Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

132 Jinn
Samuel. Its Structure in Relation to Ancient
Near Eastern Dreams and Its Theological
Significance. Lanham, MD: University Press of
America, 1984.
Kramer, Kenneth P. Death Dreams. Unveiling
Mysteries of the Unconscious Mind. New York:
Paulist Press, 1993.
Jinn
According to the Muslims, the jinn (from which
we get the English term genie) are invisible spirits
made out of fire, who were created 2,000 years
before Adam. Islamic thinkers postulated three
orders of being beyond God: angels, jinn, and
humanity. The angels, who were created out of
light, are closest to God. The jinn, who are intermediate
between angels and humanity, inhabit a
subtly material or etheric realm. Like human
beings, the jinn possess intelligence and free will,
and are thus capable of being saved. For this
reason, the Koran sometimes explicitly addresses
itself to both humans and jinn. It is said that one
night a group of jinn overheard the Prophet reciting
the Koran and became believers. The spot
where Muhammad later met with the jinns’
leaders and accepted their allegiance is the site of
the Mosque of the Jinn in Mecca.
Iblis, the Islamic Satan, was transformed from
an angel into a jinn when he refused God’s
command that he worship Adam (who was
created out of mere clay). Subsequently, Iblis and
other angels who shared his viewpoint were
removed from their stations. Iblis and the jinn
were exiled from Eden and subsequently became
demons. (Also included amongst the outcasts
were five of Iblis’s sons.) Ejected from the presence
of God, these former angels turned to trickery and
causing trouble for mortals.
One example of good behavior by the jinn is
when Aladdin, in the book Arabian Nights, is
assisted by a friendly jinni (genie) when he rubs
his magical lamp. The jinn were also referred to
as good spirits in A Dictionary of Islam, by
Thomas P. Hughes. The entry (under “Genii”)
states: “The most noble and honorable among
the angels are called the Ginn, because they are
veiled from the eyes of the other angels on
account of their superiority.”
See also Iblis; Islam
For Further Reading:
The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978.
Glassé, Cyril. The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. San
Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1989.
Johnson, Robert
One of the best-known legends in American folk
music concerns the deal with the devil that bluesman
Robert Johnson is said to have made at a
Mississippi crossroads one midnight. At least one
blues scholar maintains that the story is more
urban legend than rural folklore—the romantic
concoction of white blues fans decades later—but
some evidence suggests that the tale was in circulation
during Johnson’s lifetime.
To many religiously inclined African-Americans
in the South, the blues was the “Devil’s music,” and
those who performed it were placing their souls in
peril. Some blues performers, however, happily
took on the persona of the bad man in league with
the Devil. Early bluesman William Bunch, for
example, billed himself as Peetie Wheatstraw, the
“Devil’s Son-in-Law” and the “High Sheriff of Hell”
(Oliver 1975, 89). It was rumored that some, such as
Mississippi’s Tommy Johnson (no relation to
Robert Johnson) and the Carolinas’ Gary Davis
(though the latter subsequently became a Christian
minister), had sold their souls to Satan in order to
attain superior musical skills. (On the other hand,
the great Mississippi guitarist and Robert Johnson
mentor Son House played blues and preached, even
writing the classic “Preachin’ the Blues.”)
Among the most influential figures in blues
history, Robert Johnson, who usually played solo
acoustic guitar, “made the instrument sound
uncannily like a full band,” in the words of Robert
Palmer, “furnishing a heavy beat with his feet,
chording innovative shuffle rhythms, and picking
out a high, treble-string lead with his slider, all at
the same time. Fellow guitarists would watch him
with unabashed, open-mouthed wonder. They
were watching the Delta’s first modern bluesman
at work” (Palmer 1981, 117). Johnson was born in
Hazlehurst, Mississippi, on May 8, 1911. He grew
up in the Delta and spent a few years in Memphis
before returning to Mississippi. He picked up the
Jew’s harp, then graduated to the harmonica and