Andy Downs's Blog
August 15, 2011
The Jinn and the human psyche
We humans may be sophisticated and intelligent but still have so many survival instincts that impact our daily life without us really appreciating it.
I have recently been fascinated by my own survival instincts and how they attempted to protect me against a foe that was thought to be dangerous by a friend of mine who believes strongly in the Jinn.
This is the tale.
I recently had a conversation with a friend who asked what I have been up to recently. I told him that I been writing a book. He was interested in the subject matter and I told him it is a paranormal thriller. We talked briefly about it and then he told me he had a story that would make a good book. He started relating the experiences that one of his friends has had throughout his life. As he told the tale it became clear that he was missing some parts out, but yet eluding to something deeper with various facial clues. Throughout the story I tried to get him to expand on the more mysterious omissions, but he kept saying he would come to that later. The story took some ten minutes to outline and yet the apparent end still didn't explain the point of it. When pressed further he started telling me about the Jinn which I had never heard of before. As he explained more about them, his voice lowered in volume as though he didn't want anyone else to overhear the conversation, which was odd since no one was in the near vicinity. With yet more encouragement, he explained that the tale he had told was one was one of deep seated envy in which the envious party used curses to try and win back land they thought was rightfully theirs.
As he explained what the Jinn were it was sounding more and more like a combination of some Christian beliefs mixed in with some voodoo. He was clearly bothered by them and said to be careful. Whilst I wouldn't say I was a disbeliever, having had some strange experiences throughout my life, I have never found anything that has harmed me so far. So, open minded, I went home and Googled the Jinn to find out more about their world. It made interesting reading and I will write more about the Jinn at a later date.
When I next met him a few days later, I related the things I had found out. He was clearly excited by the fact I had gone to the bother of finding out more but was still apprehensive as we talked about it again for ten or fifteen minutes. I didn't realise until I went to bed that night that his apparent fear had rubbed off onto me and as a result I had a much disrupted night’s sleep.
The next morning I was back to normal but did think about it on and off during the day. A couple of days later we had another conversation about it and this time he was a bit more doom and gloom and cautious. A part of Muslims belief, if I understand it correctly, is that if you catch a glimpse of them, they can then see you and will start causing mischief, illness or even death. This is why he didn't want to dig too deep in case it brought him bad luck. Witnessing his fear again made me more cautious. If I started to become too familiar with them would they notice me? I was starting to take on some of his fear.
What I have found fascinating about this is that his fear was somehow transferred to me. Was it something to do with the Jinn? Had they become aware of my existence? Well no, I very much doubt it, but there was something.
When I try to understand something about the way people act or think and can't make sense of it, I turn to nature for answers. The rest of the animal kingdom is very good at transmitting the sense of danger to each other, not only within the same species, but across species. For example, when birds are feeding on the bird table in my garden they come to the table in dribs and drabs, but quite often all leave together in a mad panic. If you study them for any length of time you can usually find the individual that started the mass exodus. It is not surprisingly, to do with survival. If one bird takes off in a panic, rather than just because it’s had enough to eat, the rest assume the first one has spotted a predator and the rest then do the same. It’s better to use up a bit of energy fleeing than it is being eaten. The same can be seen in other mammals, such as rabbits, deer and badgers, etc. Since we are also just mammals, it doesn't take much of a leap to apply the same logic.
My friend sees the Jinn as a threat to health or maybe even life, and his body language passes it along to me. Since I don't want to be eaten, I take on the fear, which if I didn't reason it out could be then passed to others.
When you think about voodoo and curses and the like, their power will always increase when the receiver has a strong belief in them.
Fear itself is interesting, but more about that later.
I have recently been fascinated by my own survival instincts and how they attempted to protect me against a foe that was thought to be dangerous by a friend of mine who believes strongly in the Jinn.
This is the tale.
I recently had a conversation with a friend who asked what I have been up to recently. I told him that I been writing a book. He was interested in the subject matter and I told him it is a paranormal thriller. We talked briefly about it and then he told me he had a story that would make a good book. He started relating the experiences that one of his friends has had throughout his life. As he told the tale it became clear that he was missing some parts out, but yet eluding to something deeper with various facial clues. Throughout the story I tried to get him to expand on the more mysterious omissions, but he kept saying he would come to that later. The story took some ten minutes to outline and yet the apparent end still didn't explain the point of it. When pressed further he started telling me about the Jinn which I had never heard of before. As he explained more about them, his voice lowered in volume as though he didn't want anyone else to overhear the conversation, which was odd since no one was in the near vicinity. With yet more encouragement, he explained that the tale he had told was one was one of deep seated envy in which the envious party used curses to try and win back land they thought was rightfully theirs.
As he explained what the Jinn were it was sounding more and more like a combination of some Christian beliefs mixed in with some voodoo. He was clearly bothered by them and said to be careful. Whilst I wouldn't say I was a disbeliever, having had some strange experiences throughout my life, I have never found anything that has harmed me so far. So, open minded, I went home and Googled the Jinn to find out more about their world. It made interesting reading and I will write more about the Jinn at a later date.
When I next met him a few days later, I related the things I had found out. He was clearly excited by the fact I had gone to the bother of finding out more but was still apprehensive as we talked about it again for ten or fifteen minutes. I didn't realise until I went to bed that night that his apparent fear had rubbed off onto me and as a result I had a much disrupted night’s sleep.
The next morning I was back to normal but did think about it on and off during the day. A couple of days later we had another conversation about it and this time he was a bit more doom and gloom and cautious. A part of Muslims belief, if I understand it correctly, is that if you catch a glimpse of them, they can then see you and will start causing mischief, illness or even death. This is why he didn't want to dig too deep in case it brought him bad luck. Witnessing his fear again made me more cautious. If I started to become too familiar with them would they notice me? I was starting to take on some of his fear.
What I have found fascinating about this is that his fear was somehow transferred to me. Was it something to do with the Jinn? Had they become aware of my existence? Well no, I very much doubt it, but there was something.
When I try to understand something about the way people act or think and can't make sense of it, I turn to nature for answers. The rest of the animal kingdom is very good at transmitting the sense of danger to each other, not only within the same species, but across species. For example, when birds are feeding on the bird table in my garden they come to the table in dribs and drabs, but quite often all leave together in a mad panic. If you study them for any length of time you can usually find the individual that started the mass exodus. It is not surprisingly, to do with survival. If one bird takes off in a panic, rather than just because it’s had enough to eat, the rest assume the first one has spotted a predator and the rest then do the same. It’s better to use up a bit of energy fleeing than it is being eaten. The same can be seen in other mammals, such as rabbits, deer and badgers, etc. Since we are also just mammals, it doesn't take much of a leap to apply the same logic.
My friend sees the Jinn as a threat to health or maybe even life, and his body language passes it along to me. Since I don't want to be eaten, I take on the fear, which if I didn't reason it out could be then passed to others.
When you think about voodoo and curses and the like, their power will always increase when the receiver has a strong belief in them.
Fear itself is interesting, but more about that later.
June 23, 2011
Starting to write and self publish
After reading one of Peter Labrow’s blog’s, I thought I would share my experiences so far.
After many years of writing nothing except cheques to pay the bills, I felt the urge to write a story. I can’t remember for the life of me why or what may have prompted it, but what ever it was I am grateful.
I have always been a fan of ghost stories and in particular ghost films. So my first attempt was bound to be a short ghost story which I called Berkley Hall. It took quite a while as it was my first attempt at writing. Once written the difficult bit was letting other people read it.
I first gave copies to my family and got back very positive comments. All said they enjoyed it and returned the inevitable list of typos and grammatical errors which I completely missed.
So, with my self confidence lifted slightly and ego stroked a little, I corrected the errors that I agreed with and went further a field to try and get more unbiased feedback. i.e. friends of friends. Again the comments were positive.
After the first positive experience I wrote another short ghost story called The Tube Home. It was again enjoyed by all with good comments being returned.
So, now what?
Well nothing really. I looked into trying to get them published in magazines but it seemed once they were published by one of them, no one else would be interested. Since they would only pay about £20 per story it didn’t seem worth while so I kept them to myself.
Over a period of time I wrote more poems but because I had put my inner most feelings into them, I didn’t fancy exposing myself for criticism. As a result they were only shared with close family.
Earlier this year (2011) I became ill and brought a Kindle to keep myself occupied while I was recovering. What a breakthrough that was. I started to discover the world of ebooks and self publishing. After many weeks of trying to understand how the whole ebook thing worked, I took the plunge and published my best poems into a short book called Curious Poems. I didn’t sell many, which wasn’t a surprise, but more importantly I didn’t get any damming reviews. Few! Self esteem intact.
Since then I have rewritten Berkley hall into a novelette (now named The Demolition of Berkley Hall) which is selling quite well considering it is not a full novel.
With renewed confidence and the realisation that I can write things that people will enjoy, I started writing a novel a couple of months ago which is going very well. This is a ghost thriller where the destiny of two families is unexpectedly thrust together and they have to rely on each other for their survival.
I don’t know if what I feel when I write is normal, but during the creation of this book so far I have found myself laughing aloud in some of the chapters and crying with sadness in others. I guess that’s a good sign?
Having written the previous stories in Microsoft Word I again started using Word for the writing and Excel for the planning. These are sort of ok, but through one of Peters Labrow’s reviews I discovered Scrivener. What a fantastic package, it has revolutionised my writing. It frees up the mind of having to think linearly and allows you to grow different chapters/scene/sections, which ever way you work, whilst easily generating and keeping track of the story line. I am still learning the package and can’t do it justice in a few lines. If you are interested in it go to http://www.literatureandlatte.com/. The Windows version is still free to use until they release version 1.
Peter if you read this I would just like you to know that you have been an inspiration in several ways and I owe you a beer.
After many years of writing nothing except cheques to pay the bills, I felt the urge to write a story. I can’t remember for the life of me why or what may have prompted it, but what ever it was I am grateful.
I have always been a fan of ghost stories and in particular ghost films. So my first attempt was bound to be a short ghost story which I called Berkley Hall. It took quite a while as it was my first attempt at writing. Once written the difficult bit was letting other people read it.
I first gave copies to my family and got back very positive comments. All said they enjoyed it and returned the inevitable list of typos and grammatical errors which I completely missed.
So, with my self confidence lifted slightly and ego stroked a little, I corrected the errors that I agreed with and went further a field to try and get more unbiased feedback. i.e. friends of friends. Again the comments were positive.
After the first positive experience I wrote another short ghost story called The Tube Home. It was again enjoyed by all with good comments being returned.
So, now what?
Well nothing really. I looked into trying to get them published in magazines but it seemed once they were published by one of them, no one else would be interested. Since they would only pay about £20 per story it didn’t seem worth while so I kept them to myself.
Over a period of time I wrote more poems but because I had put my inner most feelings into them, I didn’t fancy exposing myself for criticism. As a result they were only shared with close family.
Earlier this year (2011) I became ill and brought a Kindle to keep myself occupied while I was recovering. What a breakthrough that was. I started to discover the world of ebooks and self publishing. After many weeks of trying to understand how the whole ebook thing worked, I took the plunge and published my best poems into a short book called Curious Poems. I didn’t sell many, which wasn’t a surprise, but more importantly I didn’t get any damming reviews. Few! Self esteem intact.
Since then I have rewritten Berkley hall into a novelette (now named The Demolition of Berkley Hall) which is selling quite well considering it is not a full novel.
With renewed confidence and the realisation that I can write things that people will enjoy, I started writing a novel a couple of months ago which is going very well. This is a ghost thriller where the destiny of two families is unexpectedly thrust together and they have to rely on each other for their survival.
I don’t know if what I feel when I write is normal, but during the creation of this book so far I have found myself laughing aloud in some of the chapters and crying with sadness in others. I guess that’s a good sign?
Having written the previous stories in Microsoft Word I again started using Word for the writing and Excel for the planning. These are sort of ok, but through one of Peters Labrow’s reviews I discovered Scrivener. What a fantastic package, it has revolutionised my writing. It frees up the mind of having to think linearly and allows you to grow different chapters/scene/sections, which ever way you work, whilst easily generating and keeping track of the story line. I am still learning the package and can’t do it justice in a few lines. If you are interested in it go to http://www.literatureandlatte.com/. The Windows version is still free to use until they release version 1.
Peter if you read this I would just like you to know that you have been an inspiration in several ways and I owe you a beer.
