the marriage, and the fairy vanish.
One story tells of a husband who is warned by the father of a fairy bride to never strike his wife. If he does so three times, she and all her blessings will disappear forever. In some versions of this story, the husband minds his manners, sometimes for many years, but inadvertently strikes his wife on three separate occasions.
In fairy lore, the hybrid fairy-human offspring are considered strange, but they are not necessarily abominations. Like djinn-human offspring, they possess unusual supernatural powers.
Leprechauns
Leprechauns are among the most famous creatures of Irish lore. They are often called fairies, but may be in a class of their own. Their name derives from the Gaelic luacharma'n, ("pygmy"), or leith brogan ("maker of one shoe"). Originally, the name was used only in a part of northern Ireland, but over time the leprechaun became "nationalized" as one of the most familiar of Irish fairies.
Leprechauns are described in appearance as old men about two feet tall, often dressed in green or like a shoemaker, with a cocked hat, leather apron, and upturned toes on their shoes. They are jovial when left to their own devices, but are hostile toward humans. Like many djinn, they prefer solitude. They spend their time making shoes for fairies-always one shoe, never a pair. The sounds of their cobbling can be heard in remote areas. They like to drink intoxicating brews.
Leprechauns are famous for guarding their hidden treasure, usually a pot of gold buried in a secret cache or at the end of a rainbow. Leprechauns are usually invisible, but if one of them is seen and captured, he will promise to take a person to his treasure if allowed to go free. In djinn-like fashion, the leprechaun's promises turn out poorly for humans. En route to the treasure, the person must never take his eyes off the leprechaun, not even for a second, or the leprechaun will vanish. Or, the leprechaun will bargain with false money from one of two leather pouches that he always carries. One holds a silver shilling or coin that returns to the pouch each time it is paid out. The other holds a gold coin the leprechaun uses for bargaining its way out of tough situations. However, the coin turns to leaves or ashes after the human takes it and lets the leprechaun go.
In the Leprechaun horror films (four have been released since 1993), the leprechaun becomes even more djinn-like. In the first film, a man steals gold coins from an evil leprechaun, who exacts revenge by killing the man's wife by causing her to fall down stairs. The man imprisons the leprechaun in his basement, using a four-leaf clover as the seal that nullifies the little man's supernatural powers. He attempts to destroy the leprechaun with fire, but collapses of a stroke. He is taken to a nursing home, and the leprechaun is left in a crate. Ten years later, others discover the crate and accidentally release him. The leprechaun goes on a marauding spree of violence in revenge against his imprisonment. He is finally destroyed in a fire explosion-but only temporarily, for he can be revived at some point in the future as long as his gold is missing.
The leprechaun's supernatural abilities mirror those of the djinn: the granting of three wishes that get twisted, levitation, and supernormal strength. In subsequent films, the leprechaun has the power to start fire, bend reality (in earlier times this was called bewitchment or glamour), enter and possess human bodies, regenerate damaged body parts, and create mysterious force fields. Like the djinn in the Wishmaster films, he can survive most attempts to destroy him. Ultimately, however, the human protagonists find a fatal weakness.
In Closing
There is considerable overlap between djinn and fairies, and we have touched only on the major similarities. We believe the djinn use many entities as "fronts" for interacting with humans, but fairies, with their diverse traits and rich lore, provide some of the best disguises. Certainly many human involvements with fairies are with fairies. However, the gray and shifting territory shared by fairies and djinn should cause us to reexamine and reevaluate our contact experiences.
HE
PHENOMENA OF UNIDENTIFIABLE OBJECTS seen in the sky have been with
the human race since the dawn of history. Although most modern
"investigators" are more interested in searching for alien
spaceships from other star systems, the answer to at least part of
the UFO mystery may not be as easy or apparent. The late Dr. J.
Allen Hynek, who was considered to be the world's foremost
authority on UFOs, once stated, "I would be disappointed if they
(UFOs) all turned out to be someone else's spaceships from another
planet. I believe the explanation to the total sum of the UFO
experience to be more exotic."' Dr. Hynek spoke of visitors
originating not from another planet or galaxy, but from a parallel
reality. A parallel reality could also be interpreted as another
dimension, and to us, this sounded like the home of the djinn.
This is not to say that all or even some UFO reports are not extraterrestrial in origin, but we must consider that a certain percentage of these encounters could be djinn manifestations. The UFO experience is quite inclusive in its material, and it is our opinion that some sightings and close encounters are more phantasmic than solid and physical in nature.
Many of the UFO "saucers" described by witnesses are characterized as being discs of light that change shape and have the ability to pop in and out of vision. Reports about UFOs such as these are more paranormal in nature and are often ignored by investigators because they fail to fit the alien "spaceship" theory.
There are many close encounter UFO cases that involve contact with some type of intelligence that will often identify itself as an extraterrestrial, angelic, or sometimes the devil. It is in experiences like this that we should suspect an interdimensional being that is trying to cover its true identity. Islamic scholars describe the djinn as glowing objects that can change their shape and at times take on a physical form. We have many "UFO" cases in our files that describe encounters like this; for years they were labeled as "High Strangeness."' However, when the idea of the djinn is placed into the equation, these bizarre cases seem to make more sense.
The Voice of Deceit
A Qur'an passage says evil djinn will try to persuade humans by whispering in their ear.' That "whispering voice" in the ear can be also interpreted as a form of telepathy. This phenomenon is common not only in cases involving UFO contactees and other para normal experiences, but also in religious or mystical visions. Priests and other Christian clerics of the late medieval period in Europe believed angels whispered in the ears of men and women with a familiar voice to influence or guide them. It seems obvious these heavenly visitors chose not to appear, but only to speak, so as not to cause panic or fear. However, we must ask ourselves: are angels really the ones communicating with these "special" people, or are they really djinn? It could be argued that because angels and djinn use the same methods, one can't be entirely sure.
Since 1983, Phil has investigated countless UFO sightings and claims of "alien" contact in New York's Hudson River Valley. These are documented in his book Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings. At the time, Phil did not know what to make of the related contact cases-they did not fit into the overall "UFO sighting" picture. They were labeled as "high strangeness" and filed away. After reviewing them twenty years later, it is obvious some of these cases were in fact dimensional rather than extraterrestrial encounters, and may have involved djinn. One must remember that when we speak of "dimensional beings," we are referring to the djinn. In the case below the experiencer had a UFO sighting and later, contact with an unknown intelligence that was particularly careful to withhold identifying information.
Night Fright and Missing Time
The witness, whom we will refer to as Sam, was a thirty-year-old computer programmer at the time of the experience. On April 23, 1990, at about 10 PM, Sam was driving home on Route 164 in Patterson, New York, from a friend's house in nearby Fishkill. This particular road is very dark at night, as there are no street lights and very few homes. As Sam drove along the dark, winding road, he began to feel uneasy, like something bad was about to happen. He slowed down and looked into the woods on both sides of the road, expecting a deer or some other animal to dart out in front of him. Sam often got feelings like this in the past, and on more than one occasion, he would listen to this inner voice and take the appropriate action, only to nearly miss what would have been an injurious accident or otherwise unpleasant encounter.
On this night, Sam noticed a solid glowing object on his left, just above the tree line. The object was pulsating, and was yellowred in color. The lights seemed too low to be a plane, and appeared to be several hundred yards away. The pine trees along the road partially obstructed his view, so he continued to drive, but slowly. He came to a clearing and stopped his car and noticed that the object had gotten much closer to him. As he watched, the object moved directly over his car. Sam rolled down his car window and watched the object for about a minute or so. He decided he wanted to get a better look, and stopped the car and got out. He sat on the hood and watched this object, which he described as about the same size as a "minivan" and about a hundred feet above his head. The object changed in shape from an oval to a perfect circle. Sam reported feeling heat coming from the object as well. He was surprised to see five small figures gathering around the edges of the light as if they were looking at him. He got the impression that this object was some type of window, and although he saw only silhouettes, he was certain they looked humanoid in shape. The object dipped lower and seemed to grow in size. Eventually, it became so large and low that it blocked all of Sam's view of the sky. The object then began to move very slowly, and Sam was amazed that something of that size could move so slowly and be as silent. Sam's amazement gave him the sense that the object "was not part of our universe and [was] peering in from another dimension." Then, something strange took place: the next thing Sam remembered was driving down the road, the object completely gone. He did not remember getting back into the car, seeing the object completely pass over, or finding the road again.
When Sam finally arrived home, he discovered it was much later than he had thought. He estimates the entire sighting was under ten minutes, yet the trip home took him three hours. He had a difficult time sleeping that night and felt as if something was watching him from the dark corners of his bedroom. For the next week, he woke up in the middle of the night feeling very confused, in a cold sweat, his heart pounding. He somehow knew these episodes of night terror had something to do with the UFO he had seen. As the weeks passed, Sam found it very hard to concentrate on his work and was fearful of going out at night-he felt the UFO was waiting to get him alone in an isolated place. Sam also said that sometime after the sighting, he would wake up in the middle of the night and stare into the dark. He said he felt as if something was in the corner of the room, waiting for him to fall asleep so it could come and get him. This type of fear is not uncommon in such cases-many witnesses report feeling a personal connection with the UFO they see and feel strongly that some kind of entity is out in the night waiting for them to fall asleep so it can enter their homes and take them. This feeling may actually be some type of psychic connection with this dimensional intelligence.
For several weeks, everything seemed to return to normal. Then one night, near the end of June, Sam woke up to find his whole bed vibrating. He looked at the wall across the room and saw a circular hole forming that was jet black. Sam tried to get up, but to his horror, realized he was unable to move. He claims he was "levitated" off the bed and floated into the opening of some type of "vortex." Sam then found himself lying on a table in a dark room. Several beings were standing around him; the one near his left side was moving some type of instrument around his head. Sam tried to move, but every part of his body was paralyzed. He described the beings as short, with gray skin and round eyes. As he watched, the beings all changed in shape to a glowing light, then into a form that horrified him: they looked like demons with long pointed ears and very "ugly, gargoyle-like faces." They inserted something into his nose and navel that caused him a great deal of pain.
After the insertion procedure was finished, Sam was allowed to get up. One of the beings escorted him through a passage that glowed red. Sam got the impression he was in a cave, but thought that perhaps he had died and was in hell. At no time was there any spoken communication, but Sam knew where the being wanted him to go and what it wanted him to do. He was shown a panel composed of a grayish material that had "many projections" coming out of it. He looked around. Although the room he was in was dimly lit, he was able to see a corridor to his right that led to another room. The being then looked at him, and he got a strong feeling that he was not allowed to go there.
The entity who escorted him then put thoughts in his mind. Sam now knew that they were from another dimension and he received information that they were once on earth a long time ago and were in the process of working to come back. Their reason was because unless they did so, their race would become extinct. Then, without warning, Sam found himself back in his bed.
Sam believes the beings will come back for him some day, and when they do, he will not be allowed to return. His entire life has changed and he claims to be in some type of mental contact with the dimensional entities. Sam feels he is gathering information for them, and what he sees and experiences is somehow being transmitted. Sam said that although the beings were hesitant to give him detailed information, he knows they come from a desolate plane of existence, and they envy us because our planet is so beautiful. Sam said the beings are angry that humans are polluting earth as they themselves made the same mistake a long time ago, and have no real place to call home as a result. Sam said living here would be problematic for them, but they are slowly adapting themselves so that future generations will be able to live in our environment.
Sam said these creatures have considerable trouble understanding our emotions. They consider us an immature race that is bent on self-destruction. He feels the beings are using him in order to understand humans and how we react in different situations. Sam is convinced the beings he encountered that night are "emissaries from the devil," and they are out to destroy the human race and take over our world so that they can live here. As of the writing of this book, Sam has become a born-again Christian and refuses to have any further involvement in UFOs or other types of paranormal phenomenon. Sam's case is one of many in which the experiencer who was once an atheist scared or indifferent to embracing a religious belief, comes to fervently believe in an all-loving and protecting God.
Djinn seem to take the guise of alien extraterrestrials to hide their true nature. This is not to say that all UFO experiences are caused by djinn, but some experiences, like Sam's, may be ultraterrestrial rather than extraterrestrial.
A Master Trickster
The following case study involves "Ben," a man in his late thirties. At the time of his encounter, Ben had a family and a good job, and an interesting history of contact-he had experiences as a child. At the age of six, he once woke up in the middle of the night to see a creature standing at the foot of his bed. He described the entity as tall, with scaly skin that looked like an "alligator" with a green glow around it. He watched in total terror, too afraid to scream for his parents. The entity then looked at him and said, "In the future, I will come for you again and then we shall talk about how you may serve me." The creature's eyes flashed red. It turned into a cloud of black smoke and went right through the bedroom's closed window without breaking it. As soon as the "smoke" left the room Ben was able to move again. Crying in terror, he screamed for his parents. His parents told him what he had seen was nothing more than a nightmare and that it was not real. He wanted to believe them, but deep down, he knew the visitation really had happened. For the next five years, Ben had to sleep with several nightlights on, as he was dreadfully afraid the "monster" was going to come back for him.
After the initial paranormal experience as a child the rest of his life was normal, and as he got older he forgot about the threat of the entity to return. He got married at twenty-five, landed a job as a building inspector for the State of New York, and led a normal life. On his thirty-fifth birthday, he woke up in the wee hours of the morning and was shocked to see the same creature he had seen as a child, once again standing at the foot of the bed. He was so terrified he couldn't move-he was again paralyzed with fear. Ben couldn't so much as scream to wake his wife, who was sleeping soundly right next to him. The creature looked exactly the same, and when it spoke, its eyes flashed red. It was wearing what looked like a very thick suit made of some type of rubber. In an interview, Ben told us the creature was so horrible-looking, he was sure it was the devil. The being then said in a coarse, deep voice, "I am from another place, another planet if you wish. Do you remember me? I have returned and will be with you until the transition is made." Ben did not understand what the being meant, and still has no idea today.
The entity said his name was Orlis and that he was part of an ancient group of beings who have been around since humans were nothing more than "monkeys." Orlis said he would make amazing things appear in the sky in the next few days. Just before the creature vanished, Ben heard a voice in his right ear give a number of dates: September 28, September 30, and November 6, all at 8:30 PM. Sure enough, on all three dates, a large, glowing "egg" shaped object appeared in the sky over his hometown of Kingston, New York. Dozens of people witnessed the UFO, which was described as yellow in color and hovering and making circular motions in the sky. One witness said that "at times, the object would move so fast that it looked like a bright glowing `infinity sign' (a lemniscate) in the night sky. In anticipation for the next two dates, Ben called his neighbors just before 8:30 in the evening to watch for the "UFO" he knew would appear as the being promised. He was correct all three times: he and his neighbors watched the sky on those dates and at those times and saw the "glowing yellow egg" make its strange maneuvers.
The fact that Ben was able to predict when this object would appear was remarkable enough to warrant a visit by us. During our visit, five different neighbors corroberated his story. This was the first time in Phil's thirty-plus years of investigating UFOs that someone was able to accurately predict when a sighting would take place. Over the next few weeks, we would visit Ben quite frequently and with each interview, his story would get more incredible.
In our first conversation with Ben, he told us he was in mental contact with a being from another universe. He said this being purposefully arranged for the UFO to be seen by him and multiple witnesses. The being did this, he said, to prove the contact was real and he was not crazy. Ben was told he was contacted from a very early age and was specially selected to bring information to the human race from a race of ancient people that once lived on earth. Although the being never told Ben exactly where he was from, he did tell him he was part of a race that was non-physical, composed entirely of energy, existing in another dimension. The being that identified itself as Orlis told Ben that they were "responsible" for the human race and were trying to straighten things out because an experiment had gone wrong. They were correcting their mistakes by contacting certain people like Ben to give information to help our species.
Ben was in contact with the being on a mental level for several months, never actually seing Orlis in person. The communications became more frequent after photographs were taken. Orlis would wake Ben up at all hours of the night to "talk" and give him information about future events and UFO sightings around the world. These conversations became a major concern for his wife and two children, who would witness Ben having a conversation with nothing but the air. Eventually, Ben learned that he did not have to talk-Orlis could read his thoughts. Soon after, all their conversations were on a telepathic level, Ben thinking the questions and Orlis giving him an immediate answer.
Unfortunately, the information Ben received never really checked out. For example, one night Ben called Phil very late to tell him there were going to be massive UFO sightings over France and major earthquakes and natural disasters within the week, but nothing happened. At that point, it seemed the only correct information Orlis gave Ben was in his initial contact about the UFOs that would appear in the sky. As stated above, this was indeed verified-a number independent witnesses verified the sightings and the local paper carried a number of stories.
After a time, communications with Orlis became so frequent they began to interfere with Ben's job. While driving his car, Orlis would tell Ben he was going the wrong way, and so Ben would turn around, only to get lost and go on wild goose chases for hours before reaching his destination. One night, Orlis told Ben there was going to be a starship landing in Connecticut, and they would finally meet face-to-face. Ben got into his car in the wee hours of the morning, and began driving to the location Orlis had given him. He did not really want to go, but by then, he knew that if he disobeyed Orlis' "command," he would torment Ben all night and prevent him from sleeping.
Ben drove in circles for an hour until Orlis directed him to a dirt road and a fenced area just outside Pawling, New York. He was instructed to climb the fence, ignoring the "No Trespassing" signs posted around the perimeter. After climbing the fence, he walked through a field, eventually seeing some structures and huge antennas ahead. He made his way toward them when he suddenly heard a noise and was blinded by a brilliant white light. The light was so bright, he couldn't see anything; he stood motionless, waiting to find out who had found him. Ben was sure the light was coming from a ship and that the outline of the figure approaching him was Orlis, but it was not. Ben had actually been stopped by a military security patrol. Orlis had directed Ben to a secret government installation we later found out was partially operated by the National Security Agency. Ben was arrested for trespassing and his wife was called to come and get him the next day. When Ben told his fantastic story about his communications with Orlis, he was forced to get psychiatric help and was placed on several drugs. Ben told us that when he started taking the drugs, communications with Orlis stopped, but he can still feel his presence. He knows that if he does stop taking his drugs, the communications will continue where they left off.
Ben's case is bizarre, but not unique. The whispering voice in his ear, the mixture of true and false information, the torment-all point to contact with djinn. Often, djinn entities may approach selected individuals and use extraterrestrial guises. To gain a person's confidence and interest, the djinn may say the individual was specially selected to help the human race save itself from some worldwide catastrophe or other form of widespread destruction. The combination of urgency and trust opens the person up, allowing a djinni to continue its link with this reality and in the long run, assume direct control of the person.
Glowing Orbs, Aliens, and Djinn
Earlier, we gave an account from Turkey wherein six friends wanted to have some scary fun and summon a djinni. To their surprise (and misfortune), the djinn appeared, but refused to take on physical forms; the witnesses described the djinn presences as looking like several brilliantly glowing orbs. The following case comes from the United States and also involves orbs of light, but this time they took the form of the "gray aliens" common in UFO stories.
On October 29, 2007, the witness, a twenty-eight-year-old man whom we shall refer to as Ted was returning about eleven in the evening to his home in Lake Carmel, New York, from a friend's house along Route 52 near Stormville, a nearby town. Route 52 becomes quite isolated around the Storm King Mountain area. The main danger is hitting a deer or other animal as it crosses the road-but in this case, the witness would have something more to worry about. As Ted drove south on 52, he saw a large, lit object in the sky. He stopped his car and got out and observed an object he described as being the size of a large commercial jet pass directly overhead at low altitude. What surprised him the most was that although this aircraft was quite large and flying quite low, it made no noise at all. The object consisted of twenty or so bright white, yellow, green, and red lights in a V shape formation. As he watched, the UFO slowed down almost to a halt and he suddenly felt scared. He felt a pressure in his head he interpreted as the object (or someone inside it) trying to communicate with him. Although Ted claims to not have heard a voice, he felt a strong presence he described to us as being "not human." Without warning, Ted felt as if "ants were crawling" up and down his back, and a strange blast of heat went around him. After ten seconds or so, the sensations ceased and the object vanished in the sky, right before his eyes. The rest of the trip home was uneventful.
The next day, Ted called the state police and was told he probably saw nothing more than a group of private pilots who enjoyed flying around at night, faking the appearance of a UFO. The officer asked Ted if he wanted to file an official UFO police report, but he declined. Although he didn't really believe the officer's explanation for his encounter, Ted thanked him for his time and attention. Ted told us, "I wanted to argue the point that this couldn't have been any type of conventional aircraft, but I decided it was a good idea to just drop the issue, especially when the officer wanted to bring me in to headquarters to make an `official statement."'
In the week that followed the encounter, Ted strongly felt something was in his bedroom late at night. He would wake up at about the same time, between two and four in the morning, and felt as if someone was watching him. Ted reported to us that the presence he felt was "evil" in nature, and was so strong that he got out of bed several times to search the house, including all the closets and under the bed, to make sure no one was hiding somewhere. In an interview, he told us, "It was strange-for a week after that sighting of the UFO, I felt uneasy. Usually, I'm a very sound sleeper, but I kept waking up. In the morning, I would feel drained of energy, as if some type of vampire was visiting me at night and taking my blood or life force."
When we asked if he ever woke up with marks on his body or nose bleeds, he replied that nothing like that ever took place; he only felt tired and weak. Despite his willingness to talk, it seemed to us that Ted was holding back and much more happened than he was letting on. When Phil asked him if indeed this was the case, Ted replied, astonished, "How did you know? I was afraid to tell you, but I should tell you about what happened if we're ever going to find out what's really going on." We encouraged him to continue with his story. With a considerable amount of hesitation, Ted proceeded to describe a late-night visitation he had with an alien force that still had him stricken with fear.
Was It Aliens or Djinn?
Ted told us that in mid-November, he opened his eyes one night and noticed a faint greenish glow on the wall that faced the foot of the bed. He tried to get up, but was unable to move his arms and legs. As Ted watched, the glow became brighter until three balls of light came through the wall with a "whooshing" sound. The lights were all about the same size, approximately the "size of a large cantaloupe." As Ted watched them, the lights began to pulsate from orange to white, emitting heat. The globes of lights stayed motionless for five seconds or so, and then began to change form. As Ted watched in fear, the globes of lights changed into three small "gray aliens" that were only a few feet tall and very thin. He told us, "They were classical aliens you see in the movies, television, and magazines, with the large heads and big eyes, in some type of dark, tight-fitting outfit."
The "aliens" threw glances at each other and began to walk toward the bed. Ted knew they were going to do something very bad to him, so with all of his focused energy, he broke the paralyzing hold and sat up in the bed. Ted then pointed his finger at the beings and yelled, "I now know you are not aliens, but sent from the devil and in the name of Jesus Christ, I order you to leave me alone!" The beings stopped in their tracks, looking quite caught off-guard. They morphed into their glowing orb forms and retreated through the wall. To our knowledge, this was Ted's final experience, as he never called us again. Perhaps once they were unmasked, the djinn no longer wanted to bother with him.
Glowing orbs are often spotted in areas where UFOs are seen, but can also appear in haunted or cursed areas, and other locations rife with paranormal activity. In recent years, thousands of people have been coming forward with photographs of strange orbs of all shapes and colors they have digitally captured. Although imaging scientists and photographic experts have a multitude of explana tions for a good number of them, there are an equal number that baffle even the most skeptical. Ghost hunters believe the orbs are discarnate spirits; UFO hunters think they represent some type of alien probe; some channelers and spiritualists believe they are angels; and some paranormal investigators think they represent a phenomenon called a "spook light." Perhaps none of these theories are correct.
It could very well be that the glowing lights are green djinn. A possible reason why they are appearing more and more is because our reality is merging with the djinn world. In many cases, these orbs are invisible to the naked eye and can only be occasionally picked up on digital cameras. These so-called invisible orbs have been imaged in and around the mysterious stone chambers of New York, and also around places Native Americans believe are sacred. Whatever they are, they seem to be dimensional in nature and most likely are always around us, but out of our limited range of perception.
The Cursed Estate: A Djinn Portal
The following case came to our attention in the fall of 2007, shortly after Phil did a radio interview for a syndicated show that broadcasted over most of northeast America. It involved a retired man named Martin who purchased a house in Holmes, New York. Martin's wife had passed away a number of years ago from a longterm illness, and his children were all adults, married and with children of their own. Martin said he was ready to spend some time alone and continue with his life. His home was on several acres of property, and despite being built in 1830, was in pristine condition. He remarked that he was surprised he was able to purchase the four-bedroom home plus the land at a phenomenally low price. The deal seemed too good to be true, and it immediately made him suspicious. However, the building inspector said the home was sound, so he went ahead and purchased it. After Martin moved in, he would discover the real reason why the house had so many owners since its construction, and why it was always offered well below market value.
Martin moved into the new home in the fall of 2006 and was quite excited-it was in a beautiful location and had quite a bit of room for a study, library, and workshop. From the first day Martin moved in, strange things began to happen. Lights would turn off and on by themselves, objects such as loose change, car keys, books, food, and even furniture would disappear overnight and never return. During the night, he heard footsteps in the house and unusual sounds he thought were electrical in nature. Doors would slam in the wee hours of the morning, causing him to jump out of bed in fear of home invasion. He never found anything. On numerous occasions, the faucets in the kitchen and bathrooms would be left running overnight and while he was out of the house, resulting in floods that damaged floors and ceilings.
On more than one occasion, Martin saw shadowy images in the rooms and heard sounds like a group of people chanting in some ancient language he could not identify. One winter evening while downstairs having coffee with two friends, they all heard heavy walking in the bedroom above. He told us, "It sounded like someone had boots on and was pacing back and forth." Martin and his friends ran upstairs to investigate, but found nothing.
Objects such as plates, pictures, and even candlestick holders would jump off tables and fly across the room, striking him. Despite all of these events, Martin decided to stick around, hoping that perhaps the strange occurrences would eventually stop. He was sure the activity was due to an angry ghost that would eventually give up and leave him alone, but his mind would change after one night and one experience that had him packing his bags.
A Nighttime Visit from the Lizard People
In the spring of 2007, Martin woke up from a deep sleep at about two in the morning: he heard sounds coming from the next room as if someone had broken into the house. He was very concerned because he was completely alone-the nearest neighbor was much too far away to hear anything. He immediately picked up the phone in his bedroom to dial 911 but was shocked to find the phone dead. Martin then heard the sounds getting closer and closer. He jumped out of bed waiting for the intruders to enter the bedroom. He tried to turn on the light, but there was no power. Then, four small "lizard-looking people" entered the room, stood motionless, and stared at him. He said their eyes were reptilian and their skin had the appearance of being dark, rubbery, and scaly. The four beings approached him. Being an ex-marine, Martin was not going to go down without a fight. He grabbed one of the creatures, telling us its arm felt like a "dead fish, cold and slimy." He took a swing at another creature. The creature turned into smoke and his arm and hand went right through it. The creature then reformed into the lizard being. Martin yelled, "I am not going with you!" He picked up a lamp on a small table by the bed and threw it at them, along with everything else he could find, including a small hammer. The objects had no effect-they bounced off the creatures "as if they had shields."
One of the beings raised his hand and a yellow light came from his palm. Martin was instantly paralyzed and fell back on the bed. The beings approached him and did something with their hands. Another yellow light appeared, followed by some type of instruments that materialized in mid-air. The next thing Martin knew, it was nine in the morning and he woke up with a severe headache. He couldn't find any evidence of his nighttime visitors, but he was sure the previous night's experience was not a dream.
One week later, nearly exactly the same experience took place, except this time, Martin did not get out of bed and fight. He awoke to see the beings enter the room and was unable to move. Having had enough, Martin soon sold the house, taking a loss on the property. As of the writing of this book, the house's new owners have not reported any strange happenings; they thought our inquiries were ridiculous and they did not want to be bothered with "such nonsense."
The characteristics in the cases mentioned in this chapter appear to be more like close encounters with djinn than aliens. Although many UFO investigators may consider experiences such as Martin's to be alien abductions, we believe what actually took place was contact with a dimensional intelligence (the djinn). The creatures Martin encountered appeared solid, yet at least one was able to turn into "smoke" and re-morph into a physical being. Also once again, the preferred appearance was reptilian. We like to note that the reptilian manifestation nearly always induces more fear than the beautiful, angelic appearance; perhaps this is the reason the djinn choose to appear as such. Fear is a powerful emotion that generates a great deal of energy: it raises a person's pulse, and sends the brain into a "panic" mode. Remember that according to Islamic belief, djinn can subsist on physical food and energy, although judging by their "costumes," they seem to prefer the latter.
In Closing
Many encounters with what people believe are aliens could actually be djinn. It can be argued that the djinn prefer using the extraterrestrial guise in order to hide their true identity. As for the abductions, we do not know why they could be abducting people. Abductees' reported "medical tests" could be a diversion that hides something more sinister. Since the 1950s, stories of contact with aliens have changed from benevolent (involving beings that were merely curious about the humans) to frightening stories of horrible monsters that want to experiment on the people of earth like laboratory animals. It seems the days of "We Come in Peace" are over.
HADOW PEOPLE ARE ONE OF the most terrifying, yet least
understood, of all supernatural experiences. Shadow people exhibit
the characteristics of all the negative entities we have discussed
in this book-but no one knows exactly who or what they are. We have
been studying shadow people in-depth for several years, and believe
that djinn are behind them-or behind at least many so-called shadow
people experiences.
Since 2005, we have compiled an extensive database of shadow people experiences and lore. Rosemary was inspired to start the project after receiving a continuous stream of emails and letters from people who described similar, unusual experiences and wanted explanations. In the years since, she has given numerous presentations and media interviews on the subject, and each time she does, we receive a new wave of letters from more people about their experiences. Hundreds have poured in, indicating to us that this phenomenon is far more widely experienced than most paranormal researchers realize. Clearly, something strange is going on in the dark corners where dimensions intersect.
All the descriptions of shadow people given in this chapter come from reports in our database. The phenomenon is broad and complex, and we can hit only the highlights here-but they amply demonstrate the case for djinn involvement.
Shadow People Experiences
Our examination of hundreds of cases shows that there is a dominant, "core" shadow person experience: A person wakes up in bed to see a tall, solid, black silhouette of a man in the bedroom. It may be standing right beside the bed, or in a corner or the doorway. The person may actually see it slide out of a closet, come in the door, materialize through a wall, or slide out from beneath the bed. It does not walk-it glides, and it moves incredibly fast.
Its shape has the form of a human with what appears to be legs, arms, a torso, and a head, without any features. It is as if a person's shadow is moving along the wall and through the room.
The figure usually appears to be wearing a coat or cloak, and often a hat or something rumpled on its head. Again, there are seldom facial features, details, or colors-everything is pitch black, or "blacker than black," as many experiencers say. If the room is dark, the shadow person's blackness stands out against the darkness. It seems solid, thick, and with physical mass, for it blocks out whatever is behind it. Even though the entity has no facial features, the victim knows it is staring at him with great intensity. Said one experiencer:
This shape had the form of a human with what appeared to be legs, arms, torso, and head but there were no features to be seen. It was as if a "shadow" was moving along the wall with the shape of a human but featureless. It was watching me.
The shadow man radiates powerful hostility, anger, malevolence, and even evil. People usually react with great fear, panic, and hysteria. They scream, jump out of bed, and tear out of the room, or turn on a light. Often, the shadow person disappears, sometimes into thin air. Other times, it slips back into the closet or beneath the bed, or melts through a wall or window. What at first seemed solid suddenly has no solidity at all.
In addition, shadow people are silent. They do not communicate, though sometimes people mentally pick up on an intention, as does this man, a repeat experiencer:
There's this black figure, kind of like a three-dimensional shadow. It doesn't really talk, but it always makes its intentions clear to me. Well, not really its intentions. I'm not sure how to explain it. The thing sends off vibes of pure malevolence. It's like evil incarnate. It always starts out the same. It's like I'm awake in bed and this thing (shadow) comes to visit me. It's usually outside my front door trying to get into my house. Sometimes it gets to my bedroom door. And once in awhile, it makes it to the foot of my bed. Words cannot explain the complete evil that emanates from this thing. It causes absolute panic and terror, like it knows just how to get to you.
The man said the shadow man never physically harmed him, but the psychological and emotional terror took a heavy toll on him.
Sometimes people feel paralyzed in bed. They manage to pull the covers up over their heads or they squeeze their eyes shut. When they look again, the shadow person usually has vanished. When the are seen disappearing, it is like smoke or mist. Prayer sometimes sends them away. Sometimes they linger, much to the victim's terror.
There are, of course, variations to these details. Some shadow people are much shorter, three to five feet in height. Sometimes they have facial details, usually red eyes, though we've received a few cases of white or blue eyes. Sometimes the shadow person acts aggressively toward the person, grabbing, sitting on, choking, or breathing on him or her (experiencers have the intuitive feeling that the shadow person's breath is toxic). Said one man:
The suffocation felt as if I were pinned down. I couldn't move. I had the physical sense of weight on my chest. My shoulders were pinned down. It felt as if "it" was holding a pillow over my face, preventing me from breathing. Getting it off and being able to take a breath was both physical and spiritual. I was pinned down like from a wrestling move with physical weight on top of me. I tried pushing, rolling, and thrashing about. I thought someone had broken into the apartment and was attacking me. As well as trying to fight it off me, I was praying for my life. I didn't have the strength to get it off. Suddenly, the weight lifted off me and I was able to see my attacker, the shadow image. It was so real, that I checked all doors and windows after the attack to see how anyone could have gotten into the apartment. Everything was locked from the inside.
The following was reported to us from a man who once worked a midnight shift and slept during the day. He awakened to find himself under terrifying assault:
At the foot of my bed was a shadow figure. This figure, as best as I can describe it-and I will never forget it-had the shape of a man. It was tall, as tall or taller than I am, over six feet tall. There were no details of features that can be described, clothing, facial features, etc. The color was the most unique detail. It would require you to experience it to understand. It is best described as blacker than black without really having a true color. It was more like a void of all color, with maybe a hint of a bright blue around the outline, similar to the color of an electric arc. Any of that blue I saw was only present as it faded or more accurately, receded from site.
The event happened in the early afternoon. It started as a physical, and I believe, spiritual attack. The presence was trying to suffocate me. I remember trying to fight it off physically. Whatever it was, was well beyond my strength. At the time, I was twenty-two years old and in good physical shape. The fight lasted probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to me. I fought it off with every ounce of strength I could muster, and prayer as well. It was one of the few times I was seriously afraid for my life. Whether it just let go or I managed to fight it off is still a mystery to me. I don't want a rematch.
Shadow people experiences happen to people of either sex and every age. We have found a fairly even distribution of them through age and gender. Most experiences occur at night, when most people are sleeping. But many occur during the day, including times when people are awake and at home or at work. Some people have only one or two terrifying, unforgettable encounters, and others are visited by shadow people repeatedly. Some shadow people seem to "shadow" entire families, plaguing them wherever they live through generations.
We have found a significant overlap of shadow people and ET encounter/abduction experiences-people who seem prone to both. The victims never know when either type of entities will come-or why.
While most shadow people encounters happen in bedrooms and homes, some take place in haunted locations with a high intensity of activity. Rosemary has observed shadow people in her investigations of diverse places. Some have a distinct human shape, while others are more like blobs or pillars of black, and even clouds of swirling black that look like ink or liquid smoke.
Who are the shadow people and what do they want? No one really knows-but we have some ideas. They seem to be intensely interested in observing us. And they are not a new phenomenon. Old Native American lore speaks of "watchers" with this appearance who live in remote areas. Similar accounts of "dark ghosts" and "phantom hooded monks" going back to the Middle Ages are strikingly similar to modern-day accounts of shadow people.
To arrive at our conclusion that the djinn are behind at least some shadow people experiences, we went through a process of elimination, analyzing the phenomenon from different perspectives. We considered ghosts, poltergeists, incubi/succubi, nightmare hags, demons, Men in Black, extraterrestrials, ultraterrestrials, and thought forms as possible sources. None of these are a good fit, although shadow people have characteristics of nearly all of them. They haunt places and appear and disappear like ghosts. Animals are aware of them and do not like them. Their appearances are sometimes accompanied by poltergeist effects. They act in a malevolent way, and their malevolence, combined with their dark appearance, convinces people they are dealing with demons. However, prayer and invoking the names of God and religious figures do not always work against them. They come at night like ETs, materializing through walls and rendering people paralyzed in their beds in fear. They resemble the dark-suited, hostile Men in Black who harass ET/UFO experiencers. They can sexually attack people like incubi and succubi however, this is rarely reported. They do not abduct people like the gray ETs-that we know of. Some shadow people experiencers feel the entities want to kidnap them. We don't know if this takes place, for the people we have interviewed say they have used considerable will power and energy to prevent their kidnapping. Shadow people also seem to be ultraterrestrials, in that they originate from another dimension and bend the physical rules of ours by materializing and dematerializing at will.
In our initial report analysis, we leaned toward extraterrestrial and ultraterrestrial explanations. We wondered if the shadow people were a little-known type of entity or race with a particular agenda concerning human beings and earth. We were intrigued by the overlap of ET and shadow people experiencers, and by the similarities in their behaviors.
The deeper we went, however, the more evidence pointed to djinn. It seemed unlikely to us that the form of the shadow people is natural to them; rather, it is probably a disguise. The coat or cloak may conceal another shape. Experiencers often wonder, why the hat? The hat is usually out of style, like the mid-twentiethcentury Dragnet or Dick Tracy hat, or the stovepipe hats popular in the nineteenth century. Sometimes the hat is large and floppy. We believe the hat conceals something about the entity's head-or perhaps it hides equipment. Some experiencers volunteer that they have the "feeling" that the true form of the shadow people is so hideous that humans would not be able to stand it. Another explanation may be simply the djinn's Trickster nature, the taking on of a form that makes no logical sense.
Other types of entities sometimes visit shadow people experiencers as well, though not necessarily at the same time. These are often small creatures-another favored form of djinn. The following is one such case, reported by a woman who started having experiences when she visited a friend. The shadow person followed her to her own home and began appearing there. Then it was replaced by a creature:
I awoke at approximately 3:30 in the morning. The room was completely dark. Across the room, to the left end of my bed, at the foot, in the corner, I saw what appeared to be a man dressed in a black trench coat and a fedora hat pulled down on his forehead. It had no facial features, or any arms, or legs, but somehow I knew it was male. There was a red glow like that of a cigarette near where his mouth should have been. He just stood there, staring. I felt as if I couldn't move; sleep paralysis, I think, is the name for it. I told my friend the next day and she reported she had never had any sightings at her house before. I visited her a month later and again awoke at approximately the same time of night. When I woke I purposefully didn't open my eyes. I knew he was there and this time I was afraid. I turned over to my right and quickly turned on the bedside lamp. There was nothing in the corner when I looked back.
A month later, in my own house, 250 miles away, I awoke to find him leaning in the corner of my room. Again, at the foot of my bed on the left. The same night my fourteen-year-old son, whose room is next to mine, reported seeing the man standing in his doorway. Interestingly enough, the shadow man hasn't been back to my house. Instead, I've been visited by a cat-sized gargoyle that sits on top of my dresser.
We have collected other stories of strange small creatures, including one that resembled a cross between a cat and a rabbit, and a creature that seemed like a mole, with fleshy claw feet. We have often seen and heard about what Rosemary calls "the little gray scurrying things," cat-sized gray shapes with no definable heads or tails and multiple legs and feet, which move rapidly along walls and up and down stairs.
What Is the Shadow People's Agenda?
The shadow people seem interested in observing us and spying on us. Why do they come when we are asleep? Perhaps we are vulnerable to having our minds and bodies probed. If the djinn are intent on regaining their place in the physical world, it stands to reason that they need information about physical bodies. Their natural plasma state may not be well suited for long periods of time in this dimension.
Like ET abductees, shadow people experiencers usually have no idea why they are visited. Sometimes place seems to be a factor, for people cease to have experiences when they leave or change residences. This would indicate that geophysical properties may be at work creating portals between dimensions. In some cases, we have found emotional turmoil to be a factor. Perhaps the energy generated by intense emotions attracts and "feeds" the entities. Fear may feed them as well; hence their radiation of malevolence to get the emotional response they desire. Also, the generation of fear may protect their true identities and purpose. When we are afraid, we simply want to escape-we do not want to ask questions or probe too deeply. Fear is definitely a tactic we would expect from djinn.
Are the djinn working in cooperation with at least some of the abducting ETs? Are they providing reconnaissance and monitoring-or even mind programming while we sleep? Or are the abducting ETs another form of djinn themselves, as we considered in the previous chapter? Whatever their agendas, both the shadow people and the abducting ETs seem to have hostile intentions towards human beings.
Remedies Against Shadow People
Almost everyone who writes to us asks how they can send shadow people away or prevent them from returning. Even a single experience can leave deep psychic scars, and a fear and conviction that "it" will come back, especially if the person thinks about "it." As mentioned earlier, many people have found prayer to be effective. The most common remedy that works for the most people is turning on lights. Some repeat experiencers have spent years sleeping with lights on just to keep the shadow people at bay. In fact, electricity-and electromagnetism-may provide keys to defenses against shadow people.
Electromagnetic Interference
The generation of electrical and electromagnetic fields of energy may disrupt the ability of shadow people to maintain a form in our reality. The operation of lights, televisions, radios, computers, and even cell phones may break apart their shapeshifted "bodies." Perhaps shadow people are trying to learn how to avoid or nullify negative electrical and electromagnetic effects. They may be scanning our brains and nervous systems while we sleep to get information that will be of use to them.
Interestingly, we found a news item from October 14, 2001, in which a leading psychical researcher in England opined that the electromagnetic effects of increasing cell phone usage were depressing ghost activity:
LONDON (Reuters)-Mobile phones are killing off ghosts, an expert who has spent years researching the occult has said. Tony Cornell, of the Society for Psychical Research, told the Sunday Express newspaper that reports of ghost sightings had started to decline when mobile phones were introduced 15 years ago.
"Ghost sightings have remained consistent for centuries. Until three years ago we'd receive reports of two new ghosts every week," said Cornell, of Cambridge in Eastern England.
"But with the introduction of mobile phones 15 years ago, ghost sightings began to decline to the point where now we are receiving none."
According to the paper, haunted tourist attractions in Britain could be under threat if the number of cell phones continues to grow from the present figure of 39 million.
Apparently, paranormal events, which some scientists put down to unusual electrical activity, could be drowned out by the electronic noise produced by phone calls and text messages. Judging from the reactive behavior of shadow people, they are affected in the same way.
One of our cases provides supporting evidence for this possibility. The case involved a salvage company that operates out of a large commercial building. The company salvages old computers and components from cell phone towers. Shortly after the company landed a big contract from a major cell phone carrier, a tall shadow man began showing up in the workplace. It stood by them and watched them work as they stripped components. The shadow man sometimes watched them work on computers, but it seemed the most interested in the pieces of cell phone towers.
The figure seemed to radiate evil and was unnerving. It would speed around and suddenly appear and disappear. The employees also noticed some of their tools began disappearing. They would come to work in the early morning to find tools that they used on the cell phone tower components misplaced or completely gone. If missing, the tools were usually returned within a few days, but to a different spot in the workplace.
After months of nearly daily appearances by the shadow man, one employee took remedial action. He brought a crucifix and a portrait of the Virgin Mary, and hung them on the wall by his workbench. Every morning, he said prayers for protection. Soon afterward, the shadow man stopped coming. Was it religious intervention-or had the shadow person gotten all the reconnaissance it needed?
More Connections
In our investigations of highly active sites, we have found shadow people to be part of a much bigger picture that includes other phenomena and entities. There may be certain areas or portals where the djinn can be comfortable and relatively stable, leaving and entering our dimension at will. Perhaps they assume a wide variety of shapes-maybe, to paraphrase the late John Keel, just to confound us.
T MUST BE REMEMBERED THAT except for those djinn who are
in between dimensional rifts, the majority of this ancient race
exists in another reality very close to our world. According to
recent theories in theoretical physics, this other reality is
located at a right angle to a right angle from any position that we
are facing. Thus, we three-dimensional beings would not be able to
turn and look into that area of space. This is because as we move,
that area of space also moves with us, and so we can never move
fast enough to peer into this other reality. The only possible way
that this could be achieved is to bend space itself or perhaps move
faster than the speed of light.
For centuries, the djinn seem to have been quiet. Only in the past forty or so years have they once again become more active in our world. There could be a variety of reasons and explanations as to why the djinn are increasing their activity in this reality. The theory that makes the most sense to us, and could explain why the appearance of djinn in this world is cyclic, is that they are composed of plasma and are greatly affected by changes in magnetic fields. They seem to avoid intense magnetic fields and appear irritated when in close proximity to devices that might be able to divert, disrupt, or slightly change the polarity of plasma. For centuries, the magnetic field of our planet may have protected us from the djinn by closing off their reality from ours. Recently, scientists have discovered that Earth's magnetic field changes over a period of time; since the nineteenth century, its strength has decreased by ten percent! Due to this decline, areas of negative magnetic anomalies have increased, creating loops or portals through which the djinn can once again enter our world.
It must be further noted that our sun is very quiet despite the fact that we are in a period of maximum solar flare activity. The peak of solar activity is set for 2012, and solar astronomers at Kitt Peak National Observatory expect (or fear) that the sun may make up for its inactivity and balance itself out.2 This would result in massive solar flares and coronal emissions. The particles and energy reaching earth would strike our magnetic field and weaken it considerably, causing life on our planet to be subjected to intense solar radiation. The weakening of the magnetic fields may be what the djinn are waiting for so they can safely enter our dimension by coming through vortexes or holes in our planet's natural defense shields. The legends about the djinn returning to take back what they believe is rightfully theirs may not be all fairy tales and amusing stories from ancient Arabian mythology-they may in fact contain a considerable amount of truth. If our suspicions are correct, in the years that follow 2012, we should continue to see an increase in paranormal activity and a great change in our perception of what we consider to be reality.
Return of the Djinn
As we progress further into the twenty-first century, the djinn race are once again manifesting in our world after a long absence. In the past, they have appeared as human-like genies, angels, demons, gargoyles, and other mythological creatures. However, this time they are taking the form of UFOs, aliens, fairies, ghosts, spirits, shadow people, and creatures that seem out of time and place. They may be responsible for a great deal of channeling, visions, and other forms of psychic contact. It is evident from our research that the djinn are intensely interested in the current human condition and want to learn more about the technologies we have developed over the past century. They also appear to need human beings and other life forms in this reality to help them make the transition into our world. Perhaps the many stories of aliens from other worlds that are creating hybrid species in order to live on our planet are not merely the tales of over-imaginative peoples' minds or flights of fancy. The "aliens" from other star systems may actually be dimensional beings trying to create a new race-a sentient race with free will that can exist not only in our reality but also the world of the djinn. Like Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba, such a race would be quite formidable, as they would combine the power of the djinn with the aggressive, creative mind of a human.
Judging from the increase in paranormal activity around the world, it is apparent that the djinn are not restricted to the Middle East. Over the past ten years, we have investigated many claims of "haunted homes" and other places, and it is clear that in a fair percentage of these cases, something else is at work rather than (or in addition to) ghosts. The activity in many of these places is more Trickster-like, which has always been an identifying djinn quality. In some cases, people have been driven from their homes by activity that takes a sudden, malevolent turn. This paranormal activity may include disembodied voices in the night, apparitions of human-like beings or monsters, strange lights and flashes, poltergeist activity, missing objects, electrical malfunctions in the home, shadow people and figures, nightmares (especially of hideous creatures), and adverse animal reactions. Dogs and cats seem to be able to sense and perhaps see a djinni that is invisible to the human eye, which always induces fear in the animal. In addition, humans who live or spend a lot of time in environments occupied by djinn may experience harmful health symptoms that defy medical diagnosis, as well as negative psychological effects such as depression, suicidal thoughts, irritability, aggression, and excessive paranoia. In some cases, married couples begin fighting with each other, and may even separate. This is how the djinn work: if they can't scare the people out, they may resort to trying to turn couples and family members against each other. In the Middle East, couples will often go to religious counselors when they are having difficulty since they feel a djinni is trying to break up their marriage.
Phil has concentrated his research in the northeast United States, while Rosemary has conducted investigations in other states and foreign countries. When we compare notes and findings, many cases bear striking similarities. The experiences mentioned earlier seem to provide a foundation for understanding the relationship between humans and djinn.
We now consider the possibility of djinn in our paranormal investigations, and encourage other investigators to venture beyond their conventional explanations of ghosts, poltergeists, ETs, demons, and supernatural creatures. Djinn are everywhere, sometimes hiding in plain sight. The following are a few cases we believe involve djinn.
Skinwalker Ranch
A ranch in Utah has become famous in paranormal circles-the "Skinwalker Ranch," named after one of the dominant phenomena said to command the area. So much negative activity occurred there that owners left and sold it to the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS).3 The story of the NIDS investigations at the ranch is documented in Hunt for the Skinwalker (2004) by Colm A. Kelleher, former deputy administrator of NIDS, and George Knapp, a broadcast journalist. We stress that the interpretation of djinn is our own, and is not made in the book.
In Native American lore, skinwalkers are evil, shapeshifting sorcerers who travel about very rapidly, especially at night. They cause illnesses, incite people to violence, rob graves, and can even kill people. The ranch is situated on land in the Uinta Basin, an area renowned for supernatural lore and activity. The ranch is said to violate skinwalker pathways, making it a particularly unlucky place. Locals either avoid speaking of skinwalkers or talk about them in hushed tones so as not to attract unwanted attention. We believe skinwalkers may actually be djinn in disguise: their activities and powers fit the descriptions, and humans fear them in the same ways.
Activity witnessed at the ranch includes intense poltergeist activity; strange orbs of light that seem to possess intelligence; supernatural, bullet-proof wolves; dark entities; mutilated cattle and missing animals; large, black triangular objects in the sky; other UFO activity; crafts or objects that glide around and land on the property; and sightings of the Men in Black.
One of the most peculiar sightings was of an orange mass that repeatedly appeared in the western sky, seemingly a window into another reality. One night, the mass appeared in the nighttime sky, and Tom (the pseudonym of the ranch owner who sold the property to NIDS) looked at it through a telescope:
On another occasion at night, one of the NIDS investigators witnessed a yellow light manifest on the property, which turned into a tunnel. A large black humanoid creature about six feet tall with no facial features crawled out of the tunnel and walked away. The tunnel shrank and disappeared, leaving behind a pungent smell of sulphur. The creature resembles descriptions of shadow people, and sulphur could indicate its origin as subterranean, a preferred djinn dwelling place. It seems the investigator, like Tom, observed an actual interdimensional opening, as though an unknown intelligence had thrown open a door in order to access our world.
The NIDS investigators witnessed other phenomena, but were never able to capture any of it on camera, due to mysterious malfunctions and destruction of equipment. It seemed as though whatever was causing the phenomena played a cat and mouse game with them-another hallmark of djinn. Some of the investigators experienced health issues while at the ranch, such as intense migraine headaches, which also is characteristic of djinn.
After several years of investigation, NIDS had "very little physical evidence of anomalous phenomena, at least no physical evidence that could be considered proof of anything. This was in spite of hundreds of days of human monitoring and several years of camera surveillance."6 The investigation was officially ended, but we do not doubt that phenomena there and in the area continue.
The ranch and surrounding environs sit on a negative magnetic anomaly, according to US Geological Survey maps. As mentioned previously, negative magnetic anomalies are often found in paranormal hot spots.
The San Luis Valley
Similar activity occurs in the San Luis Valley, another hot spot, the world's largest alpine valley stretching from approximately Villa Grove in southern Colorado to Taos in northern New Mexico. Since 1989, researcher Christopher O'Brien has investigated more than a thousand reports of unusual activity, including UFOs and mysterious lights, cattle and animal mutilations, ghosts and hauntings, mysterious creatures and hitchhikers, shapeshifters, and skinwalkers, evidence of alleged underground bases, and encounters with devilish or djinn-like entities.
The police chief's story is reminiscent of the tale of the halfdjinn Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba, reputed to have donkey legs or extremely hairy legs and feet. The "phantom hitchhiker" is a common phenomenon found everywhere in the world. It is often tied to ghost lore concerning a tragic death. A female is spotted walking along a usually lonely road late at night. She accepts a ride, and sometimes communicates where her home is. She always vanishes from the vehicle. These mystery hitchhikers do not seem dangerous or harmful, so perhaps the shock they give those who try to help is the payoff!
Mothman or Djinn?
In an earlier chapter, we discussed the possibility of djinn involvement in the Mothman wave of sightings in the 1960s. West Virginia is an active state from a paranormal perspective, and the Appalachians are full of strange lore and stories about the supernatural. Some of the more remote mountains and hollows may provide ideal places for djinn to exist with little human interference. We have seen how fiercely territorial the djinn can be, and that when disturbed, they can react with great hostility. They can reside quietly in a dimensional intersection location for long periods of time-but if stepped on, they put on a display of power.
Every year, Rosemary attends the annual Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where she gives presentations, conducts investigations, and mingles with festival-goers. In 2009, she met a West Virginia resident who told her about a frightening paranormal experience he had in the field of his own farm, with an invisible but palpable entity.
Robert (not his real name) was inclined to interpret the entity as Mothman, but with due respect to Robert, we think a djinni may be a closer fit. As we noted previously, Mothman might have been a shapeshifted djinni. Interpreting paranormal experiences is often highly subjective, much like dream interpretation. People arrive at an explanation that makes sense to them.
Robert's terrifying encounter began with a series of lower-key, unusual phenomena in the early 1990s. He and his wife would be in states of deep meditation and absentee healing inside their farm home when the sounds of something heavy walking on the roof would creak the ceiling. Robert had an intuitive feeling that he was being "warned off" from going outside to investigate when these episodes occurred.
One night, he and his wife had friends visiting. He stepped outside alone to enjoy the fine night air. It was quite dark outside. Suddenly, he became aware of an invisible presence standing on the ground about ten to fifteen feet away from him:
The thing had faintly glowing red eyes, maybe three times as large as mine, spaced three times as wide. They were elongatedmeaning perhaps twice as wide as they were high. They emitted a faint, almost infrared glow, which was in itself a bit frightening. The being must have been about seven-and-a-half feet tall. I could not determine its shape or size but it seemed massive.
Robert rushed back inside but did not say anything so as not to alarm his wife and friends. Although the presence was unsettling, he did not detect any "bad vibes" from it.
Two years later, he experienced what he later described as "the most frightening and stressful experience" of his life. He was in the habit of going way out into his rear field on summer nights and bedding down in a sleeping bag beneath the stars. He took along his dog, Tanya, and a .38 revolver with him in case he encountered any "rowdy dogs." The nights were usually peaceful, and sometimes he saw UFO activity. On this night, however, things took a much different turn.
Robert was almost asleep when he was woken up by a ringing thump sounding in the ground. He recognized it as a deer warning-when the deer are alarmed, they strike the ground with their hooves, and it creates a ringing sound that other deer pick up. Robert heard the sounds of deer very swiftly moving away from his vicinity. Immediately his senses went on high alert.
Suddenly a strange and intensely strong energy hit Robert's body unlike anything he had ever experienced. It was painful and penetrating, and terrified him:
It resembled a massive psychic attack but hundreds times more powerful. I tried to reduce the effects on me but my best efforts had no effect on the energy experience or the physical, psychic, or emotional damage effects. I tried in vain to counter the attack ... This was the most alien feeling in my life and it filled me with unreasoning terror beyond anything I had experienced or even imagined. I believe it might paralyze an average person.
Tanya went unconscious and the batteries in his flashlight went dead. Robert felt the source of the attack was about fifty to a hundred meters distant from him and about twenty degrees up from the horizon. He was unable to see any form or shape.
For four to five hours, Robert sat tensely, trying to ward off the attack, holding his revolver, knowing the gun was not enough for whatever was out there in the darkness. He forced himself to perform mental exercises that would ease his fright and stress. The malevolent energy maintained a constant, nearly intolerable level, and he felt a genuine physical attack could happen at any moment. Then, when the first streaks of dawn lit the sky, the energy vanished as abruptly as it had started, and he was relieved when Tanya came to. That night was the last Robert ever slept outdoors. He also reported suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder for years.
What attacked him? Perhaps Robert's land is inhabited by a djinni who stays in the outer reaches where it is seldom disturbed. His excursions to sleep out in the field may have finally irritated the djinni, who regarded him as a squatter or home invader. It made a show of force as a way of scaring him away.
"The Farm"
We have been working on a case since early 2009 that involves a wide variety of phenomena much like Skinwalker Ranch, the San Luis Valley, and the Hudson River Valley. We are unable to disclose the location because the property is privately owned, but it is a typical farm in a rural area. The surrounding region has been known for UFO activity, sightings of mysterious creatures, and hauntings. There is a small house on the property. The land was farmed in the nineteenth century. In the late twentieth century it sat idle for about twenty years, and several years ago was purchased and turned into an active property again. We do not know if previous owners experienced anything unusual on the property. Since farming resumed there, paranormal activity has been experienced almost daily.
Phenomena include apparitions of people believed to be previous occupants during the farm's earlier days; mysterious creatures such as an "imp" with a leathery, cat-like face that looks into a window of the house, the "little gray scurrying things" we described in an earlier chapter, menacing shadow people, a mole-like creature that attempts to burrow into human bodies; poltergeist effects; malfunctions of household and farm equipment and the land line telephone; footsteps in parts of the house where no one is present; and a shapeshifting black blob that races about in the field. The employees who work on the property often feel an invisible but hostile presence inside the house and on the land that gives them the impression that they are not welcomed and should leave.
Rosemary put together a team of investigators that has conducted numerous investigations on the farm indoors and outdoors, including all-night surveillances. Team members collectively have experienced all of the above phenomena. Some of the staff and all of the investigators except for Rosemary have suffered adverse health problems; Rosemary has had an unusual degree of car problems. Phenomena have followed some of those involved to their homes. Rosemary has experienced apports of coins at her homepennies, nickels, and dimes-since commencing the investigations. The apports are the sort of Trickster phenomena one might expect from an entity that likes to switch from serious activity to pranks. People involved with the case, including Rosemary, have had night time entity visits in which an unpleasant and predatory presence enters the room.
The entity-we believe it is a single one and not multiplegoes through periods of high activity followed by periods of low activity or dormancy. It especially acts up in advance of a planned investigation, as though it is aware and tries to scare any investigators away.
We believe this land is occupied by a djinni who may have been on the land long before people ever arrived there. It was enjoying solitude until the farm was reactivated several years ago. It is clearly displeased with the disturbances, and reacts by creating the phenomena. Will it ever go away? Probably not. It obviously does not like to be investigated or examined; every investigation has been accompanied by a marked increase in (and severity of) activity. It seems to like to remind the people there that it is boss. A Native American tactic to appease spirits was performed: an offering of ceremonial tobacco, sprinkled around the house and property, and burned in a small cauldron. The tobacco offering was followed by a decrease in activity, but not a cessation. It is difficult to assess the long-term potential danger for humans in cases such as these. Where unpleasant paranormal activity is continuous, people either learn to tolerate it, or they become worn down and leave.
"I Was Here First!"
A medium we know who works in paranormal investigations was called to an odd case in the eastern part of the country. The site was a home in which a family was experiencing escalating unpleasant activity. The other investigators were convinced a demon was to blame, and they were ready to arrange for a religious exorcism.
Ann (not her real name) offered to try to communicate with the entity to assess the situation. When she mentally tuned in, she was surprised-the energy did not "feel" like a demon, or a ghost-or anything she was familiar with. The entity seemed ancient, almost primeval. It explained to her that the house was located on its turf. It had been present long before humans arrived. The Native Americans understood its territorial rights, and had honored it and left it alone. But the white settlers who came in built on its land and created irritating disturbances. The entity said it "owned" one square mile. For reasons that were not clear, it was acting up now. Perhaps it had acted up in the past as well with previous residents. Or, perhaps there was something in particular about the present occupants that the entity especially did not like. It communicated to Ann that it was providing a warning to the people in the house. It wanted them out.
The entity also said that there was nothing the people could do to kill or destroy it. An exorcism would not work. However, it said, Ann herself might be able to send it away, but only to certain locations on the earth. Images sprang into her mind. One was somewhere in Africa. These locations seemed to have some sort of elevator in them, in that there was access up and down from the surface of the earth to below the surface.
Due to a number of circumstances, Ann wound up removing herself from the case. The fates of the entity and the people in the house are not known. This case also has characteristics of djinn: an ancient entity that preceded humans on the planet, is territorial, and is powerful enough to resist most attempts to send it away. The images of the certain places on earth seem like interdimensional portals with subterranean access-a favored place of the djinn.
Severely Haunted Homes
Nearly every paranormal investigation group has one or more cases that fit the following profile: A family moves into a house, usually priced at below-market value, and soon experiences unpleasant phenomena that escalate in intensity. Phenomena include mysterious sounds and footsteps, shadows and shadow figures, black dogs and cats, hideous shapes, poltergeist activity, electrical problems, nightmares, apparitions of people and hooded figures, unexplained illnesses, unexplained accidents that injure the occupants of the house, tension and arguments, bad luck, and more. Sometimes research reveals that the house has a documented history of paranormal activity, bad luck, accidents, and unusual number of deaths in the house, and so on.
The usual approach of paranormal groups is to bring in a psychic or a priest who declares that the house is haunted by a demon or an elemental, a type of low-level spirit that exists in nature. Religious exorcism rituals, blessings and prayers are performed. The paranormal activity diminishes or ceases-but not for long. Eventually it returns. Weeks, months, even years may pass before it does. Meanwhile, if the house changes ownership, the sensitivity to the phenomena varies. Some people are more vulnerable than others.
Some of these cases may indeed be caused by infesting demons, but in persistent cases, the occupying entity may be a djinni. The house may sit in a portal area, which is not likely to close, especially upon the religious commands of people. Dealing with djinn has little to do with "good" people versus "evil" spirits. Rather, the conflict is racial: humans versus djinn.
In Closing
We believe there are many places all over the planet where djinn have a strong presence. We are re-evaluating cases in our files, and we find many that fit a djinn profile. In some cases, djinn may create mild haunting phenomena, and in others, they may make life quite miserable for humans. Conventional exorcisms against demons, "elementals" and ghosts will not work on them, for they are far more powerful than humans. If they retreat, it is at their own volition. For example, a djinni can masquerade as a demon or any other kind of entity and pretend to be exorcized-just to go into hiding and reappear at a later time. Perhaps this might explain some of the more resistant possession cases.
Some djinn are not interested in peaceful coexistence. As an analogy, if your home is invaded by ants or rodents, you do not care how "nice" the invaders think they are, or that they want to share space with you-you want them out. This attitude is how many djinn regard humans-as pests. A frequent refrain in negative hauntings is an entity's warning-"Get out!" When the djinn say it, they mean it!
ONJURATION IS TRICKY BUSINESS. REGARDLESS of a spirit's
type and nature-good, bad, or indifferent-all are difficult to
summon and even more difficult to control. If a ritual is not
executed properly, or the summoner lacks the proper power, a spirit
may wreak havoc, including damaging or draining the summoner's
physical and mental health.
The djinn are no different than other spirits and entities when it comes to being summoned. As they have free will, calling upon a djinni can be very dangerous; just how it will react to the conjurer is anyone's guess. Like humans, djinn have their own rules that govern their behavior. In most cases, a djinni will ignore anyone trying to call upon it unless it has something to gain in return. Djinn also have been conjured to manipulate, possess, and do harm to others. This can be a dangerous prospect, because like us, not all djinn are good-some are evil, and a small number are downright psychotic.
The Prophet Muhammad was able to call upon the djinn, and when he did, they challenged his claim that he was the chosen prophet of Allah. In every version of the story, Muhammad is able to control the djinn and convince them he is indeed the Prophet, resulting in the djinn converting to Islam. Of the many stories told, the most popular and our favorite appears below.
The Prophet Muhammad's Contact with Djinn
It is stated by Imam Baihaqi in Dala'il-al-Nubuwaat that the Prophet Muhammad once said to his companions in Mecca, "Whosoever from amongst you desires to see the djinn, he should come to me tonight."' One of his followers, Hadhrat Abdullah Ibn Masood, was the only one who came that night, for all others were fearful of the djinn. The Prophet took him to a high hill in Mecca on a clear, moonless night. Muhammad drew a circle and told Ibn Masood that no matter what happened, he was to remain seated and motionless within its confines. Hadhrat Abdullah Ibn Masood sat within the circle and began reciting the Qur'an. Suddenly, a large number of djinn appeared out of smoke and encircled Muhammad, who was outside the circle. The djinn seemed to be creating a barrier around the prophet, captivating him.
Ibn Masood heard the djinn say to Muhammad, "Who gives evidence that you are the Prophet?"
Muhammad pointed to a nearby tree and said, "Will you accept my claim if this tree gives the evidence?"
The leader of the group of djinn said, "Yes, we shall accept it."
On that, the Prophet called the tree and it moved toward the djinn. This gave evidence to the group of djinn that Muhammad was indeed the prophet chosen by Allah. The djinn were so im pressed that they gave praise to Allah and his prophet and converted to Islam.
How did Muhammad know to place his companions within a circle for protection? Perhaps he was familiar with the concept of a magic circle. Circles have had a magical, protective significance since ancient times, when they were drawn around the beds of sick persons and mothers who had just given birth to protect them against demons. If a person summons spirits, a magic circle protects him against any negative influences, and creates a symbolic barrier against his own lower nature.
The story about Muhammad provides no clues as to whether or not he used any magical symbols or rituals in casting the circle, such as found in the magical lore attributed to King Solomon.
Solomon's Control over the Djinn
Ever since the days when King Solomon forced the djinn into slave labor, individuals have sought to harness their supernatural powers, usually for acquiring secret knowledge, power, the ability to tell the future, procurement of love, and riches and treasure.
Solomon used a power granted him by God, a dominion which was to be given to no one after him. His power was channeled through a magical ring that nullified the djinn's ability to resist him. That legendary ring has vanished into the mists of time, but in its place are numerous manuals of magic, some said to be written by Solomon himself. In the Western magical tradition, these handbooks came to be known as "grimoires," and supposedly they were available only to the initiated. As with anything supposed to be "forbidden" or "secret," however, they found their way into the masses. Many claimed roots of antiquity and lineages going back directly to Solomon, but most of the principal ones were written in Europe (especially France) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries during a period of renewed interest in magic. They are heavily derivative of Hebrew magical lore, as well as Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Greek magical texts.'
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus referenced such a book in the first century CE, but it's not clear whether he was referring to this grimoire or to the Testament of Solomon, which tells the stories of Solomon's djinn subjugation:
The Key probably was written by one or more anonymous authors; it circulated as a magical text in Europe from about 1100 on, the earliest date of a known manuscript.
Another Solomonic magical text is the Lesser Key of Solomon, also called the Lemegeton, a term of unknown meaning. Although it, too, claimed a direct lineage from Solomon, it probably was written in stages by different anonymous authors from the sixteenth cen tury on. It is derivative of the Testament of Solomon and the book of Enoch, as well as the Key. The Lemegeton has four parts; the Ars Goetia describes the 72 "fallen angels" Solomon evoked and how they can be conjured. Whether or not the entities are actually fallen angels, djinn, or something else remains uncertain.
In Islamic belief, the books of magic attributed to Solomon are lies the djinn invented, in an attempt to make Solomon come off as a sorcerer-a disbeliever. After his death, the djinn wrote books of magic and disbelief and placed them beneath Solomon's throne, claiming they were the texts he had used to subjugate them. The djinn then spread the lies throughout humanity, fooling people into thinking they could learn genuine magical secrets.
Summoning the Djinn
Another Western text of interest in relation to summoning djinn is The Black Pullet, probably written in France or elsewhere in Europe in the late eighteenth century. It is one of the few grimoires that does not claim to be ancient-but it does feature the djinn, though they are not called by that name. It evokes the Solomonic legend, centering on the use of talismanic rings and inscribed circles as the channels of magical power.
According to the legend told in The Black Pullet, the magical secrets were discovered by an anonymous soldier in Napoleon's army sent to Egypt. Near the pyramids in Cairo, he and several companions were attacked by Arab soldiers. All but him were killed, and he was left for dead. By sunset he feared he too would soon expire-but suddenly a stone rolled back in the Great Pyramid and a turbaned Turk came out. The Turk took the solider inside, where there were vast halls, huge galleries, subterranean chambers, and piles of treasures, all ministered by spirits (we may assume them to be djinn). The attendant to the Turk was a djinn (also called a spirit in the text) named Odous.
After the soldier recovered his health, the Turk took him into his confidence. All the riches in the pyramid were the product of eighty years of occult and magical practice, which the Turk wished to pass on to the soldier, as he was nearing death himself. To demonstrate his power, the Turk showed him a magical ring. He blew on it three times and said an incantation. Attendant spirits (djinn) and whatever else the Turk wished appeared. He manifested a sumptuous feast of fine food and wine in this manner.
The Turk showed the soldier The Black Pullet, described as like a version of the Arabian folk tale Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp, but with an extra inner spiritual meaning. The text told how to acquire magical power with twenty-two talismans embroidered on silk and etched on rings made of bronzed steel. The Turk said he was the only one who possessed this knowledge. He guided the soldier through all twenty-two talismans. At the end, he summoned Odous to bind him over to the soldier. Odous, the soldier reported, appeared as "a young man of the most beautiful stature; the remainder of his person shone with all the charms, and on the summit of his head shone a flame of which my eyes could not sustain the brilliance."5 (From this description, it is easy to see how this entity might be interpreted as an angel or guardian spirit.)
The Turk had another gift for the soldier in addition to the magical manual: a black hen ("pullet" coming from the French term for chicken, poulet) trained to find gold. In fact, a ritual to create a "gold-finding hen" was one of the most important parts of The Black Pullet.
After being taught the secrets, the soldier lost consciousness. The Turk died and was cremated, and Odous became the soldier's dedicated servant. They departed for Europe, taking the book, the Turk's ashes, the black hen, and the piles of treasure. In France, the soldier published the book. He used the black hen to find great hidden riches.