The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agenda of Genies

by Rosemary Ellen Guiley; Philip J. Imbrogno

  If open to communication, a green djinni may take on the form of a friendly dog, elf, fairy, or even a beautiful, glowing, angelic being. On the other hand, if you summon a djinni who does not want to be bothered, you might be in for a great deal of trouble.

  Can djinn ever be conjured for beneficial purposes? The Qur'an states that God gave humans authority over all things in creation, which implies inclusion of the djinn:

  Do you not see that God has subjected to your (use) all things in the heaven and on the earth, and has made his bounties flow to you in exceeding measure, (both) seen and unseen. 'I

  Sheikhs are able to conjure djinn for mediumship, and to learn about a person's illness. For example, a sheikh will ask his personal djinni to talk to the djinni of a sick person in order to find out valuable information about the affliction.

  It has been suggested that the djinn's abilities of invisibility, rapid movement, flying, and penetration of the human body and material objects could be harnessed for surveillance, intelligence gathering, crime investigation, weather reporting, transport of objects, and medical diagnosis and treatment.14 Given the inclinations and temperament of the djinn, however, the feasibility and even desirability of a cooperative relationship is questionable.

  Djinn Sorcery

  According to Islamic views, djinn attach themselves to disbelievers and enable them to perform miraculous feats that amaze others, such as predicting the future. This is considered sorcery, and the lies of the djinn influence the disbelievers themselves to lie to others. The Qur'an states that the lies are based on the information the djinn glean from eavesdropping on angels:

  Should I tell you upon whom the shaitan descend? They descend upon every forging sinner. They cast to them the hearing (which they "snatched" from the heavenly assembly), and most of them are liars.15

  Disbelievers beguiled by such glamor become themselves the servants and allies of Iblis.

  We cannot leave the subject of conjuring the djinn without giving more consideration to their possible influence on Western culture. As we have noted, the distinctions between djinn and other entities are often blurry. Western magic is syncretic, that is, it blends diverse sources, among them Egyptian, Greek/Roman, Judeo-Christian, and pre-Islamic Middle Eastern influences absorbed into the culture of the early Hebrews. So, we must consider the hidden role of the Hidden Ones, who are part of that mix. Perhaps the entities who answer the call of magic and who arise in the imaginations of artists and writers are really djinn. We do not have space to examine all of the influences in detail here, but the following examples show the complex picture that emerges when one starts tracking down all of the interwoven connections that trace back to the hidden djinn.

  Did H. P. Lovecraft Know the Djinn?

  Strange, unnamed entities who may be djinn populate the fictional works of the famous American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). An atheist, rationalist, and scientific materialist, Lovecraft disavowed any personal belief in the supernatural. However, he was steeped in fascination with the supernatural, and created his own original mythos, Cthulhu, based on his knowledge of Egyptian and Arabian mythologies and occultism. His extensive knowledge of Arabian lore brought him into contact with the djinn. Did he weave the djinn into his horror stories? He certainly excelled at evoking a sense of dread of unknown and unnamed horrors dredged up from dark depths, evocative of the djinn.

  Of particular note is Lovecraft's Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of powerful magical rituals. The Necronomicon was born in his 1936 essay, "A History of The Necronomicon." Lovecraft said the grimoire was originally titled Al Azif and was written by "the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred," a fictitious name he derived from The Book of 1001 Nights, and an epithet he used to call himself. According to Lovecraft, the mad Arab was a poet who lived in Yemen and wrote the ritual book in 950 CE.

  Lovecraft said a copy of the book existed in his fictitious city of Arkham. He referred to it in some of his other stories, but never produced an actual book. As interest in his works grew, cult status around the mysterious Necronomicon arose as well. Whether or not such a manuscript ever did exist, versions of it have been "found" and published. Some Lovecraft enthusiasts believe he knew genuine secret rituals for conjuring the dreaded entities he called the "Old Ones" or the "Great Old Ones," an ancient race older than humans beings, huge in size, and of immense power. The Old Ones have a physical form composed of a different kind of matter than exists in the human universe. They are imprisoned beneath the sea, inside the earth, and on far-flung planets. They either removed themselves, or they were banished by the gods for using black magic. They are waiting for the opportunity to rise again and rule the world. The Old Ones have been compared to extraterrestrials, demons, archetypes, "Aristotelian elementals," and "specters of a future mentality."16 But they could very well be based on djinn, banished for their transgressions and residing in remote and far-flung places in this and other dimensions until they can return and reclaim the earth.

  One of the central Old Ones is Cthulhu, whom Lovecraft introduced in 1926 in "The Call of Cthulhu," describing it as "a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on its hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind." Cthulhu lived in R'lyeh, an ancient city that had sank beneath the sea. This is an interesting cross-correlation to djinn, for according to Muhammad, the throne of Iblis lies beneath the sea, surrounded by sea serpents:

  Jabir reported: I heard Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The throne of Iblis is upon the ocean and he sends detachments (to different parts) in order to put people to trial and the most important figure in his eyes is one who is most notorious in sowing the seed of dissension. 17,11

  As noted earlier, some of the djinn conjured by King Solomon came up out of the sea, specifically Abezithou, a one-winged djinni who lives in the Red Sea. Cthulhu's unsettling octopus-like form is not out of the question for djinn, who can shapeshift into any form, especially a disturbing one.

  According to Lovecraft, the Old Ones are worshipped by a depraved cult with origins dating back to the first human beings. The cult, wrote Lovecraft in his story:

  ... had always existed and always would exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him. '9

  Similarly, the djinn reside in wasteland-type places and desolate areas, biding their time.

  The theme of liberating the Old Ones to let them back into the world appears again in the story "The Dunwich Horror" (1929). The protagonist, Wilbur Whateley, the son of a deformed albino woman and Yog-Sothoth, a type of god, searches for a Latin edition of the Necronomicon so he may open the gates for the return of the Old Ones. Whateley is unfortunately killed trying to steal the book, and his twin brother terrorizes the town of Dunwich as an invisible monster.

  The Necronomicon appears elsewhere in Lovecraft's works. "The Book" (1934) does not mention it by name, but revolves around a "worm-riddled book" of rituals obtained by the narrator, who uses it to access what appears to be a parallel dimension. After chanting a "monstrous litany" from within five concentric circles, he acquires a permanent shadow entity and is swept away by a black wind into an unknown abyss. When he manages to return, his perception of the world is permanently changed, and the shadow is permanently attached to him. The shadow is interesting-could it be similar to the shadow people phenomenon described earlier?

  Did Lovecraft possess secret occult knowledge of the djinn, or did his fertile imagination access their realm without his realizing it? Many science fiction, fantasy, and horror authors are visionaries of genuine realities, and they bring awareness of those realities into our dimension via their work. Perhaps Lovecraft
had experiences he never acknowledged that seeded his inspiration. Carl L. Johnson, Lovecraft scholar and founder of the H. P. Lovecraft Commemorative Activities Committee notes:

  One may further postulate that he was capable of receiving such knowledge from an ethereal repository outside himself .. in his words, `the Mind which is held by no head.' Time may reveal if Lovecraft was merely a weaver of convincing tales, or something of a prophet in his own right. Cultists still do devise and perform rituals intended to open chasms to the Dread Dimension and unleash denizens of the nether world(s), with rites based largely on the fantasy of Lovecraft.2o

  Anton Szandor Laney (1930-1997), who founded the Church of Satan in 1966, was inspired by Lovecraft in creating rituals for his church. Laney, whose real name was Howard Stanton Levey, believed Lovecraft was influenced by real occult sources. Wrote Laney:

  Whether his sources of inspiration were consciously recognized and admitted or a remarkable psychic absorption, one can only speculate. There is no doubt that Lovecraft was aware of rites not quite "nameless," as the allusions in his stories are often identical to actual ceremonial procedures and nomenclature, especially to those practiced and advanced around the turn of the 19th-20th centuries!21

  Djinn and the Golden Dawn

  LaVey's comments move us into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the greatest Western esoteric order, founded in England in 1888 by individuals steeped in occultism, including the Kabbalah, Freemasonry, Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, and Western esoteric and magical lore.

  The Golden Dawn began as an esoteric order and evolved along magical lines, using as primary sources the Key ofSolomon, The Book of Sacred Magic ofAbra-Melin the Mage, and Enochian magic-all of which have djinn roots.

  The Book of Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage is heavily derivative of the Key. It is attributed to Abra-Melin (also spelled Abramelin), a Jewish Kabbalistic mage of Wurzburg, Germany, who supposedly wrote the grimoire for his son in 1458. Though the manuscript claims to be a translation of Abra-Melin's original Hebrew manuscript, it was written in French in the eighteenth century, probably by an anonymous source. According to the story presented in the manuscript, Abra-Melin learned his Kabbalahbased magical knowledge from angels, who told him how to conjure demons and tame them into personal servants and workerssimilar to King Solomon-and how to raise storms. He said that all things in the world are created by demons, who work under the direction of angels. Each person has an angel and a demon as familiar spirits, similar to the daimones and the qarin. Abramelin magic is based on sacred names and on magical squares of numbers, for purposes such as conjuring spirits, invisibility, levitation and flight, commanding spirits, necromancy, shapeshifting, and other feats, all within the abilities and powers of the djinn.

  Enochian magic evolved from the sixteenth-century occult work done by John Dee, the royal astronomer to Queen Elizabeth I, and his assistant, Edward Kelly, who claimed to have psychic ability. Dee and Kelly used scrying and Kelly's mediumship to communicate with beings they identified as angels. Dee and Kelly developed an alphabet and genuine language-Enochian- for constructing "calls" for contacting angels and spirits, and for projecting consciousness into levels of awareness called "aethyrs." Enochian has a melodic sound similar to Sanskrit, Greek, or Arabic. Kelly-who had a reputation for fraud-may have invented the language himself, telling Dee that it was spoken by angels in the Garden of Eden. Dee and Kelly developed nineteen calls of ascending magnitude. The nineteenth call included thirty aethyrs that were never precisely defined, but which the Golden Dawn believed represented new levels of consciousness. The only member of the Golden Dawn during its short original life ever known to work actively with the aethyrs was Aleister Crowley.

  Aleister Crowley, "The Beast of the Apocalypse"

  Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was arguably the most colorful figure to ever emerge in Western magical history. Precocious and dark in temperament from an early age, he seemed to possess an innate rapport with the spirit world, as well as a natural ability to tap into its power. Though his mother referred to him as "the Beast" and he later called himself "the Beast of the Apocalypse," he was not a Satanist. He envisioned ushering in a new religion and spiritual age, the Aeon of Horns, based on his system of Thelemic magic inspired by his experiences with entities. In 1898, he joined the Golden Dawn, but clashed violently in personality and power issues with Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, one of the original founders. Within a couple of years, Crowley was kicked out and went off on his own.

  Crowley had numerous entity contacts and was adept at conjuring, or evoking, them in magical rituals. In addition to his own inspirations, he used Abramelin and Enochian magic. Three entities are of interest to us for their possible djinn connections.

  In 1903, Crowley married Rose Kelly, the first of two wives, who had mediumistic ability. They spent their honeymoon in Cairo in 1904, where Rose spontaneously made contact with an entity named Aiwass (originally spelled Aiwaz). Aiwass said he was a messenger for the Egyptian trinity of deities Isis, Osiris, and Horns. Crowley had a vision of him, seeing Aiwass as a man dressed in old Assyrian or Persian clothing and having what he described as:

  ... a body of "fine matter" or astral matter, transparent as a veil of gauze or a cloud of incense-smoke. He seemed to be a tall, dark man in his thirties, well-knit, active and strong, with the face of a savage king, and eyes veiled lest their gaze should destroy what they saw. 22

  Aiwass ordered Crowley to take dictation. For three hours between April 8 and 10, 1904, the entity spoke in a voice that emanated directly out of the air, while Crowley wrote in longhand. The result was the The Book of the Law, the seminal work of Thelemic magic, which contains the axiom "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." In other words, do what you must to surrender to total alignment with cosmic law.

  For years, Crowley remained in awe of Aiwass, and admitted he never fully understood exactly who or what the entity was. He alternately described him as a god, demon, devil, preterhuman intelligence, minister or messenger of other gods, and his own guardian angel. For a time, he considered Aiwass part of his own subconscious, but then rejected the idea, favoring at last the explanation that the entity was his holy guardian angel, or an aspect of his higher self. Crowley also said he was occasionally allowed to see Aiwass in a physical appearance, inhabiting a human body like a normal human being.

  Over the years, opinions on Aiwass have run the gamut from benign to evil. It cannot be determined whether or not Aiwass was a djinni, of course, but his smoke-like dark appearance, Middle Eastern garb, and ability to take on human form evoke djinn associations. Was Crowley in contact with a djinn representative who wished to channel certain ideas into the mortal world?

  In 1909, Crowley made contact with Choronzon, an entity known by Dee (who spelled the name "Coronzon" and referred to it as 333). Dee never considered Choronzon a demon, but Crowley called it "the Demon of Dispersion" and "the Demon of the Abyss." He also said Choronzon was the "first and deadliest of all the powers of evil," and a being comprised of "complete negation."23 Could Choronzon be Iblis, or one of his high-ranking djinn?

  In December of 1909, Crowley and his assistant, Victor Neuberg, went into the desert outside Algiers to conduct rituals for the purpose of accessing the high-level aethyrs in the nineteenth call of Enochian magic. Crowley had a number of breakthroughs in consciousness as a result, including the instruction that he would have to confront Choronzon and cross the Abyss.

  In an evocation, a magician stays within the protection of a magical circle and evokes an entity into a separate magical triangle. Crowley intended to break that rule and sit within the triangle, go into trance, and offer his own body for possession-a dangerous magical act.

  According to Crowley's account, Neuberg, standing within the protected magical circle, got the brunt of the entity's force. First Choronzon manifested in the form of a seductive female prostitute, and then turned into an old man, and then into a snake. Choronzon told Neuberg h
e spat upon the name of the Most High. He was Master of the Triangle who had no fear of the pentagram. He said he would give Neuberg words that seemed like great secrets of magic but would be worthless, as a joke.

  Choronzon breached the protection of the magical circle around Neuberg, and the two wrestled physically. Although some observers have opined that Neuberg wrestled with a demon-entranced Crowley, Neuberg insisted he fought the entity itself. It had frothcovered fangs and attempted to tear out his throat. After a considerable struggle, Neuberg forced Choronzon back into the triangle, and repaired his magical circle. The two hurled insults and threats at each other, and Choronzon vanished.

  Crowley and Neuberg felt they had bested the demon, and Crowley considered himself to have achieved great magical status as a result. Some critics of Crowley's work believe that Choronzon left a permanent mental and psychic scar upon him.

  We cannot prove Choronzon's true identity, but like Aiwass, djinn presence is strongly suggested. The snake is a favored form of djinn, and the Trickster-like taunting is telling as well. A hostile djinni summoned from the depths of its realm in another dimension might easily attack in such an aggressive manner, boasting that the magical "rules" of mortals had no effect upon him.

  In 1918, Crowley made contact with a powerful entity named Lam, who was to help him fulfill the work Aiwass had began. The contact was made through a sex magic ritual in which he opened a portal "in the spaces between stars" (a parallel dimension), enabling Lam to enter the physical universe. Crowley believed Lam to be the soul of a dead Tibetan lama from Leng, between China and Tibet. Lam is Tibetan for "Way" or "Path," which Crowley said had the numerical value of 71, or "No Thing," a gateway to the Void and a link between the star systems of Sirius and Andromeda.