Calling a Ghost at the University Dorm

One of the craziest things my friends and I did together was to try to call some ghosts together, while we had no special ability or knowledge for that. There is one thing they say about this : if you aren't professional, a "genie", as we call it, might come instead of the ghost of a person.

So me and my classmates who happened to be my friends at the university dormitory, gathered together one night, at about 3 AM or so, and decided to call some ghosts of our relatives or friends who were dead. We made the things needed for calling the ghosts ready : a tray, on the back of which we had written down the letters in Persian language, as well as the words "Yes" and "No", and "Hello" and "Bye". Hello is used for the ghost that comes, and wants to respond to our hello. "Yes" and "No" are for the ones who want to answer a yes/no question. We also needed something like a very small glass that all of us put one of our fingers on and the ghost was supposed to move it toward the letters to make words and sentences we needed to know.

We did two dumb things that night. They say you can call the ghost of some person who is sleeping, but if they wake up or someone wakes them up, their soul won't return to their body and they will die! There's a boy in our class on whom my friend Maria has a crush. So we decided to call his ghost to ask him some questions about his love life! We said some of the verses and then we asked if there was a ghost in the room. The glass moved to "Yes"! We were so excited. We knew this was dangerous, because if it was real, he might die! Maria was very anxious and kept asking the "ghost" questions. It was for the most part fun. After having talked to the ghost for more than a quarter of an hour, we noticed it is giving us crazy answers. We asked him if he was a "genie". The glass moved to "Yes". We were horrified. In our culture, we believe that genies have great powers and they can come and do crazy things to you, without you seeing them. And well, when you call the ghost, they become present in your room. Therefore, imagining that a genie was there with us terrified us so badly. We asked his name, and he answered that his name was "Shayez" or something - hah, crazy name! It's said that genies have crazy names.

We asked the genie to leave the room. Then we said goodbye, but he would go to "Hello". I said, " Please Mr. Shayez, we want you to leave us and never come back here. Goodbye!" The glass moved to "Hello" again. We did not know what to do. It was such a terrifying moment for all of us. We looked at each other with terrified looks and did not know what to say. We tried it a few more times, until the glass finally moved to "Goodbye" and we were all relieved.

After a few minutes, Maria said that when she saw the ghost turned out to be a genie, she tried to tease us by moving the glass towards hello for the first couple times that we tried to get the genie out of the room. She said she wanted to make us afraid. But she said the last few times wasn't her. She was terrified then too. She said the genie must have become so angry that would not leave!

We were so thankful that the ghost/genie had left, and decided not to do it anymore! It was just a dangerous, but exciting game. Maybe worth trying once, but it could lead to troubles for us.

The day after, we went to university. When Maria saw that boy whose ghost we had tried to call, she screamed! The boy looked at her in surprise. Maria asked him "Are you okay? "

"Yes", he answered. "Why?"

Never in his wildest dreams would he imagine that we had tried calling his ghost to ask him questions about his love life. We never told him, although he kept asking why we looked at him queerly!

We understood that what we had done was a dumb thing, and should not be tried anymore. However, me and a couple of friends tried calling ghosts again, and something came and said it was a genie, and that his name was Shayez!!