Cinemyth Presents: Jinn, Angel, Demon: The Spirit of the Wish in Fairy Tale

Cinemyth Presents: Jinn, Angel, Demon: The Spirit of the Wish in Fairy Tale and Film with Maryam Sayyad

The jinn had a long life before becoming bound to that lamp. By the time Shahrzad told bedtime stories for A Thousand and One Nights, spirits had been granting wishes for an age. Indeed, behind this book and its predecessor, A Thousand Afsān, lies a wild universe teeming with the strange, half-seen daemons of pagan lore—among them, the wish-fulfilling daemon.

We find this figure in the lowest station of Aladdin’s crypt, as a luminous jinn that grants infinite wishes, while in Obsession, an unseen malevolence grants only one. In the Iranian fairy-tale film Hasan Kachal, Hasan’s wish-fulfiller arrives in a bathhouse—a common jinn haunt—as his personal double, a familiar jinn type. In A Dark Song, Sophia’s Holy Guardian Angel answers her call only after she has confronted her demons. And among the angelic and demonic legions of Twin Peaks, an angel called The Fireman grants Freddie Sykes a superpowered wish for the good of all.

On the surface, these are very different stories, born of different centuries and seemingly different traditions. But approached with keys offered by Solomonic magic, Mazdean angelology, and the cosmology of light in Western and Eastern esoteric traditions, a recurring motif emerges—and with it, the stories begin to surrender a recurring law: whether the being that answers the call is angel or demon is determined by the spirit of the wish.

What happens when a hidden order of reality seems to answer a passionate desire—and, in fulfilling it, holds a mirror up to the impassioned soul?

Tickets: $12 (in person & online)

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Through Mirrors, Webs, & Woods: A Month of Folk & Fairy Tales at PRS

This September, PRS celebrates the many wonders of fairytales and folk stories through a series of illustrated presentations, film screenings, and workshops!