0:00

So we're all big,

0:02

big fans of folklore. Folklore

0:05

is a fascinating way

0:07

to explore history, to

0:09

explore a culture, to explore

0:12

the world around you. And it

0:14

may surprise some folks living

0:16

in the West to learn that things

0:19

the West treats as folklore

0:22

are treated very much as

0:25

reality in different parts

0:27

of the world. In ancient North

0:29

African and Middle Eastern belief systems,

0:32

there is another type of sentient

0:35

creature that exists invisible

0:38

all around you, and they

0:40

have their own beliefs, they have their own

0:42

motivations. They're called Jin.

0:45

Matt, you did you epd

0:49

a wonderful series on Jin that

0:51

happened after we did this episode.

0:53

Yeah, there's a whole show right now that you

0:55

can find called The Hidden Jin. Check

0:58

it out. It's it's really great, hosted

1:00

by Robbia Shaudry and uh

1:03

an excellent show. It's on the Grim and Mild

1:06

slate of shows from Aaron Mankey.

1:08

But guys, we're talking about genies,

1:11

right, Yes, I know these things. They're

1:14

blue, they shake, shift, they do great

1:16

impressions. Right, A

1:19

particular type of gin made, but there

1:21

are many types of gin. You know, the

1:23

coolest part of their

1:26

origin story is that they

1:28

were created out of

1:30

smokeless fire, which I always thought

1:33

was so cool. Sorry,

1:35

guys, sorry, I guess Emily I heard we're talking about Gin Uh

1:38

you got can I have my Well,

1:43

there's uh. And we're also not talking about Jin

1:46

the Rapper formally with DMX

1:49

who it was pretty good, just a splash of tonic

1:51

for me. So

1:54

let's learn about together, guys. That's

1:58

it rom you as too,

2:00

psychic powers and government conspiracies.

2:03

History is riddled with unexplained events.

2:05

You can turn back now or

2:08

learn this stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,

2:18

welcome back to the show. My name is Max, my name

2:21

is Noel, I'm Ben. You are you? And that

2:23

makes this stuff they don't want you to

2:25

know. We hope this podcast finds

2:27

you amid Grand Adventure. If

2:30

so, we'd love to hear about it. So

2:32

I'll just get this out of the way, because we talk about

2:35

the Twitter and the Facebook stuff usually

2:37

at the end of the show, right us, Well, we'll

2:39

just we'll just mention here that if you haven't

2:41

found us yet, please do. We are conspiracy

2:43

stuff on both Facebook and Twitter,

2:46

and that's one of the most immediate ways

2:49

to contact us. We would like to thank the

2:51

listeners out there who wrote to us

2:53

several times over the past months and asked

2:56

us to cover this topic because it just kept

2:58

popping up in conversation, right, yeah, would

3:00

pop up in conversation and on the fringes

3:02

of a topic that we were discussing. It

3:04

came up I think in Alchemy. I remember you

3:06

guys mentioning it, and it came up in

3:09

a couple other places right before that too.

3:11

I also seem to recall it coming up one time. I

3:13

was like, all right, all Jin demons, and Ben schooled

3:16

me real quick. So hopefully we'll get some more of that schooling.

3:18

Oh I don't know. We might get schooled on this

3:20

one, guys. We might. We

3:23

might be the ones going to school because

3:25

this is one of our This

3:28

is an episode that's somewhere between a folklore

3:30

episode, a cryptic episode of

3:32

possession episode. Jin run

3:34

into a lot of things, and first

3:38

first we have to do a disclaimer

3:40

for this one. As Ben said, this is

3:43

an academic exploration of

3:45

this topic about the folklore behind

3:48

the what a gin is, what Jin

3:50

are, and we're not we're not trying to persuade

3:52

anybody to look at anything

3:54

in a certain way, especially uh

3:57

to ascribe to any certain set of beliefs or anything

3:59

like that. Right, and our goal is not to confirm or

4:02

deny anyone's religious beliefs.

4:04

Right. Your spiritual convictions, as always,

4:06

are your own. So let's get

4:08

into this exploration. This is fascinated

4:11

the three of us for a long

4:13

time. If you grew up in the West

4:16

and are not uh

4:18

practitioner of Islam or not familiar

4:20

with some of the beliefs

4:23

surrounding the Middle East and other related

4:25

parts of the world, then you

4:27

probably have some very specific ideas

4:30

of what a jin or a

4:32

genie is. Oh sure, I mean a lot

4:34

of my beliefs come from pop culture, from

4:37

movies, television, books, comics,

4:39

things where it would be a genie usually

4:41

spelled with a G, sometimes spelled

4:44

with a J, as in the case of I had dream of

4:46

genie. Yes, yes, exactly, that's

4:48

back from the sixties. That's always the image

4:50

I had of what it looked like inside the lamp.

4:52

She had cushions everywhere, and it was like

4:54

this built in like you know, it looked like

4:57

a really sweet RV or something, you

4:59

know, like with shag carpeting,

5:01

you know, like it was nice. It was super nice.

5:03

Yeah. Well then you go you go to

5:06

you know, horror films that look at genie's

5:08

Like wish Master was one that I've watched

5:10

when I was younger. I probably shouldn't have watched it

5:13

back then. Wasn't that a West Craven movie? I

5:15

think Wes Craven was part of he produced it or

5:17

something. Uh. Yeah, But then we get

5:19

to Aladdin, the Disney movie, which

5:22

you know, I don't know but you guys, but I was quoting

5:24

that movie for years. Yeah.

5:26

Man, I had that soundtrack on CD. It's a fantastic

5:29

It's just a fantastic film. We watched

5:31

it recently, and that that holds up for a film

5:34

film? Yeah, well yeah it was

5:37

film. Uh. And then you you know, you

5:39

move a little bit forward and you get to video

5:41

games, where there are different

5:43

types of jin's uh

5:46

that I've encountered in many a virtual world.

5:48

You probably have too. So what do we

5:50

know about what these gins are? From

5:52

these things? I have to say, I think he passed over a very

5:54

important gen Snoop Dogg's Gin and Juice. Oh

5:57

sorry, I also packed passed over Zam.

6:00

You know, Oh we forgot Kazam

6:03

yeah, Shack, thank you narrowly avoided

6:05

the email on that from Shack himself.

6:08

So what do we know about genies

6:10

from those pieces of pop culture. Well,

6:12

here are some of the main I guess we can call them tropes

6:15

that have been established about your

6:17

standard run of the mill genie jin

6:20

who call it what you will. Uh. One,

6:23

Often they are imprisoned inside

6:25

a material artifact, usually a ring

6:28

or you know, typically a lamp, and I

6:30

guess it could be really anything, could be perhaps

6:32

a chest of some kind, like a book,

6:34

even you know, you see different versions.

6:37

Remember um, the care Bears movie

6:39

where there was this creepy green faced

6:42

ghost thing trapped inside of a

6:44

book and made the magician's assistant

6:46

like, do weird stuff? I do not. I

6:48

would argue that that is a gin

6:51

in a way, because it's sort of imprisoned inside

6:53

this artifact. Anyway, I digress. That

6:55

always scare the crap out of when I was a kid. That felt

6:58

like a very intense film when I was

7:00

really intense. Yeah,

7:03

anyway, So that's that's that's a huge part

7:05

of it. Number Two, Typically

7:07

they grant wishes with perilous

7:09

outcomes and think of even like in films

7:12

you have like an evil like apparition

7:14

that can say I can make this happen for you,

7:17

you know, but then other things fall apart

7:19

as a result of it. You know. That's not really what we think

7:21

of when we think of a Laddin, you know, but that usually

7:23

those wishes were I want to be the

7:26

king or I want to be you know, Prince Sali

7:28

or whatever, and that all worked out. But there are well, there are

7:30

things that go wrong along the way trying

7:32

to get this wish, but doesn't necessarily

7:35

have this built in catastrophe like

7:37

this one to one like you wish that

7:39

made something horrible has happened to somebody

7:41

else, so um, the perilous outcomes

7:44

definitely different versions of that. And finally,

7:46

I mean, a really common perception

7:48

of this genie type of gin um

7:51

is that they have magical

7:53

powers, you know, can shape shift.

7:55

And to me, something that it always

7:58

sticks with it for me is that they have a master

8:00

that once they appear to them, they are bound

8:03

to that master until they have used

8:05

up some finite number of wishes.

8:08

Interesting stuff, you know, because what

8:10

we're talking about now would be again

8:13

these Western conceptions we have baseballers

8:15

on pop culture. Probably one

8:18

of the biggest popularizers

8:21

of the of Jin folklore.

8:23

The concept of Jinn comes to us

8:25

from uh Sharra's Odd

8:27

and the thousand and one Stories, right,

8:30

or excuse me, a thousand and one Arabian

8:32

Nights. But before we go into

8:35

the actual world

8:37

or belief system involving Gin, I

8:39

have to ask you, guys, because

8:42

I can't let it go listeners. You may have heard

8:44

me accidentally humming part of

8:46

this song as as Nolan that we're

8:48

talking. What's your favorite song

8:51

from the aladdined soundtrack? Oh?

8:53

Man, do you have one? Musically,

8:56

I'm really fond of the Arabian Nights

8:58

song. Um, it's got a really cool melody,

9:01

very evocative. I do think that's interesting.

9:03

When I watched rewatched Aladdin recently,

9:06

the lyrics changed a little bit, coup

9:08

a couple of lines. No,

9:12

No, there was just I remember when it came

9:14

out and I have the soundtrack and there's

9:16

a line in the song where it says talking

9:19

about you know what it's like in this

9:21

part of the world, And there's a line that

9:23

says where they cut

9:25

off your hand if they

9:27

don't like your face. It's barbaric,

9:30

but hey, it's home, and they they changed

9:32

that it's not that lyric anymore. Do

9:34

you think those do maybe to post nine eleven.

9:37

I'm not sure when it happened, but um,

9:39

you know, someone definitely in and

9:41

somewhere along that process found that line to be offensive.

9:44

So do you think maybe it was just

9:46

a censorship thing where they said

9:49

that line is too too

9:51

much for kids. That's

9:53

what I was, That's what I would think. I mean, because you know, I think

9:55

too that movie has been re issued probably

9:57

several times, so i'd also to see what point

10:00

that happened. But we digress, But

10:02

we digress, So let's digress

10:05

further. Is let's

10:08

digress all the way to the beginning,

10:11

as as the Mad Hatter said

10:13

to Alice, started at the beginning, go through

10:15

the middle, and stop at the end. Jin

10:19

smelled j i in in in English,

10:21

sometimes d j i in

10:23

in the root of genies.

10:26

This concepts let's look at

10:29

the word first. Etymology. It's often said

10:31

to come from an Arabic root word meaning

10:33

to hide, and some interpretations take

10:35

this a little bit further to mean beings

10:37

who are concealed from the senses.

10:40

Uh Jin is the plural. The

10:42

singular would be genie j i

10:45

n I, and that's

10:47

where genie comes from.

10:50

But uh it when it was

10:52

anglicized in some places, people

10:54

took it to mean a guardian of

10:56

a specific place. And while

10:59

these are popular theories

11:02

there, there are also competing

11:05

theories or interpretations, one

11:08

saying that one

11:10

saying that Genie

11:12

or the concept originally came from what

11:14

we're seen as demons

11:17

or evil spirits in early Christian

11:19

or Judeo Christian beliefs.

11:22

But unlike some

11:24

other supernatural beings, uh

11:28

jin are actually mentioned in the

11:30

Koran. They have an origin story right

11:33

um. In the Koran, God actually makes

11:35

three sapient forms

11:37

of life, angels, gen

11:39

and humans. Men were made

11:41

of clay, angels from light, and

11:44

Jin are described as being made

11:46

of a smokeless scorching

11:49

fire, which is sort of sinisters sounding if

11:51

you ask me, crazy stuff. Like humans,

11:54

Jin have free will, some are

11:56

Muslim and some are not. And

11:59

like humans, Jen being capable

12:01

of good and bad will be judged by

12:04

God on the Day of Judgment and

12:06

sent to Hell or to paradise as their actions

12:09

accord. But here's the thing. Although

12:11

Jin are mentioned in the Koran, they

12:15

were believed in before

12:18

before Islam. They were they were pre

12:20

Islamic originally,

12:22

and in some cases there's some

12:24

evidence that they were maybe

12:28

gods or at least spirits that were

12:30

paid tribute to uh

12:32

In in Palmira, for example. Yeah,

12:34

there's this Aramaic inscription in a place

12:36

called Beth Fasil which

12:39

pays tribute to the genie

12:41

spelled g I n in a

12:44

y e As the good and rewarding

12:46

gods. So until about

12:49

the fourth century, as we rate time

12:51

today, uh many of

12:53

the populations that

12:55

were in the Middle East practice

12:58

a different polytheist stick religions.

13:01

There were there were significant

13:03

Jewish and later Christian minorities that developed,

13:05

but Polytheism remained the dominant

13:08

belief system in pre Islamic

13:10

Arabia and Jin

13:13

which started in some cases

13:15

being worshiped as gods, are thought

13:18

to have later been downgraded to

13:20

lesser status as spirits as

13:22

demons, especially after the religious

13:24

waves of monotheism. Yeah,

13:27

I can see that you demonize the gods

13:29

that came prior. I understand

13:31

that. Well, there's religious syncretism to write,

13:34

uh the idea that the

13:37

idea that when a religion is growing

13:39

or spreading, it says, well, these other

13:41

things that exist do

13:43

exist, and we're not. What

13:46

what we're doing is we're showing you why

13:48

they exist. They're also part of this belief

13:50

system, which is the one true

13:53

belief system is typically how a lot of

13:55

religions handle it. So

14:07

where do jin hang out? A

14:09

lot of times they're in dark places. That

14:12

maybe why when the west

14:14

Owners came along to create stories out of this, they put

14:16

him in a lamp that's really dark, or in a

14:18

you know, a ring, or in a cave or something like

14:20

that. Lost as well, like sort of

14:23

like they're buried like like you know, totally

14:26

shut away, as if they were not ever

14:28

meant to be discovered again kind of thing. Yes, and

14:30

again, because they're supposed to be isolated, right right,

14:32

And if we could talk just a little bit about the

14:34

idea of where the artifact belief

14:37

comes in. Solomon was

14:40

King Solomon's thought to command spirits

14:43

that were a type of jin

14:47

through the use of a ring, right,

14:49

the Ring of Solomon, which I think also still

14:51

shows up in pop culture. Right, Yeah,

14:54

Oh, the that ring is everywhere.

14:56

I would say, and I don't know if this is true

14:58

because I haven't looked too much into it, but the one

15:00

ring to rule them all, I think that might

15:03

have like have some kickbacks.

15:06

And then also the also

15:09

we should mention the Grimoires

15:11

or the books of magic known as the Key of

15:13

Solomon or the lesser Keys of Solomon

15:16

also thought to contain rituals

15:18

which, when performed properly, allow one

15:21

to communicate with and or

15:24

control these spirits. Uh,

15:27

Matt Nolan, I have not attempted to do

15:29

this as far as I know. Speak

15:32

for yourself, sir, Yeah, okay, okay,

15:35

Matt and Noel have attempted to do this.

15:38

I don't want to put you guys on glass and ask

15:40

too much about how how it worked out.

15:42

Let me, we're here right that

15:45

that doesn't change one way or

15:47

the other. So the

15:49

the idea here, which I thought was

15:52

fascinating, and I'm speculating

15:54

here. I wanted to ask you listeners, because

15:57

I couldn't find any solid proof of this, but

15:59

we're there Jin cults

16:02

like what other than you

16:05

know, other than being a statue or shrine one

16:07

would pay tribute to, were they're

16:09

actually religious systems

16:11

that were large built on worshiping maybe

16:14

one or two creatures

16:16

or gods that would later become jin. I

16:18

don't know, but it's interesting. Well, yeah, and it wouldn't have

16:20

to be It wouldn't have to be that large to

16:22

be a cult of a certain

16:25

gin, especially if it was worshiped,

16:27

you know, for hundreds and hundreds

16:29

of years for a while there as a god.

16:31

Then everything broke off as the new religions

16:34

came through, and then they you know, maybe an

16:36

isolated group somewhere. I can

16:38

totally imagine that. I can also see like

16:40

maybe there's like a rogue jin, you

16:42

know, who wants to like become more like a

16:44

god and then command his own followers.

16:47

I could just see that in terms of like folklore.

16:49

Oh yeah, that happens, and we'll get to

16:51

it just a second. I think we'll really appreciate this

16:53

part. Before we get to that, let's

16:56

talk about the different types of gin,

16:58

because not all are created ep some

17:00

have specialties, some are automatically evil,

17:02

some could go either way. But as

17:06

we go into this, you want to establish

17:08

that the folklore gets kind of sticky because

17:11

there are creatures or

17:14

beings in other and other

17:16

regions or and sometimes even in

17:18

other belief systems that are

17:20

considered gin. And then there their arguments

17:23

that people will have over whether that

17:26

whether one type of creature should be considered

17:28

a subclass of gin or its

17:31

own thing. Well, that being said,

17:33

jen are smart, have

17:36

social organizations, uh

17:38

in their community. They have kings, they have

17:40

laws of marriages, they have

17:43

births, you know, all the normal

17:45

days of our lives. Stuff. They just But

17:49

while humans cannot

17:51

perceive jin, apparently

17:54

they can perceive the human

17:56

world. So this it's

17:58

an interesting idea because it means that there

18:01

is an invisible world occurring

18:03

all around us, and

18:05

we are in some sort of glass house of existence

18:07

or some sort of one

18:10

way mirror. Yeah, there there are

18:12

a few planes of existence up than

18:14

we are, and somehow they can see down, but

18:16

the mirror only goes one way. That's

18:18

cool. So one common

18:20

belief in Muslim lord list.

18:24

Again, this list is not this

18:27

list is not universally accepted.

18:30

But let's let's look at the various

18:32

types of jenn. The first would be

18:35

uh the mariad or married

18:38

m A R I D and I do apologize

18:40

for pronunciation of Arabic

18:42

here uh. In Lane's

18:45

Arabic English lexicon, these

18:49

types of Jin are said to be

18:51

the strongest, the ones

18:53

of great power in

18:56

in the in the Lanes lexicon,

18:59

there actually said to be evil.

19:01

But this isn't universally agreed on. These

19:03

are the ones we think. I've only think of the genie

19:05

in Aladdin. The ability to

19:07

do all these powerful things, even unto

19:10

granting wishes, if

19:12

you flatter them enough, if

19:14

they like you, if you do something

19:16

for them. Uh. And that's

19:19

so, that's what people

19:22

in the West generally think about. But that's

19:24

not all of the gin in the world. Now

19:27

you also have an affret and this is one

19:29

that I have heard of before. You

19:31

may have heard of this as well. It's often described

19:34

as this enormous winged

19:36

creature of fire. Think of Phoenix

19:39

almost in my head, and that's what I'm seeing.

19:41

Can be either sex, male or female.

19:44

It lives ground, underground,

19:46

and a lot of times it will it

19:48

will fly around ruins

19:50

of someplace where tragedy

19:52

has occurred or war has been fought, or

19:55

you know, where something has where

19:57

something has occurred where perhaps there was f

20:00

And then we get to it's called the sat

20:04

or the shy tan s h

20:06

i t a n s h a y

20:08

t a n. This this goes exactly

20:11

to what you were talking about. And also, uh,

20:14

the concept is like this that

20:18

during the creation of

20:20

the world. There is one

20:23

jin that refuses to bow to God,

20:26

and its name is Iblis. Sounds

20:28

familiar, sounds a little like, Oh, I

20:30

don't know, was

20:34

that the church lady Revercott, I

20:36

don't know, was it? So this is that

20:39

this would be considered the devil in the

20:41

Qoran, and the devil had followers

20:44

Jin who decided to side with

20:47

Iblis. Uh. And it's

20:50

it's interesting because while

20:53

there are parallels, they are you know,

20:55

there are differences as well. The

20:58

primary thing here is that these

21:01

creatures, which sometimes are not considered

21:03

gin but simply demons. Depending

21:06

upon which scholar you're talking to or

21:08

which book you're basing it on, is it based

21:10

on the Koran? Is it based on earlier

21:14

like folklore, right, academic studies,

21:16

So there are going to be differences in interpretation

21:18

here, but the main thing that always stays the same is

21:21

that these are the bad guys nice,

21:23

they're not cool. Uh. And then

21:26

speaking yeah, speaking

21:28

of not cool, there's something

21:31

else the google. So I

21:33

guess that's where that word comes from. Yes,

21:35

yeah, just so. Yeah. Nowadays

21:37

we think of gooules as

21:41

the m as similar

21:43

to a vampire, right, These undead creatures

21:46

usually that eat flesh rather than drink

21:49

blood for sustenance is

21:52

what I see. I see two d little pixelated

21:54

things. They tend to travel by

21:56

shambling, yes, the primary

22:00

form of locomotion. I actually think

22:02

I play the Fallout series a lot to

22:04

really enjoy those. And there is a whole um,

22:07

you know, group of characters called ghouls,

22:09

and they've basically been irradiated to the point

22:11

where there they look like you

22:13

know, zombies, but they don't necessarily

22:15

eat flesh unless they've kind

22:17

of passed a threshold and then they get

22:19

to a point where they will be exactly they're

22:21

called feral guals. Exactly do they have Do

22:24

they have any profound

22:26

abilities or they just rotting people? Um?

22:28

It depends. Like there are some that are so irradiated

22:31

that they can actually shoot like radiation

22:33

energy a you and like vomit like

22:35

you know, radiate radioactive goo. Um.

22:38

But you know, some of the ones that are that are still more

22:40

or less human, They you know, run taverns

22:43

things like that. You know, so that

22:45

the ghouls that we're talking about are a little different, I

22:47

know, but I love those guls.

22:50

There are several that you interact with in the

22:53

third ones that make you very happy.

22:55

Uh. But these these a lot of times

22:57

will inhabit a graveyard, right, or

22:59

other places that just there's no humans.

23:03

And this type of jin

23:06

has been said to be sired by

23:08

it bliss so not siding with this uh,

23:11

diabolical character against God,

23:14

but to have been created

23:17

by this diabolical character. And then there

23:19

is the gen j a n

23:21

n uh thought of as

23:24

the weakest type of jin. So

23:27

a few traditions divide

23:29

gin into three classes,

23:31

those who have wings and fly in the air, those

23:33

who resemble snakes and dogs, and those

23:35

who simply travel ceaselessly.

23:38

But they've also been described as creatures

23:40

of different forms vultures, snakes,

23:42

others like humanoid. They might even be dragons

23:44

or a number of other animals.

23:47

And and it said that some of these can

23:50

shape shift right, right, So

23:52

that would maybe another reason why we have

23:54

so many different depictions of animals

23:56

and very widely

23:59

varying animals. And let's

24:01

talk about gin and

24:03

magic. Did you

24:05

think I was gonna say jen and juice? You

24:08

were? I was hoping I would to hope springs

24:10

eternal. I guess that will be for after work,

24:12

right, Uh. In folklore,

24:14

of course, these beings are often

24:17

associated with magic,

24:19

its concept that exists in the

24:21

modern day still as the old rubb

24:23

a magic lamp, get some wishes bits. And

24:25

we mentioned that certain

24:28

historical humans like King Solomon

24:30

were said to control Jin.

24:33

And in some ways acts of magic entirely

24:36

have been described as a

24:38

magician entering into some sort

24:40

of contract with one or more of

24:43

these beings of Gin and worshiping

24:46

them, or I guess

24:48

paying some sort of obeesience in

24:50

order to receive information.

24:53

That's one of the big ones about unknown

24:56

things, so Claire sentience, clairvoyance,

24:59

or to received riches power.

25:02

Well, you know, the whole standard, the usual,

25:04

the usual, uh supervillain starter

25:07

package. And we've got some lines

25:09

from the Koran here I had mentioned

25:12

Iblis, right, We mentioned Iblis, who

25:14

would be Satan in in this

25:16

story. Satan

25:19

didn't follow or Iblis didn't follow

25:21

God's command to prostrate

25:24

himself unto man. So

25:26

he's still he still wouldn't play

25:28

ball. But he said, I'm not the one

25:30

to prostrate myself to a human being, because

25:33

you know, you made him out of clay. And

25:36

then to which point God

25:38

said, get out. And

25:41

the existence of Jin, as mentioned

25:43

in the Koran matters

25:46

immensely, maybe more so

25:48

than you might think, because

25:51

for many people they would say, well, Matt

25:53

Noel Ben, this is interesting, but this is

25:56

folklore. Why are you talking about

25:58

it? We'll tell you after

26:01

a word from our sponsor. Here's

26:12

where it gets crazy. You

26:14

see, belief in jin is

26:17

not something restricted two

26:19

thousands of years ago. It is not

26:21

something that exists

26:24

distant chronologically. There

26:27

is a modern belief in

26:30

jin. There are like people across

26:32

the world believe that jin

26:35

are real, and they want to prove that

26:37

it's real through science. Right though

26:40

not all Muslims believe in Jin,

26:43

many do, and some universities published

26:45

research and hold workshops seeking

26:47

to prove the existence of jin and

26:50

argue how they exist in

26:52

the modern world or how science can

26:54

help humanity understand the nature

26:57

of these beings. So an example would

26:59

be from jen an Invade Campus by

27:01

Purvis Hood boy Um a workshop

27:03

quote. A workshop title Jin's and Black

27:05

Magic was organized in Islamabad

27:07

by the Department of Humanities at the Comsats

27:10

Institute of Technology, which is the c I I

27:12

T, one of Pakistan's largest

27:14

universities. We invited speaker Razab

27:17

Xil Hawk introduced as a spiritual

27:20

cardiologist is reputedly

27:22

an expert on demonic possessions and

27:24

evil spirits. So this

27:27

is an elite university

27:29

in Pakistan, So this

27:31

this is an active area

27:35

of studying, right, It's it's

27:37

very important to say, for instance, unlike

27:39

um, unlike what would another

27:42

thing be fairies or

27:44

you know, uh, imagine insert

27:46

supernatural being here. Uh, it's

27:48

it's not as uh,

27:51

it's not as derided as those

27:53

kinds of beliefs. Or it's kind of like an an

27:56

angels expert came to speak at

27:58

Harvard or something as yeah,

28:00

that's not a bad comparison, you know, or at

28:02

M I T or something. So while

28:05

proposing theories about the nature of jen,

28:08

these researchers and academics have

28:10

at times have the times

28:13

said, well, science can help us understand

28:15

these were there, you'll see references

28:17

to maybe microorganisms or

28:19

parallel universes, or forms

28:21

of imperceivable energy

28:24

and higher frequencies. At this

28:26

point, the concept of gen is

28:28

not scientifically accepted in the West

28:31

or many non Muslim parts of the world.

28:33

And again we want to emphasize we're not painting

28:35

with a broad brush here. We're saying nothing

28:37

about all people of a specific

28:40

religion, where what we are establishing

28:42

instead is that people in the modern world

28:45

today, as you listen to this, believe

28:48

that jin exists. And that's

28:51

not just that they don't just exist

28:53

as some sort of passive, watchful entities,

28:55

right that you can maybe get some

28:57

wishes out of if you have the right ring or the

28:59

right lamp. They have agency,

29:01

They have the ability to do things

29:04

in the human world to humans,

29:06

and this is kind of the disturbing part. I

29:08

don't know, man, I feel like there's plenty of Christians

29:11

that would say the same thing about angels. I think

29:13

that's an excellent point. Yeah, no, absolutely.

29:16

But the creepy thing here is what if

29:18

these things do exist and

29:21

they can possess humans to

29:23

cause humans to do things that

29:26

they normally wouldn't, perhaps to

29:28

influence something politically, a

29:31

movement or something like that. I

29:34

that's one of the beliefs, right right, Yeah,

29:36

there's this belief that jin are

29:39

able to possess human

29:41

beings. And this this is a weird

29:43

thing. So you can go right now

29:45

on YouTube and see footage

29:48

of what what are said

29:50

to be exorcisms. And

29:52

we we talked about this a little bit in a previous

29:55

episode when we cover the

29:57

differences between exorcisms around the world,

29:59

you know, like the Catholic Church has a very

30:01

specific right and

30:04

uh and in Islam there

30:07

are specific rights as well.

30:10

You can also find people

30:13

who are you know, who are describing

30:15

the signs of possession by a jin or

30:17

the signs of someone trafficking and magic,

30:20

the sign that you have encountered

30:22

somehow a jin, and

30:24

the possession is typically

30:27

exorcised through uh

30:29

the recitation of the Koran, seeking

30:32

refuge, remembrance and supplicators

30:35

uh as. It's also

30:37

a way that other sicknesses or problems

30:39

might be addressed. And I really

30:42

like people to check out our our

30:44

previous episode on exorcism

30:46

because we had an interesting conversation

30:49

that I guess we won't get into too much

30:51

here, but I want to know what you folks think

30:55

is possession real in

30:57

your experience because we know

30:59

that historically signs of mental

31:01

illness were mistaken for possession.

31:04

We know that signs of grief

31:07

or maybe psychotic breaks or maybe

31:09

even mental disabilities

31:11

all mistaken for possession at some point in the

31:13

past, which is a horrific thing.

31:15

But according to people who believe this jim

31:19

Jin possession is something

31:21

that experts can clearly discern

31:24

through the use of these techniques drive

31:27

drive the Jin out, and

31:30

unlike demons possessing people in Catholic

31:32

or Christian belief systems,

31:35

Jin are not necessarily evil.

31:39

Yeah, that's a huge difference. Have free

31:41

will. So I was looking

31:44

at in the course of research, I was looking at,

31:46

uh, some some

31:49

scholars, some Islamic scholars

31:51

talking about Jin possession,

31:53

and one of the big reasons for

31:56

possession, according to some of these sources

31:59

was love, like a jin

32:01

being in love with a human,

32:04

with the human that they're possessing, or with another human

32:06

that they're possessing a to get

32:09

to be What

32:11

if we take it back a step to our early

32:14

description of kind of the preconceived

32:16

ideas of a genie or a gin,

32:19

and as we've gotten to where

32:21

we are now in the podcast, I think we've

32:23

sort of taking that apart a little

32:25

bit. And I'm just wondering, is that do

32:28

you consider that version those

32:30

points we made about you know, being chained

32:32

to a an artifact of sub sort and

32:34

you know, granting wishes and things like that, and ultimately

32:37

being a force for kind of chaos

32:40

based on what happens when those wishes

32:42

are granted. Is all that just from kind of

32:44

like whitewashed like re tellings

32:47

of you know, folk stories and made to

32:49

be more palatable for a wider audience,

32:51

sort of like in the same way that you know, grim

32:53

fairy tales were much much nastier

32:56

and then they're sort of retooled. You

32:58

know, that's really question, what do

33:01

you think that. I would say, that's exactly

33:03

what's happened, because we've got one specific

33:05

type of gin that

33:07

are being described by most of the popular

33:09

culture that the myriad.

33:12

I don't know how to say it correctly. I think it's the

33:14

mariad uh. And you

33:17

know, so you've got that one particular story

33:19

and then you kind of expand out and say, well, this is what

33:21

all genies are like when you look at it through

33:23

that lens. I think that's what's

33:25

happening. Yeah, I can see the religious

33:28

syncretism occurring there as

33:30

well. And it's also important for

33:32

us to note that modern

33:35

belief in jin is not necessarily

33:39

unique in in that um

33:41

just in the process of this sort of belief,

33:44

for instance, there are other persistent

33:46

beliefs in things that you know,

33:48

the rest of the world will call supernatural rather

33:51

than factual. Ghost of ancestors

33:53

are still commonly venerated in religions

33:55

around the world. And then invisible

33:58

elves in Iceland. You guys heard about

34:00

that, right They they're real guys,

34:03

I think they're real. The who do folk?

34:06

Uh? These elves in Icelandic folklore.

34:09

The belief is so

34:11

commonplace, or

34:14

purportedly so commonplace, that

34:16

it affects modern construction. Also,

34:19

I one thing that fascinates

34:22

me is when when

34:25

people look at beliefs

34:28

in spirits, and you

34:31

know, there are some people who can put up a very strong

34:33

argument that jin

34:36

are not spirits so much as they

34:38

are another type of

34:40

living, thinking being. You

34:42

know, because they do live, they're

34:45

not undead. So this

34:48

stuff astonishes and

34:51

amazes me, both the growth

34:53

of the folklore to the

34:56

modern day beliefs. And I know for

34:58

certain that it is

35:00

easy for some people to feel

35:03

maybe condescending in

35:05

some way and say, oh, look at this outdated

35:07

belief. And I live in the modern age.

35:10

And because I live in the modern

35:12

age, I know better than these people

35:14

who believe differently. For me, but especially

35:17

if you live in the developed

35:20

world, I would ask you to

35:23

examine some of the common beliefs we have.

35:25

Future historians are going to think

35:27

that we were so foolish when we

35:29

explained the following situation. Yes,

35:32

back in the day, we used to hop into these

35:34

machines the weight thousands and thousands of pounds

35:37

and we're we're powered by explosions

35:39

internally, and we would drive

35:41

within feet of each other because we called

35:44

it driving. And they would say, well, hey, wait,

35:46

how did you do it safely? And we said, well,

35:48

we had this honor system. You see. We painted

35:51

lines on places where we would

35:53

drive, and we just said we wouldn't hit

35:56

each other. And would say, oh, but so is

35:58

that how you avoided accidents? So we'd say, no,

36:00

no, accidents happened constantly, constantly.

36:03

We we just we believed we were safer

36:06

but got hurt, right, right,

36:08

So I what I'm what I'm saying is that it

36:11

is an error for anyone

36:16

me, Noel Matt

36:19

you perhaps listener to assume

36:22

that we have

36:24

the conclusive and final

36:27

answer on

36:29

what we believe in the worth of what we believe,

36:32

right, So I would say, we have to be very careful

36:34

not to cast dispersions or stones.

36:37

You know, if I'm in Iceland and

36:39

somebody tells me not to mess with a rock because

36:41

something lives there. Yeah,

36:45

whether or not I personally believe, I'm not gonna

36:47

launch into some lecture

36:49

you know, about the nature of geology.

36:52

Uh. And this, this is where

36:54

we leave it. We

36:56

are a world filled to the brim

36:58

with people. They're billions of us. And

37:02

amongst those billions, depending

37:05

on who you believe and what you're reading,

37:08

there exists billions

37:11

more unseen things

37:13

that in terms of philosophy

37:16

and mental ability, quite similar

37:18

to us. So just

37:21

like our earlier, earlier

37:23

work on coded languages, you know, again,

37:26

there's this invisible world

37:29

and more and more I think about it, we're running

37:31

into these concepts of invisible worlds.

37:33

We talked about train hoppers

37:35

and some things as serial killer cults,

37:38

when we talked about jinn.

37:40

So that's that's really what I see

37:43

us going into. More and more are these ideas

37:45

of hidden worlds and this

37:48

concept of what we can and

37:50

cannot prove. But

37:52

I have a question, uh for you

37:54

guys listeners, do you have any in your neck

37:56

of the woods. Do you have any um

37:59

popular or folklore beliefs in

38:02

unseen or supernatural beings

38:04

and If so, do you believe

38:06

the stories? What could

38:08

you tell us some specifics? Yeah,

38:10

do you have any anecdotes where you maybe

38:13

have had an encounter? I don't want to hear those,

38:15

Yeah, that you could or could not explain. And

38:18

I'd like to close on a question for

38:20

you guys. If if

38:23

we each had a wish

38:25

and it was and you couldn't wish for more wishes,

38:28

what would your wish be? Oh?

38:31

Man, this is tough. I think I would

38:33

probably. I mean, there's two

38:36

you can split it down the middle. You can go for like a very

38:39

self serving wish, or you could go for a

38:41

wish that helps others. But then you get

38:43

into that situation where it's all about the language.

38:45

It's all about the wording of the wish, really

38:48

careful, you know, because you might say I want

38:50

world peace and it means that everyone

38:52

dies, right. Or you might say you might

38:54

say I want to live forever, and you do, but you

38:57

still age and everywhere somewhere

38:59

yea, all your loved ones die around

39:01

you. Um, I guess I would just I

39:03

would wish I would do some

39:06

uh, some very carefully

39:08

worded version of just you

39:11

know, just wanting to never

39:15

you know, like be able to always

39:18

make sure I can take care of my family

39:20

and myself and just have maybe

39:22

not absurd wealth, but just be

39:25

comfortable all the time and never have to

39:27

worry about paying bills and anything

39:29

of that nature. Just have some sort of like maybe

39:32

maybe it's a magic platinum

39:34

card that you can just pay for everything with

39:36

and you never get a bill, you know,

39:38

something like that. I know that's very selfish

39:41

and boring, but I just feel like the world past

39:43

one would you know, could potentially

39:45

be disastrous. I

39:48

would ask for a single,

39:52

let's say, a single tomato plant that

39:57

always has tomatoes on it. Always,

39:59

no matter how many ties you take from the plant, there's

40:01

always more tomatoes. I think you get

40:03

sick of tomatoes. I don't care, man, Yeah,

40:08

and I will never and yeah this

40:10

caveat at the end, I will never never

40:12

get sick of I can always sell the tomatoes. What

40:14

I'm saying, have you been going through some tomato related

40:17

shenanigans? Man? Are you okay? I was

40:19

trying to imagine something that would be super manageable,

40:22

that would be small. I was trying to

40:24

think of ways that it could hurt me. And you don't think

40:26

you have to tomatoes

40:29

and you you didn't mention the size

40:31

of the planet, So what if

40:34

it's so huge it's

40:36

over It's okay. We we don't have a genie

40:39

in the room. What about you, Ben, I

40:41

have no idea,

40:44

and I'm not sure I want to reveal that much about my personality,

40:47

but pretend

40:50

I would, Okay. I would probably wish

40:52

for in a very carefully worded way, as Noel

40:55

said, I would wish for, uh,

40:58

some series of superpowers

41:01

and try to sneak them all in as like the

41:03

same thing. My one wish would be a run

41:05

on sentence obviously, just a

41:07

c y A right, And then I

41:09

would try to use those powers to

41:12

make the world a better place,

41:14

because it's all about the journey, isn't it?

41:16

And uh, And I also think I'm

41:19

also concerned, just in this

41:21

fictional world of granted wishes, I

41:23

also wonder if there's some higher

41:26

chance or likelihood of things going wrong

41:28

if the wish affects more people. So

41:30

maybe if you just wish for something for yourself

41:33

and then use that to affect

41:35

a larger change, it's safer. It's really good.

41:37

Ben, Even something like invisibility.

41:39

Let's think about how often that comes into play

41:41

as being the ultimate power to get

41:44

things done, you know what I mean. So you

41:46

could certainly affect some change

41:48

with invisibility. You could sneak into so many places

41:50

in Bermuda, in Singapore and

41:53

you could do the next Panama papers. I would

41:56

well, you know that's the thing. Would you be invisible

41:58

to the human eye, visible to everything? Could

42:01

you wear clothes because I don't want to try to see

42:03

you. If you want to be invisible at

42:05

will to all, you

42:11

just fall through the map listeners

42:13

that listeners, Uh you know,

42:16

Matt and I wish you guys could see the way that

42:18

Nole's eyes lit up when they said through all

42:21

that was great. Uh yeah, I would go

42:23

for invulnerability teleportation.

42:26

I would say, psiotic powers, just so

42:28

I can get all of them. Just say all the X

42:30

men. That's all you have to say.

42:32

Oh no, man, there's some X men. You aren't that

42:35

great. But that

42:37

that gen is gonna call shenanigans on that wish

42:39

though, dude, Like I mean there, it's like, man,

42:41

come on, yeah, they've seen it all. They can't you

42:43

can't do that. They pick

42:46

one be and immortal

42:48

and then they would plush you with their giant thumb.

42:51

Yeah, or maybe it'll short circuit

42:53

and Ll'll say, you know, I've had a hard

42:56

week. Been the best thing you do is a cheese steak,

42:58

and I'll say, thanks, dude, cool man,

43:00

I appreciate it. Never ending cheese

43:02

steak,

43:04

whenever ending cheese steak.

43:08

Oh dude, that's crazy. You could

43:10

feed the world with one cheese cheese steak

43:12

that never ends. I

43:15

think, you know, I think we're optimistic

43:17

here and we're thinking of we're

43:20

thinking of the best possible outcomes.

43:22

But I'm going to spend some time. Uh,

43:25

I'm gonna spend some time pondering what a decent

43:27

wish would be and how you would write it. We

43:30

hope that you enjoyed this episode.

43:32

Ladies and gentlemen. What kind

43:34

of stuff would you wish for?

43:37

And please do remember to tell us about what

43:39

kind of things are beings you've

43:41

heard about in your neck of

43:43

the global woods. We want to

43:45

hear from you. And speaking of hearing from

43:47

you, it's time for shut

43:49

out corners.

43:53

Yes, that's right, shout out corner the moment

43:55

in every show where we shout out

43:58

listeners who request said shout

44:00

out um. First today

44:03

we have one for east Bay,

44:05

newt a k A newty.

44:08

He or she is interested in hearing more

44:10

about planet nine, and I

44:12

fear I can't help with that, can you? What's what's

44:14

those nine? It's the proposed

44:17

ninth planet that we found in the Solar

44:19

System that's out over

44:21

there by Pluto, way out there. I missed

44:23

that one, guys. I want to know more too.

44:26

It hasn't been confirmed yet, but it's

44:28

we're pretty sure there's something there

44:30

from from the the

44:32

way the other planets move. Well,

44:34

let's dig into it. That's an excellent suggestion,

44:37

Thank you, NUTI. Our next shout

44:39

out is from Justin for

44:41

this quote, specifically, the

44:44

best way to find a needle in a haystack

44:46

is to set the hay on fire.

44:48

This goes back to our earlier conversation about

44:50

the Panama papers. Uh and you

44:53

can find Justin he is at math

44:56

math aug and that's m A T.

44:58

H an you g g if

45:00

you want to follow them any here more interesting quotes. If

45:03

I remember correctly, though, I think the analogy we

45:05

used was a needle and a pile of needles.

45:07

Unfortunately, needles are not flammable. In

45:11

that case, it was needles on needles and

45:13

finally today shout out to Debbie's

45:16

utant, I think of saying that correctly. She wrote to us

45:18

on Facebook. She said very nice

45:20

things, and she also said, if we are

45:22

ever in the Florida Keys, gentlemen, we

45:25

are invited out to her bar where she bartends,

45:28

and she will, she said, we will have an

45:30

extra special time. I guess because she would

45:32

get as drunk. Game

45:35

on. And

45:37

that's the end of this classic episode.

45:40

If you have any thoughts or questions

45:42

about this episode, you can

45:44

get into contact with us in a number of different

45:46

ways. One of the best is to give us a call.

45:48

Our number is one eight three three

45:51

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45:53

you don't want to do that, you can send us a good

45:55

old fashioned email. We are conspiracy

45:58

at i heart radio dot com.

46:01

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46:03

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