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| Told by Najwa (Jordan) |
My troubles trace back to a Zār ceremony I attended when I was just six years old, a ritual whose true purpose and dangers I was too young and naive to understand.
Over the following years, however, the devastating consequences became painfully clear.
For over a decade, I lived in torment, unable to experience the normal joys of childhood or hope for a peaceful life. Despair seeped into my heart like a cancer in its final stages, spreading uncontrollably.
It all started when my mother’s family, out of ignorance, sought help from a woman they believed to be a spiritual healer but who was, in fact, a sorceress. She would visit my grandfather’s home, claiming to read the family's fortunes, lift curses, and help marry off my aunts.
As part of her so-called "treatment," she demanded the family host a Zār ritual , a spirit-summoning ceremony, under strict conditions: all participants were to wear red clothing, light candles, and slaughter animals. On that fateful day, despite my mother’s desperate protests due to my young age, the sorceress insisted on my presence, calling me by name. She claimed that because I had not yet reached puberty, my attendance was critical for the ritual’s success.
I remember being forced into the large ceremonial hall where the rites were already underway. Men were beating drums in an eerie rhythm, candles flickered, and incense filled the air. Crying and resisting, I was seated in the center, stripped of my upper garments, and wrapped in a long red scarf. The sorceress chanted strange words over me, raising her voice with the rhythm of the drums. She smeared something red which I now believe was blood onto my forehead. After that, everything goes blank.
The next thing I recall was waking up feeling unbearably heavy, the scarf gone, my chest and stomach covered in strange red markings. The candles were extinguished, the musicians had left, and the house had fallen silent. It was over, or so I thought.
That night marked the beginning of a much darker chapter. I stayed awake, haunted by the sense that something terrible had happened that I couldn’t fully remember. I was a sharp, perceptive child, my mind years ahead of my age. Eventually, exhaustion pulled me into sleep, but before dawn, I had a dream that would haunt me forever.
I dreamt of a giant figure, a man with long hair, a burning gaze, and a crown upon his head. He held a scepter and showered me with gifts as I knelt before him in what seemed like a crumbling ancient palace, centered around a massive blazing fire. He adorned me with a necklace and rings, and I kissed his hands.
Later that night, I dreamed again: small, strange beings, dwarf-like creatures with animal heads, danced joyously around me, swinging enormous incense burners bigger than their own heads.
When I awoke, I felt different, drained and disconnected. I stopped playing. I missed school. My mother grew increasingly concerned. The next day, the sorceress returned, asked to see me, and eagerly questioned me about my dreams. I answered innocently, and I can still remember her sinister smile — filled with a strange, disturbing satisfaction.
As the years passed, my family's fortunes steadily declined, and misfortune seemed to cling to us. They eventually severed ties with the sorceress after discovering her true nature. She had threatened them with harm, and even a change of house couldn’t lift the heavy shadow that remained.
When I reached puberty, the true horrors began. I experienced terrifying episodes of sleep paralysis, violent seizures, and fevers that no medicine could reduce. I spoke in strange tongues during sleep, my voice shifting to that of a man, terrifying my parents. Before sleeping, I would feel unseen hands touching my body, unseen arms pulling me close. Dark, terrifying voices would command me to bow in the bathroom, strip off my clothes, and commit shameful acts.
At times, I heard strange melodies in the bathroom that made me dance uncontrollably, despite not knowing how to dance. I developed a bizarre craving for blood , cutting myself to drink my own blood , until my father caught me and beat me severely. Strangely, anyone who hurt me seemed to suffer some form of injury or disaster afterward.
I heard answers to exam questions whispered in my ear. I felt an invisible heat source keeping me warm during winter nights. I healed miraculously from illnesses without seeing a doctor, dreaming of ghostly physicians treating me. I dreamed of living a normal life inside a grand, ancient palace — except for the terrifying visits from the burning-eyed man, who would violate me repeatedly.
One night, I woke up to find a massive man standing over me, kissing me and crushing me tightly in his arms before vanishing into thin air. He resembled the same figure I had seen after the Zār ritual.
The assaults, nightmares, and psychological and physical suffering continued to escalate until, during spiritual healing sessions (Ruqyah), the horrifying truth was revealed:
the entity tormenting me was a "lover jinn", one of the kings of the jinn. The wicked sorceress had performed a marriage ritual between us during the Zār ceremony, binding me to him to serve her own dark ambitions and to raise her status in the world of black magic.
He was a fiery red jinn, which explained the constant, unrelenting heat I suffered from.
I spoke about all this during the healing sessions after my situation worsened so severely that I would wake up without clothes, bearing unmistakable signs of physical assault.
When I turned twenty, the assaults shifted from dreams to brutal attacks in waking life. On the night of my twentieth birthday, a fire broke out in a neighboring building, causing a power outage. As I slept in the dark, something invisible raped me violently. I tried to scream, but no sound escaped my mouth. I eventually lost consciousness. When I awoke, my body was bruised, drenched in sweat, and I was overwhelmed with fear, too terrified to tell even my mother.
No one proposed marriage to me. Family conflicts tore through the household.
One night, after waking from another brutal sleep paralysis episode in which a ghostly figure choked me while speaking in a bizarre, unintelligible language, I felt searing pain in my back. It was as if something had carved into my skin with a burning tool. Rushing to a mirror, I saw a large, painful, red bruise across my back. Strangely, it disappeared the next day without a trace.
Over the years, the attacks only grew worse. I continue to live haunted by that invisible presence. Even today, that entity claims me as his wife and exerts full control over me. Every attempt to exorcise him has failed. Those who tried to heal me often fell ill themselves, some even losing family members.
Spiritual healers told me that the entity was not inhabiting my body but attacking me from the outside, hunting me no matter where I go. I can feel him stalking me, an electric field lingering behind my back.
I have grown to hate myself. My dreams, my hopes for a future, marriage, motherhood, even simple happiness, have all been crushed.
Today, at 26 years old, I remain his prisoner. I am tormented by visions of ghostly children, children born of this cursed union , who nurse from me in dreams, play with me, and call me mother.
I plead for help from anyone who truly understands these matters. My case has been declared "hopeless" by numerous sheikhs and healers.
But I refuse to lose hope entirely.
Told by Najwa (26 years old) - Jordan
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