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The Djinn
A Sophisticated Conceptualization of Both Pathologies and Therapies1
Tobie Nathan

his chapter attempts to convey the popular and clinical implications of the use of the concept djinn. Djinns could be defined as invisible beings capable of occupying the body and controlling the psychological functioning of a person or a family with the goal of obtaining a compensation from human beings. This compensation can take the form of an offering, a sacrifice, an altar, or even a cult. Djinn is an Arabic word derived from a prolific root.

DJINN: RELATED WORDS

Uterus Janna is the womb, the uterus, the internal space where fertility originates, and is therefore probably associated with the earth. Djinns come from both the
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belly and the earth; they arise from women and spring forth from gardens. The word janna evokes the mystery of fecundity. What is it, in the earth, that makes plants grow? What is it, in a womans uterus, that allows the fetus to develop? Janna refers not only to the container but also to the principle that acts from withina force necessarily hidden. Djinn, first and foremost, refers to an invisible being (Guedmi, 1984). Madness In Arabic, as in other Semitic languages, the plural of a word signifies a general concept. For instance, the word lailat means nights or, more accurately, the concept of night. It is associated with the Hebrew mythical figure Lilith. In essence, it is the night personified. The plural of djinn, jenoun, or jnoun yields junan or jenan, which means madness. This implies a compelling idea clinicians should reflect upon: To know every single djinn would make one the master of madness. And how can one come to know every djinn? By treating the insane! Indjinned Majnoun means to be under the control of a djinnto be indjinned.2 It is commonly used to refer to madness, with all the allusive, derogatory, ludicrous, and insulting connotations that are associated with it. Fetus Janin, the fetus, is the product or tenant of the janna. The fetus is as much the tenant of the womb as the djinn is of the woman it possesses. Janin also means little djinn, probably because the fetus is always hiddenthe djinn is hidden in the night and in the earth in the same way a fetus is hidden in the womb. Janinboth fetus and little djinnreminds us also that without the help of djinns, human beings could not reproduce. And we know how prone these invisible beings are to appear to pregnant women (Nathan & Moro, 1989). Garden Jnna means garden, the place of all the jnoun (plural of djinn), of all the active and hidden principles, where the constant work of these invisible forces is most manifest. Jnna, the garden, is a paradise for jnoun.

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Paradise The word jennat can be translated as paradise. This is probably associated with the idea that once we arrive in heaven, the secret of treesnot only the secret of the tree of knowledge, but of all the trees, hence of all the jnounwill be revealed to us. It is the place where all jnoun are visible.

Cadaver Janan means both cadaver and tomb, where the unceasing activity of the dead, resulting from metamorphoses of the world of the living, manifests. Thus, it is not surprising to hear that cemeteries house jnoun. And according to the Quran, jnoun feed on bones.

JNOUNS ECOLOGY
Although they live in the hidden world and also in gardens, deserts, forests, bushes, garbage piles, ruins, sewage pipes, and the blood of animals (I even heard of a djinn that had settled inside the mechanism of a watch!), jnoun are similar to humans. There are males and females, and they reproduce through sexual activity. However, little is known of their mating behaviors. They may also have a religious affiliation. The Muslim jnoun are the least dangerous of all, because it is possible to negotiate with them by invoking Allahs name. Christians jnoun are more difficult but less so than Jewish jnoun, who are almost beyond hope. As for pagan jnoun (kafrin), they are the most feared because of their deafness to Muslim arguments and because they are the most violent of all. A diagnosis of a Kafar (pagan) djinn always indicates fear for the patients life. The jnoun are thus invisible beings whose existence is largely accepted, including by the Prophet, who converted several tribes. From a historical and cultural standpoint, jnoun is a generic term undoubtedly referring to the divinities of the populations converted to Islam prior to their conversion (similar to how descriptions of the devil referred to the pagan practices of the Christianized populations in Europe). Nevertheless, more than 12 centuries after Islamization, the jnoun are still present not only in the countries of Maghreb, but also in Arabia, in Yemen, in Somalia, in Djibouti, in India, in Pakistan, and in all of Africa. They are still there when it comes to interpreting the negativities of existence, and they often constitute the soul of traditional therapeutic practices.

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OTHER NAMES
StrangerVisitor Instead of the word djinn, the words afritt and zar are used in Egypt and in Sudan. In my understanding, the affrit differs from the djinn by its location. An afritt is not a garden being like the djinn but a water being who likes to hide in the whirlpool of the Nile. The word zar in Arabic, Amharic, and Hebrew is always embedded within a chain of meaning around the concepts of stranger or visitor. Jnoun are radically different from us humansnot our fellow men, yet still our brothers, brothers of a different species, made of a different substance. The zars are feared strangers to whom we offer our bodies with the hope of understanding them, much in the same way men have intercourse with women in order to understand womens logic, and women with men to untangle mens sexuality. Thanks to zars, we learn of another species way of knowing. Merchants are the most likely people to encounter jnoun. Jnoun appear wherever strangers are bound to meet one another, such as at the soukthe market. Evidently, they abound in metropolitan cities. A Malian healer asked me once,How can you treat patients in Paris; there are so many jnoun there! The words are not equivalent, however. In each case, a universe emerges in the background: Djinn calls forth the invisible, zar calls forth the stranger, and afrit the whirlpool. Winds Another interesting series of words is derived from Ria, which has the same meaning as jnoun but evokes very different associations. The singular word riha means smell, rih means breathe, wind, and roh refers to the soul (in Hebrew, rouah). The life of a human being, his or her identity, is associated with the breathing, the specific smell that emanates from him or her. We understand thus that the Ethiopian and Sudanese masters of zars are masters of perfumes. For them, healing means changing a persons smell, the sign of the active principle that makes a living being. This active principle is hidden in the blood. The specialists of zar seem to have acquired its mastery in order to use the blood animals. First, the animal principle must be removed before introducing the perfume, the soul reconstructed by the master of the soul, professor of perfumes. Landlords Melk, used for example by the gnaouas in Morocco, refers to landlord. It is close in significance to malek, the king (in Hebrew, melekh). The concept

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suggests a world so full of landlords that if we could see them, we would not dare to set a foot on the ground for the fear of trampling one, a world far from the one suggested by modern republics composed of citizens transparent to themselves and autonomous! We should consider the gathering rites of melk as a sophisticated form of democracy, a parliament of the invisibles that allows us to summon the owners to whom we belong. We can indeed pretend to be emancipated, yet those thoughts that cross our minds or the mood that suddenly overwhelms us remind us that we are the property of interests whose intentions are very difficult to decipher, even for ourselves. Master In Hebrew, the word baal signifies landlord, but also suggests master and husband.We can say your baal,to signify your husband, but the baalare the gods of the past, those animal gods with whom, according to the Bible, people committed so many immoral acts. What the jnoun do to humans today is precisely what was depicted in the Mesopotamian, Babylonian, and Canaanite cults to the baals: copulation with divinities, service, and sacrificial offerings. Interestingly, there are also similarities with Beninese descriptions of their relationships with their Voodoo divinities: for example, voduno, slave of the vodn, and vodnsi, priestess of the vodn or the vodns spouse. If we want a correct rendition of the word baal, we have to combine master,landlord, and husband, as well as forceand animal. These are all characteristics that we find in reference to demons in the Bible. Demons In Hebrew, shed (plural shedim) can be translated into demon. But the same word in Arabic, shed, means the force and to pull. We find the same root in Hebrew, in one of Gods names, the one referring to His strengthel shaddai, The Almighty. Shur Spells are profoundly connected to jnoun. No one can cast a spell on someone without the help of a djinn; conversely, no one can undo a spell without penetrating the world of jnoun. A person can be the target of a shur as a result of a spiteful act perpetrated against him or her, either by someone jealous or envious who made him- or herself the magical objectthe shurdestined to destroy the victim or by a shhar, a sorcerer, enlisted to achieve this goal. The symptoms of such an affliction can range from feelings of apathy and weakness to a madness episode.

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The shur refers both to the action of the sorcerer and the object by which the sorcerer achieves his goals. The efficacy of the shur, demonstrated by an infinite number of testimonies, is unquestionable. What remains to be understood, however, is the concrete processes through which they affect people (on the same topic, see Mauss, 1902, especially his discussion of the notion of Mana).

ECOLOGY OF DJINNS
An attack by a djinn is a complex event. The vocabulary and therapies used carry many meanings that are sometimes contradictory. Quranic Therapies Quranic therapists (cheikh, fkih, or taleb) do not negotiate with the djinn, because doing so would entail associating oneself with pagan forces. Instead, they pray, call forth God, and threaten or beat the djinn in order to get it to leave. This can be equated to an exorcism. A North African patient describes the treatment a taleb provided to his son: He takes the thumb of the child and prays until the child falls.He throws water with the Koran on the woman or the man, and the devil can come out. He speaks with the devil. The devil who took my son went to his place, not in a dream but in reality! He even appeared to my wife and said to her: You have hurt me and the child. He started calling forth his own, the other devils. Congregations of Possessed Other therapies, often practiced by women, seek to tame the djinn. Here, the sick one is initiated into a congregation, a zaouia. These patients are future seers suffering from an initiatory illness. The therapeutic rite is a sort of religious ritual.3 Therapists Associated With Djinns by Personal Contracts A third category includes therapists who have at their service auxiliary spirits (also jnoun) that they send to fight or convince the djinn responsible for the affliction to leave the sick one. The Price of Treatment To heal their 10-year-old son, the Hok family requested help from the three types of therapists, as is generally the case in similar situations.

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The Quranic healer was ineffective, as is often the case. Those working in congregations were not able to make Souleyman enter a trance state. These attempts were very expensive for the family (~$13,500 USD). The last therapist consulted called forth his own jnoun and ordered them to find the spell that caused the affliction. Mrs Hok: He wrote a scripture that he then burned . . . he wrote with ink made of sheeps wool . . . he burned the scripture until the jnoun appeared. Then, he started speaking to them. He said to me: put your hand on the basin; I will count until three . . . put your hand on the basin . . . if you find something. And I found it. He took the object out. In a sleeve of one the childs t-shirts, something written in red, with blood . . . and also pieces of bent iron, two scriptures in the sleeve . . . eleven knots on a silk thread . . . so that he would be sick for eleven years, it seems. . . . And a piece of wire in the shape of a hooklike a fish-hookall of this in a t-shirt with earth on it and fresh grass. (Nathan, 1998) The Unfolding of a Therapy The healer thus made a piece of cloth from a shirt recognized by the parents as belonging to their son appear under a basin, associated with a number of objects. The consultation presented here took place in the Paris metropolitan area in 1999. The child, who had not gone to school since he was 4 years old, was starting to show severe disabilities. Psychological interventions were systematically refused by both the child and the parents. This treatment was the only one that proved to be effective. Confronted with such a case, a clinician faces a number of difficult problems: (a) the language of the parents; (b) their universeincluding their conceptions, reasoning, and certainties; (c) the reality, the coherence, and the efficacy of the professionals acting in parallel with this universeFrench and North African healers, in France as well as in their home country. Ethnopsychiatry seeks to address these clinical problems, as much in theory as in technique, taking care not to disqualify any of the professionals connected together by the affliction of the person who is possessed (Hacking, 1988).

THE DJINN MACHINERY

A Necessary Notion: The Ecological Niche It is not sufficient to classify disorders. Indeed, when a disorder exists within a culture, it is always associated with beings, objects, professionals, a network of

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professionals, a vocabulary, and a language. Thus, the disorder takes on a life of its own and becomes incomprehensible. Hence, I follow Hacking (1988) and consider an ecological niche rather than a syndrome (see, e.g., Abdelhafid, 1995; Brunel, 1926; Crapanzano, 1973; Pques, 1976, 1991). Djinn thus encompasses all of the following: beings possessing given characteristics, disorders, and therapies; cults to pay tribute to jnoun, then referred to as mlouk, landlords(Deleuze & Parnet, 1977, p. 104); networks of congregations (zaouias) devoted to the same spirit, extending all over the country and meeting every year for a ceremony and animal sacrifices; as well as perfumes, networks of solidarities, hierarchies, constraints to invention, a market, and so on. Djinn is a machine (in Deleuze and Parnets [1977] sense): Machine . . . this does not mean either mechanical or organic. . . . The machine . . . is a proximity grouping between independent and heterogeneous terms. . . . What defines a machine assemblage is the shift of a center of gravity along an abstract line. (Deleuze & Parnet, 1977, p. 2) It is a machine that pushed a human society to marry, to borrow Deleuze and Parnets (1977) terms, with strangers. We can posit that the consequences of such a union include an identification of these strangers and an in-depth knowledge of their nature, of their habitat, and of their ways of being and acting. For as someone becomes, what he is becoming changes as much [as] he does himself. Becoming are not phenomena of imitation or assimilation, but of a double-capture, of non-parallel evolution, of nuptials between two reigns. Nuptials are always against nature. Nuptials are the opposite of a couple. (Deleuze & Parnet, 1977, p. 51) A society that is passionate about the existence of djinnsinterested in their sexuality, their habits, and their intentis also profoundly intrigued and preoccupied by otherness. There are only two ways of knowing jnoun: through ancient texts, presumably written following encounters with such beings, and through the afflictions that currently affect human beings. The world of jnoun is a world of thoughts, not a world of belief. It is both supported by and different from philosophy and religion. It resembles philosophy in its search for the characteristics of these beings, in the same way philosophers seek to identify new concepts. But it also resembles religion, because the beings in question are alive and have intentions. Interacting with such beings has consequences. Where religion builds groups, contributing to the creation of social spaces and to the intelligence of the weak and the deprived, the world of jnoun leads those who venture in it to explore the margins, the other side, the escape

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hatches. Religion sets up order; the world of jnoun gathers those who are excluded from this order, treats them, and facilitates their reintegration in specific niches. If religion builds walls, the world of jnoun creates openings. The philosophical world resembles the world of the jnoun by its obligation to create, but it is less accountable to lifes demands. Identifying the right djinn leads to the healing of the patient or the worsening of the patients illness. The construction of a good concept has much less obvious results in life. But philosophy is able to disintegrate worlds by emptying them of meaning, by deconstructing them. In the end, a healer, an ally of the jnoun, is a religious person without a religion, a philosopher lacking that hatred for the world as it is. Hakim (pseudonym) turned to the Centre Georges Devereux after many problems with other therapists. The following case report is from an ethnopsychiatric consultation at the Centre Georges Devereux. The clinical observation was that Hakims affliction stemmed from having the heart of a female djinn in his male body.4 The djinn speaks to him: He hears her within himselfher voice giving him absurd orders: repeat 9999 times the fatiha,rape yourself as though you were a woman, throw away the bread upon which you pronounced the bismillah.5 She also gives him doubts (wesswesses in Arabic): You thought about God while going to the washroom, and so on. He feels his thoughts are controlled by her. His reflexes and automatic manifestations are animated by incomprehensible intentions. And apparently, his actions also belong to another. She acts: She hates his wife. She swears at her, even hits her at times. She stops him from making love with her, makes him leave the bed when she is there. God only knows why, but she gets angry at him and hits him, too. His body curls up in impossible postures, his face grimaces, and he groans from the pain. She cheats on him: When she desires a man, she makes him have an erection and pushes him to look at the man with enamored eyes. She speaks to him about the people he meets. She promises to leave him alone if he fulfills such and such obligationfor instance, to apply a sticky and smelly substance to his hair or to pull up his left sleeve. He complies, but she remains, imposing more rules. He tries to defend himself. He listens to a tape with Quranic verses for hours. He has consulted dozens of therapists, Muslim healers (fkih, taleb, cheikh). One of them diagnosed him: a female djinn, a djenneia, is living in his body. The remedy? Quranic scriptures, purification rituals, and fumigation. Nothing specific to this particular being. This treatment yielded no results. It is easy to guess what his psychiatrists thought: unconscious homosexuality and delusions. They prescribed neuroleptic medication and recommended psychotherapy.

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The side effects from the drugs were unbearable, and he threw them away after 2 weeks.As for psychotherapists, he consulted with at least 10 different ones, but none of these believed in djinns. A djinn forces the afflicted to reconstruct part of the world; it calls for the introduction of a new name. No one was able to give Hakim the name of the female djinn. What one should do to really help Hakim: Treat the djinn (find the invisible)get him to settle in, identify the objects he prefers, the actions that calm him, the words that capture him and allow the djinn to control him. Treat the zaridentify the stranger, find out his name, his ancestry, his tribe, his religion. Treat the rih, his smell, his affections, his passions; find out where his intentions are nourished. Treat the shed, the forceidentify the benefits that the patient can derive from marrying with the invisible. Refrain from thinking that Hakim is homosexual, hysterical, schizophrenic, or borderline; but do not think either that possession by a djinn could be a sort of item in a new semiologythe treatment would lead to a catastrophe. Hakim is a place, a locationthe location of a union, to borrow from Deleuze and Parnet (1977): There are no longer binary machines: question-answer, masculinefeminine, man-animal, etc. The wasp and the orchids provide the example. The orchid seems to form a wasp image, but in fact there is a wasp-becoming of the orchid, an orchid-becoming of the wasp, a double capture since what each becomes changes no less than that which becomes. [We could add here: a becoming-djinn of the man; a becoming-man of the djinn]. The wasp becomes part of the orchids reproductive apparatus at the same time as the orchid becomes the sexual organ of the wasp. One and the same becoming, a single bloc of becoming, or, as Rmy Chauvin says: an a-parallel evolution of two beings who have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. (p. 2) Practitioners, researchers, theologians, and philosophers sometime describe djinns exclusively in terms of their objective characteristics, thus transforming them into objects of belief, and recognizing their existence only in the realm of the human psyche. I hope to have demonstrated here how such

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a position, though it may appear reasonable, in effect releases us from the obligation to understand and unfold the process in its complex entirety. Thus, to say that djinns are imaginary beings in which North and West African populations believe would be both a crime against the mind, depriving us of the subtle chain of reasoning that pushes us to search, and an act of aggression against the populations in question.

WHAT DJINNS WANT FROM HUMANS

Muslims consider djinns as vestiges of a long-gone past. Many commentators, anthropologists, and specialists of the history of religions are following their lead (see, e.g., Doutt, 1908/1984, an excellent monograph despite the trappings of the typical thinking in those days). However, what characterizes jnoun in contrast to divinities is their a priori indetermination.Whereas a god is honored in the ways that suit the god, no one knows in advance the identity and the specific demands of a djinn, and these are never known in advance. They are a perfume requiring a specific fabrication, which is at once a creation and a creature. They are a color, mixed by hand from specific ingredients. They are objectsnot a generic amulet, but one created ex nihilo for the occasion. And the actions that will be ritualized must be created for each djinn. They are demons. Creating conceptssuch would be the work of the philosopher. Identifying new djinns, never encountered before; naming them, defining their demands, organizing specific ritualssuch would be the work of the therapist in the world of djinns. And finally, what do jnoun want? They want to stop the movement of the world, to freeze life; they dream of being like their human brothers: settled down, territorialized. But they want to stop the world to their benefit, to become the only organizing principle of the universe, from which all the others would be derived. Here is the secret: The jnoun want to become God. Sometimes, they succeed. For instance, Dionysos can be considered a sort of djinn, one who has succeeded in becoming a god. Indeed, after setting up his cult in Asia, he moves on to Thebes, seeking recognition as a god: And so, along all Asias swarming littoral of towering cities where Greeks and foreign nations, mingling, live, my progress made. There I taught my dances to the feet of living men, establishing my mysteries and rites that I might be revealed on earth for what I am: a god. And thence to Thebes. (Euripides, 1959, p. 156)

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NOTES
1. Chapter translated from the French by Patricia Poulin. 2. Majnoun, taken by a djinn,indjinned; madroub, hit [by a djinn]; markoub, mounted [by a djinn]; mamlouk, possessedas when we are the owner of land or of an apartment[by a djinn]; masloukh, rubbed until blood is shed [by a djinn]; malbouss, worn [by a djinn]as a piece of clothing is worn[by a djinn], and so forth. 3. Examples of the same type of ritual abound: Moroccan congregationsGnawa, Hamadchas, Aissaouas; the ndop in Senegal; the djina don in Mali, and so forth. 4. The names of people and locations as well as any details that could lead to the identification of the family have been modified. 5. Bismillah,in the name of God, a Muslim conjuration widely used to keep beings from other worlds at bayboth nonbelievers and spirits.

REFERENCES
Abdelhafid, C. (1995). La thrapie syncrtique des Gnaoua marocains. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Universit de Paris VII. Brunel, R. (1926). Essais sur la confrrie religieuse des Assoa au Maroc. Paris: Geuthner. Crapanzano, V. (1973). The Hamadsha: A study in Moroccan ethnopsychiatry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Deleuze, G., & Parnet, C. (1977). Dialogues. London: Athlone Press. Doutt, dE. (1984). Magie et religion dans lAfrique du Nord. Paris: J. Maisonneuve et P. Geuthner. (Original work published 1908) Euripides. (1959). The Bacchae. In W. Arrowsmith (Ed. & Trans.), Three tragedies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Guedmi, J. (1984). Rve des doubles ou Fatiha loublie. Nouvelle revue dethnopsychiatrie, 2, 1334. Hacking, I. (1988). Mad travelers: Reflections on the reality of transient mental illness. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Mauss, M. (1902). Esquisse dune thorie gnrale de la magie. Lanne sociologique. Retrieved January 10, 2005, from http://www.uqac.uquebec.ca/zone30/Classiques_ des_sciences_sociales/classiques/mauss_marcel/socio_et_anthropo/1_esquisse_ magie/esquisse_magie.pdf Nathan, T. (1998). Georges Devereux et lethnopsychiatrie clinique. Nouvelles revue dethnopsychiatrie, 34, 718, 3536. Nathan, T., & Moro, M. R. (1989). Enfants de djinn: Evaluation ethnopsychanalytique des interactions prcoces. In S. Lebovici, P. Mazet, & J. P. Visier (Eds.), Lvaluation de interactions prcoces entre le bb et ses partenaires (pp. 307339). Geneva, Switzerland: EHSEL. Pques, V. (1976). Le monde des gnawa. In J. Poirier & R. Raveau (Eds.), Lautre et lailleurs: Hommage Roger Bastide (pp. 169182). Paris: Berger-Levreault. Pques,V. (1991). La religion des esclaves, recherche sur la confrrie marocaine des gnawa. Bergamo, Italy: Moretti and Vitali.