Living with the Invisible

Their existence is affirmed by the Qur’an, and anyone who becomes familiar with the culture of people of North African origin will learn this: jinn, whether malevolent or benevolent, are present in Europe, in a far more tangible way than in *One Thousand and One Nights*. Uncomfortable in oil lamps, they prefer to inhabit human beings and often have troubled relationships with those they inhabit… The health services of the City of Brussels have noticed that certain clinical disorders recur, and that the narrative accompanying these symptoms is often the same: ‘I have the evil eye, I’ve been bewitched, I’m possessed by a djinn…’ To address this suffering, educators, psychologists, family therapists, lawyers and doctors have become familiar with the ethnopsychiatric approach and have founded, in Brussels, the ‘Collectif Entre Deux Mondes’.