Transcript for An Exorcism to End Nightmares

Nelufar v/o (00:06):

Hi, it's Nelufar here. I'm a journalist and I'm on a mission to find out what spiritual connection means outside the confines of mainstream religion. I'm trying out rituals from all over the world to see if they can make us feel better. And I'm not here to preach to you. No, no, no. This isn't that kind of a podcast. And I'm not some kind of spiritual guru. I'm just exploring what feels right and meaningful.

Welcome to Ritually.

So not long after I started recording this series, something really bizarre happened to me, something unsettling and actually in the end, pretty scary. And the only way I could untangle it was through ritual to be precise. Five rituals in one single night. Now this might all sound a bit woo woo, but seriously, I've never experienced anything like it. Just a heads up, there's references to violence and death in this episode, but we'll let you know before we get to those bits.

Nelufar v/o (01:19):

So a while back I started having nightmares. And these aren't just your average nightmares where you're confronted by your ex in a room with his new girlfriend or you get canceled on social media or something. No, these were really violent, disturbing ones. I was leaving voice notes like this for my producer, Sarah.

Nelufar:

I've had a very, very strange day. Not a great one. But what's happening recently is I'm having nightmares every night that jolt me awake. So now I am petrified of going to sleep, but I am so tired.

Nelufar v/o:

I was having three to five of these nightmares every night and they left me shaking in cold sweats. And by the second week of this, I could barely hold it together. I was desperate. So I called producer Sarah again for help.

Nelufar (02:12): Sarah, I just, I'm not in great form. I've had nightmares again.

Sarah: What happened?

Nelufar: It's getting outta hand now. Last night I got murdered three times.

Sarah: Why have you been cursed? Is that what we're saying?

Nelufar: I think I've been hexed. Listen, I can feel the energy in my house. It's completely different. I feel that there's something there. This is gonna sound mad. I know. I don't care. But I think there's something wrong with the energy in my house. I dunno if I've been jinxed or hexed or if there's a Jinn or a demon or a witch that's after me

EXPLAINER (02:49):

Jinn. A class of spirits in Islam. They're made of fire and exercise supernatural influence over mankind for both good and evil.

Nelufar (02:59):

Can you please help me? We need to find someone, either someone who can understand and interpret my dreams and try and help me figure out what I'm trying to tell myself or someone that can cleanse my house. Cause I don't feel comfortable there anymore. I just feel like there's some energy there that I don’t know. And I just, I'm so tired.

Sarah (03:21):

We’re gonna have an exorcist.

Nelufar (03:23):

That sounds like so much cleaning up

Sarah & Nelufar (03:25):

<laugh>

Nelufar v/o  (03:28):

At this point. I didn't have anything else to lose, but more sleep. Before we get to the exorcism producer, Sarah found me a mystic, rabbi Priestess, who's an expert on dreams. She's gonna help me understand what's going on. Her name is Rabbi Jill Hammer and she's the co-founder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute. And what is a Hebrew priestess? You may be wondering? Well, Jill practices a feminist version of Judaism, which offers more ritually centered and mystical spiritual connections with the Divine Rabbi Jill's book Under Torah draws on her own extensive spiritual expertise and knowledge and offers its readers a deeper understanding of dream interpretation. I started out by telling her a little bit about my background and the kinds of nightmares I was having.

Nelufar (04:27):

I was a child that was born into war Rabbi. I remembered the sounds and the feeling of fear and bombs and stuff. And I know what it's like to have my guard up all the time cuz everything can be taken away from you cuz I was a refugee.

Rabbi Jill (04:43):

Nightmares often bring us something that we're really struggling with, but not necessarily on the surface. They make visible something that is intangible.

Nelufar v/o (04:56):

Okay, here is where it's gonna get dark. If you don't wanna hear about death and violence, just skip forward four minutes.

Nelufar (05:05):

One of the dreams that I remember, I was running around in Angola. I'm an investigative journalist. And so sometimes like I end up in quite harrowing situations. And I remember in this dream, I was in the forest or the jungle and I was with a specific group and we were fighting another group. The other group had child soldiers and I had to kill them. I machine gunned them. Another night I dreamt I was in the most ferocious storm in the middle of the Atlantic. Gray skies billowing lightning everywhere. And repeatedly these tiny tennis balls would be plunged into the ocean. And repeatedly I had to go down into the depths of the unknown and the fear and the surrounding-ness of the ocean and retrieve them and fly back out. And then I had to do it again and again and again. There was another dream in which I knew that I was some kind of woman that was being persecuted, but I was in some way that felt like the Middle East, like the desert.

Rabbi Jill: Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Nelufar: And I was walking around covering my hair and my body because I knew being a woman was going to get me killed. And then I was found and Rabbi Jill, I was stabbed so many times and I felt each stab, I felt it. I was being stabbed. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab. I'm just giving you some of the stuff that I, and this could be three or four or five times a night. I was exhausted, waking up in tears and shuddering and shaking. What do those dreams mean?

Rabbi Jill (06:37):

So you're the one who can best know what your dream means. But I wanna say two things. The first thing is sometimes dreams are like a portal space. You know where we can open to more than we know. And it sounds,

Nelufar: yes

Rabbi Jill: you're channeling some of the experiences that have been traumatic in war. Your dream imagery goes beyond your own experience. A woman being murdered, you know, of child soldiers being killed. But the other thing I would say is that the tennis ball strikes me as so powerful because the dream was really showing you what you had to do. In dreams the elements are often places that we go to heal or to discharge. And you diving into this water over and over again to bring up these walls, that's really what was happening. These experiences in the deep were coming up to you right over and over and over again until they were discharged. You know, you can let go of them, but the dream was actually showing you, I think what was happening and maybe something about why.

Nelufar Hedayat (07:35):

Rabbi Jill helped me understand why I might be having such horrible nightmares, but I still wanted them to, I don't know, go away. I wanted my sleep bag. I wanted my life back. And the Jinn that was haunting me, I wanted that guy gone. It was time to call in the big guns, the front line of my spiritual army.

Tick tock sound, Doorbell

Nelufar (08:11):

I hope that doorbell has the answer to a good night's sleep.

Door opening, sound of Nelufar’s parents entering her house.

Nelufar: Okay. Hello? Is this the exorcism service of Petuni and Nazir? (Laugh)

Nelufar v/o (08:28):

Yep. It's my mom and dad. I'm gonna take you back to the strangest night in my life on an extremely dark January evening. Okay?

Nelufar (08:45):

So it's just coming to half past seven tonight, and I kid you not. It is foggy as heck outside. You can't see a thing. I mean, it couldn't be spookier if you tried.

Nelufar v/ o (08:58):

My parents came over to cleanse my house and cure my nightmares with a series of Afghan and pagan rituals.

Nelufar (09:07):

This is food. Do you know how to come to my house without food?

Patuni (09:15):

*words in Farsi* I’m here to look after you. Still I am a mum.

Nelufar (09:21):

Of course.

Nelufar v/o  (09:24):

My family and I, we speak Farsi, our mother tongue. It's what you're hearing in the background there.

Nelufar (09:31):

*words in Farsi* Okay, you have to speak English. How are you dad?

Nazir (09:36):

Fine. Not bad. Thank you.

Nelufar (09:38):

Did you have a nice day off?

Nazir (09:39):

Every day is off. So which one is nice? I don't know. <laugh>

Nelufar (09:43):

Dad, please let me take your coat. This is serious. I'm going crazy because sleep is really important. If you can't sleep, you can't live. It's not my mood. Nothing has changed in my life, but something is making me have these dreams. Can I ask you something? I'm serious. Do you think that dreams mean anything?

Nazir (10:02):

As my prophet says,

EXPLAINER (10:07):

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. The messenger of God according to Islam.

Nazir (10:12):

Dreams of people like me,

Nelufar v/o (10:14):

People like me, meaning ordinary folk, not scholars or prophets or some such

Nazir (10:20):

Means, absolutely nothing good. Sweet dreams or bad dreams or nightmares means nothing. Those whose dreams have a meaning. They Tilawa Quran while they are going to bed,

Patuni: They're spiritual

EXPLAINER (10:37):

Tilawa the recitation and reading of the Quran, the Holy book of Islam.

Nelufar v/o: So dad said, doing Tilawa before bed is like asking for meaningful dreams. But unless you are actually trying to have a dream with that sort of significance, there's no need to read into them. Not really

Patuni (10:57):

In the light of the day, when after the sunrises, it doesn't mean anything.

Nazir (11:02):

But one thing I have to tell you, why our minds, our brain is the creator of our nightmares. For example, I as a Muslim, because we believe in Jinn, I dream about Jinn. Tell me one Christian person -

Nelufar:  <laugh>

Nazir (11:18):

who don’t believe in Jinn, had a nightmare or dreams about Jinn?

Nelufar (11:25):

People who aren't Muslim can't have a dream about Jinn

Nazir (11:28):

Because they don't think about Jinn.  That's why their mind, their brain don't create such thing like Jinn. But my brain creates because it's part of my religion and I know about it, I hear about it, I talk about it.

Patuni (11:40):

They have their own lives, they have their own duties. They have their own businesses.

Nelufar (11:45):

Their own mortgages, their own parking, their own notices.

Patuni (11:50):

Anything, anything.

Nelufar (11:50):

I feel it in my body. I feel it. What am I? Am I crazy? Am I stupid?

Patuni (11:56):

No. You are. It is you brain.

Nelufar v/o (11:58):

Uh, that hurt. I was severely sleep deprived, actually a bit scared of it all. And now the two people that put me on this earth were trying to tell me that it was all in my head. There was no Jinn in my house. The nightmares were coming from my brain. And yet my parents began to discuss what they could do to combat the evil eye, placate the Jinn, which they didn't even believe was there. Go figure.

Nelufar v/o (12:45):

Never known to Dilly Dali. My mum, Patuni to you, was already at work with a ritual.

Nelufar (12:52):

What are you doing? What are you putting around my neck?

Patuni (12:54):

This is something to keep you safe from evil eyes because I think lots of people, how can I say they think differently about you. So I should hang it somewhere that everybody can see it and the eyes will change to a kind, nice, lovely feeling and wishing well for you.

Nelufar v/o (13:21):

She placed an amulet on me. It was a semi-circle made of white chiffon fabric hanging from a long, thick black string. The amulet looked like it had been sewn shut by hand. Inside was a blessed piece of paper with one of the most beloved verses of the Quran. It's called the Ayatul Kursi, or the throne verse. It's often recited to ward off evil spirits.

Patuni (13:50):

Every Muslim believes that this is the heart of Quran. It is all about how great Allah is. How kind he is, how merciful he is. And then it says he's the only power in the earth and he's the only thing that can save you from evil eyes, from bad things. Sometimes people says that why Allah bring all these bad things to you?

Nelufar (14:19):

That’s what I'm asking. <laugh>.

Patuni (14:20):

Yeah. The answer is we are bringing to us.

Nelufar v/o (14:29):

After about five minutes, my mom took the amulet off me and asked where in the house I felt the most negative energy. It was my hallway downstairs. So she tied it to the picture frame there. When I spoke to Rabbi Jill later, she told me that amulets are a kind of physicalized prayer, an object that we pour energy into, like a desire for healing or finally getting a good night's rest.

We'll be back after this break.

Nelufar: We had just finished the first ritual of the amulet, but I wasn't feeling much different. Really the vibes in the house, they still felt pretty bad. Meanwhile, I could hear my dad muttering in the kitchen. He was starting the second ritual.

Nelufar (15:36):

You can use a frying pan.

Nazir (15:36):

Can I turn this one on?

Nelufar (15:38):

Yeah, I can help you turn that one on. So what do you have to do?

Nazir (15:42):

I have to make it as hot as possible.

Nelufar v/o (15:46):

We stood over the stove in my dimly lit kitchen. My dad reached into an unmarked plastic jar and he pulled out a small handful of these black seeds. They looked a little bit like sesame seeds and he tossed them right into the pan.

Nazir (16:06):

They make a smell.

Nelufar(16:07):

Okay, so you are making the pan hot. Wait for me, one second. There is so much mysticism in this house right now.

Nelufar v/o (16:24):

I left out in the kitchen and headed over to the living room where my mum was in deep meditation reading the Quran. It felt like the beat of the evening, the rhythm of the night was gearing up towards something, a crescendo of some sort. My mum was trying to fill the air, every breath she had with a sense of positive Islamic calm.

Sound of Patuni reading the Quran

Nelufar (17:03):

Okay, that's the fire alarm. Oh my god, I forgot.

Nelufar (17:10):

Okay. Trying to be mystical in modern day times is really difficult. I'm trying to be spiritual here, trying to work with things. And the fire alarm went off, of course. So now we've got the little thing going. That's that terrible noise. It's the extractor fan. So dad has now put more,

Nazir: can you sniff?

Nelurar: I can smell it. I can smell. It smells like, um, it's, it's very intoxicating. It's a very thick, rich aroma. So in the frying pan right now, there's like these little, little black seeds. They look like little grains of crushed rice or couscous or something. And then there's like a white ball as well, like a white bark from a tree or a root or something.

Nazir (17:46): Yeah I don't know. It's the root of something.

Nelufar (17:47):

And, and when dad mixes the two together, there's some sort of alchemy and it starts to smoke and it smells clean.

Nazir (17:57):

I love this aroma.

Nelufar (18:01):

I love it It smells  like the way you think water would smell. I hope the extractor fan can hold out. There's a lot of smoke billowing from this thing.

Nelufar v/o (18:13):

As my dad kept his eye on the stove, I started to feel a little bit giddy. The rhythm of something really familiar that was rooted in the history of my family was bringing me back, back into myself, back into that kitchen.

Nelufar (18:29):

It smells like my childhood. It smells like every time I passed an exam, it smells like every time I did well in sports day, mom would always come around with this stuff and bless us every time I looked pretty or every time someone told me that I looked nice, mom would do this. So the evil eye wouldn't come on us.

Nelufar v/o (18:49):

When I was younger, I thought of this as that annoying thing mum and dad did. That stank up the house. But now that I'm an adult, I can see that it has deeper meaning. Burning rue or esfand as we call this herb is a pagan ritual that predates Islam.  Afghanistan, the place my parents and I were born was a pagan place for hundreds of years before Islam was brought in. And the custom, it just stuck around. And now my dad had taught me how to use the esfand and he left me the small jar that he'd brought.

Nazir (19:23):

Now you've how to use it.

Nelufar (19:25):

Yeah, I learn how to use it. Where did this come from?

Nazir (19:29):

They grow in desert.

Nelufar (19:30):

No. Where did this tradition come from? If we do it, Pakistani communities do it. Indian communities do it. That means it came from a long time ago.

Nazir(19:39):

It was a tradition in Arabs. People find it good for their health. We turn it into a kind of traditional and religious. That's why some people think it's a part of our religion, but it's not. Prophet Mohammed used this one, but not as a part of the religion, as a tradition.

Nelufar (20:05):

We finally had the white smoke billowing in the frying pan and dad said it was time to carry it into each room to purify the space.

Nazir (20:13):

Which way is your bedroom?

Nelufar (20:15):

This Way. Dad, my bedroom's this way.

Words in farsi and music playing

Nelufar (20:30):

We're just going up to my bedroom. Mum is playing the Quran. Dad's got this incense thing which is actually really strong. We’re in my bedroom

Nazir(20:44):

By the name of God, who is merciful…

Nelufar (20:53):

Okay, now we’re going - dad be careful!

Nazir (20:58):

It’s too hot.

Nelufar: It's so hot.

Nelufar v/o (21:04):

My dad was walking in front of me with the sizzling frying pan and he wafted the smoke into each room as the isan cleansed the air. Then he found it all over my face and my body to cleanse away any demonic spirits. I felt a wave of deep gratitude for my father. He was trying to connect with me in ways. An immigrant dad often finds it tricky. He was blowing rue onto my face as though it was love and I breathed it in feeling it help. We walked over to my bed, ground zero for my nightmares and all of this trouble. It was time for ritual number four, another recitation from the Quran. I was a bit startled by the side of my dad's voice. It was forceful, really powerful, commanding, whatever was causing my nightmares to stop now.

Nazir (22:03):

I take the sun out  from the east and it goes to the west. Do you still don't believe me? I create human from black soil and I create Jinn from fire. Do you still don't believe me? I am the God of south and west. Do you still don't believe me? I create oceans. Do you still don't believe me?

Nelufar v/o (22:47):

By now, about two hours had gone by. Onto ritual number five.

Nelufar:

So what are you going to do with the water in my house today?

Patuni (22:56):

So this is, uh, like Christian, have holy water. This is a holy water for us and we put some around your home today in every corner, and it gets spiritually clean. And inshallah, your nightmare will go.

EXPLAINER (23:14):

Inshallah, meaning God willing,

Patuni (23:17):

You will have some sip of it. Okay? If you want to,

Nelufar v/o (23:23):

Mom told me the water came from zamzam. A special well in Mecca, the holiest place in all of Islam. The story goes that the well was discovered by baby Ishmael, who would grow up to be an important Muslim prophet and his mother Haja. I could picture Haja running from hill to hill, searching for water to give to her son. Now my mum was going from room to room using that same zamzam water to protect her daughter. It felt like Islamic spirituality at its most maternal, it's most protective. It's most miraculous.

Patuni (24:05):

I just put some uh, holy water around each corner of your house, on each corner of every room. Inshallah it would be clean of any evil eyes. And you may feel better and you may believe in peace of mind. And..

Nelufar: Mum, you forgot the bathroom

Patuni: because it is very holy. We shouldn't put in the toilet.

Nelufar: Okay. And that's it. Okay.

Nelufar (24:37):

That's it. We did the holy water in the whole of the house.

Nelufar v/o (24:40):

Rabbi Jill told me later that water is used as a cleansing or healing agent in a lot of different traditions from her own Jewish faith to the holy wells in Ireland. The idea that water drawn from a sacred place retains the energy of that place is pretty widespread.

Nelufar  (25:03):

I will, I will. That's it. Okay. Everything is finished?

Nelufar v/o (25:05):

At last all the rituals were done and my parents left me to get a good night's sleep. We all hoped. Thank you.

Nelufar (25:13):

Thank you for coming. Bye.

Nelufar v/o (25:15):

I closed the door on my parents and felt the energy of their rituals surging through my house. I really did. At the same time though, I was completely exhausted.

Nelufar (25:29):

There's a lot of spirituality there in the last hour, ladies and gentlemen, I'm a bit spiritualit-ed out.

Nelufar v/o (25:34):

I headed upstairs to get into my pajamas and I jumped straight into bed and the next day I woke up well rested after a totally peaceful night.

Nelufar:

It is still dark. The sun hasn't risen because it's 7.10 in London in winter. But I am outside. I am energized. I've got some mango and orange juice and I'm not really one for birds chirping, but it does sound mighty nice and it does feel mighty calm when you're up and you don't feel the weight of the whole night and night full of nightmares and dreams burdening you. So yeah, I'm gonna go and make myself some breakfast.

Nelufar v/o:

After my bagel. I called up Rabbi Jill to help me process what had just happened

Nelufar (26:40):

In my nightmares. I was telling myself that as beautiful as my life is and so full of joy and amazing things, that it's okay to have seen some of the things that I've seen to have been through some of the things that I've been through because they're both parts of who I am. Yes. And I have to stop trying to avoid those dark parts of might being.

Rabbi Jill (27:03):

Wow. I think that's such a powerful thing to take out of these dreams that you've brought yourself up from the deaths. Really. I think that is so, so powerful.

Nelufar (27:15):

Sorry. It's a lot of inner work, like self-work dreams.

Rabbi Jill (27:23):

Yes. I think it’s nice to be brave.

Nelufar (27:27):

Oh, thank you for recognizing that.

Rabbi Jill (27:30):

What a blessing and what an ordeal.

Nelufar (27:34):

When I was haunted by nightmares, I tried to minimize my sleepless nights. I made jokes about them because as a society, western culture has relegated dreams to silly mind burps, right? But there's so much more than that. And the rituals my parents did to drive the dreams away, they're part of something bigger too.

Rabbi Jill (28:00):

I do think that the ways that ritual tends to us allows us to feel like we are the focus of people's care and love and divinity’s care and love is a way that ritual works, right? It allows us to feel that we matter. So it can be absolutely a form of self-care to receive ritual and to immerse oneself in it. It's also a form of community care, right? When we do a communal ritual, it's a way that we show care for one another. We say that each person in the community matters, but in some ways, spiritual practice is about practice. You know, more than it is about belief. It's about using practice to make our lives better, to make the world better.

Nelufar v/o (28:46):

Did I finally get to sleep because of the cleansing smoke or the holy water or because of the verses of the Quran were very special and had special powers? Or was it simply because my parents took the time to come and take care of me? Because for two and a half hours my wellbeing was their sole focus? Mm, jury's out on that one.

Nelufar v/o (29:18):

Thank you for listening. If you'd like to share your experience of this ritual, or you've got another one for me to explore, please let me know. Connect with me at nfer on Twitter and TikTok and follow us on Instagram at the Ritually Pod. And we have a bonus listener episode coming up and I wanna hear from you. What do you think of the series so far? Are there any rituals you've been doing or that you think I should look into? You can record a voice memo and send that over for us to listen to or just write down your thoughts and I'll read them. Our email address is richly project brazen.com. You can also record a voicemail on our website, richly.fm. If you like what you've been hearing, please give us a review. Rate us and subscribe and sign up for our newsletter to get the latest ritually updates. We've got the link in our show notes.

I'd like to say a massive enormous, humongous, thank you to Rabbi Jill Hammer and of course, my personal spiritual army, my parents.

Nelufar v/o (30:24):

You can learn more about Rabbi Jill on her website, rabbi jill hammer.com. If you want to know more about the Hebrew Priest Desk movement, check out the website conet.org. That's K O H E N E t.org. It's in our show notes too. And if you fancy learning more about rituals and dreams, you can find Rabbi Jill's book Under Torah on I Press. If you wanna learn more about the cultural context of these rituals, subscribe to Brazen Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get to hear the extended version of my interview with Rabbi Jill Hammer. She blew my mind when she said,

Rabbi Jill (31:05):

If you are doing a ritual in a sanctioned way and you're an authority, you're an official person, right? That's called a prayer. But if you're at home in your kitchen and you're lighting incense to send away the demon in someone's dream, that's called magic.

Nelufar v/o (31:20):

Next week on Ritually, I find a ritual in Harry Potter. Yeah, with the atheist chaplain podcaster, Vanessa Zoltan and some medieval monks.

Nelufar (31:37):

You need to mean them potter. You need to really want to cause pain to enjoy it. Turning back among the many leaves, which the past had folded in him, pressing into the heart of the forest where light and shade so chequer each other and build a hell in heavens despite.

See you then.

CREDITS (32:08):

This has been ritually with me, Nelufar Hedayat.

This podcast is written and co-created by me and Sarah Kendal, who's also our series producer. We produce the show in partnership with Brazen. Susie Armitage is our story editor. Troy Holmes is our audio editor, mixing and Sound Design by Claire Urbahn. Our theme tune is by Amaroun, and our original music is by Jay Brown.

Executive producers for Brazen are Bradley Hope and Tom Wright.

At Brazen, Mariangel Gonzales is our project manager, and Lucy Woods is our fact checker and head of research.

Charlotte Cooper is our Marketing Consultant. Francesca Gilardi Quadrio Curzio and Nour Abdel Latif are podcast strategists.

Megan Dean is programming manager and Ryan Ho is the series creative director.

Cover art designed by Julien Pradier

For more from Ritually, head to the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts. There, you can subscribe to Brazen Plus for ad-free listening and exclusive access to bonus episodes. If you’d like to learn more about this series check out our website ritually.fm