My body has three spirits 

My body has three spirits 

She said:

“When my Zār comes, I’m no longer myself. First, I feel tingling in my toes, then numbness. This feeling rises upward until it reaches my neck. At that moment, I only manage to say my last few words so that anyone near me would understand what’s happening to me. I say: ‘My Zār is here,’ and then I faint.

But my family does not see a motionless, unconscious body; they see someone speaking in Arabic at times … someone who harms herself like a mad person—and if they get close, I might hurt them. If they recite the Quran near me, I might attack them as if to kill them. (She means the body that, at that moment, is being controlled by the Zār.)

I have two Zārs who dislike me.
The only way to free myself is for Baba Zār (Baba Qolam) to come one night after 24 hours that I rubbed jasmine oil on my body. He must stay in our house and play music so that my Zār calms down and speaks. A Zār only speaks to Baba Zār or Mama Zār.

It tells them what it wants so that it will leave me alone for a while and stop hurting me. Each Zār demands a calling object—for example, mine asks for a green sheet to be placed over me. Then it wants an extra item—like a gold ring, a piece of clothing, or something else for the body (which is my body).

If it continues hurting me and refuses to leave after the music ritual, Baba Zār hits it with a stick—he hits the dancing body.
I don’t remember anything. I don’t even feel the pain of being beaten. Others just tell me later what I did last night… but it wasn’t me, it was my Zār. I was asleep, and it was awake.

My body has three spirits… sometimes it’s me, and sometimes it’s my Zārs.”

How it started

When I spoke with Masoumeh between her “episodes” or Zār attacks, she had not eaten for a week. Her hands were trembling. She told me:

“I’m very scared of them. I constantly feel like I’m in a grave and they’re burying me with soil. I always feel someone is in the house. I have so much fear. I didn’t do anything to them. The first time was when I was 14, at school, in between classes, I was sitting under a tree with my friends. I was talking when suddenly I felt something—like dense energy—enter my mouth. I felt it instantly spread through my whole body, and that was the attack of the Zār… and it hasn’t left me since.

My friends are afraid of me. Because of this, I’ve become very lonely… they’re scared to come to our house. And I have no way to free myself from them.”