In the film Wishmaster, the djinn is waiting inside the gem, waiting to grant your wish. But, as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for. You just may get it.

I recommend watching the first two Wishmaster movies. The storylines are much better written than the last two. Andrew Divoff plays a wonderfully compelling Wishmaster, and is flanked by legendary actor Robert Englund (Freddy in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise) who plays collector Raymond Beaumont.

The film opens showing a docked ship containing ancient artifacts. As they are being unloaded, a drunken crane operator spills his drink, short circuiting the operating board. It causes the crane holding a crate to plummet and crash onto the dock, killing Beaumont’s assistant who is standing underneath.

Within the demolished crate are broken pieces of a sculpture of Ahura Mazda, the benevolent god of Zoroastrianism – the pre-Islamic monotheistic and dualistic religion of Persia, now Iran.

One of the broken sculpture pieces reveals a fire opal. A dockworker sees and pockets it. He turns it over to Nick Merritt, owner of Regal Auctioneers, who hires appraiser Alexandra (Alex) Amberson played by Tammy Lauren. As Alex examines the gem she inadvertently breaks the gem and awakens the djinn inside. This is where the fun begins.

In Islamic mythology, the djinn is a demon, whose free will could be used for either good or evil, but generally is used as evil through the practice of curses, under the guise of the granting of wishes. Over the centuries the djinn has been transformed and adopted cross-culturally as the benevolent genie.

The Wishmaster djinn is pure evil. His purpose is to gather souls into the gem through granting one wish, and then claiming each soul after the deed is done. After he collects all the souls he needs, he grants three wishes to the one who woke him, which results in the unleashing of all the djinns who will then overtake humanity.

Each person on the soul bargaining wish list learns that their wish has to be uber specific to avoid it being twisted into a curse. If they do not, the outcome will most assuredly be gruesome and fatal.

By the way, because djinns are immortal beings, one cannot wish for them to be destroyed.

The djinn uses a dead man by the name of Nathaniel Demarest to go about his hellish activities. To exemplify the kind of wishes that end up as curses, he visits the Merritt to ascertain the whereabouts of Alex. Meritt refuses, but then Demarest persuades him to wish for one thing. Merritt flippantly wishes for a million dollars.

The scene cuts to his mother signing papers naming him as beneficiary of a million-dollar insurance policy. She then boards a plane, and soon after the plane crashes, killing everyone on board, hence Merritt’s million dollar wish.

Alex consults a folklore professor about the djinn, and learns of the planet’s horrible fate. She is determined to thwart his efforts. After the Wishmaster collects his requisite souls, he confronts Alex and demands she makes her three wishes. After two wishes that go horribly wrong, she outwits the djinn for her final wish by wishing that the crane operator was never drunk. This brings everything back to the beginning, and the Ahura Mazda is brought down safely on the dock, and transported to its proper place, its djinn-inhabited gem intact and hidden.

Mythology is laced with stories of spirits of good and evil, bargaining with humans in exchange for their souls. These myths suggest that these forces are outside of us, influencing or controlling our behaviors, and that our battle is against them, and if we are victorious, we save ourselves and those around us. Often, they feed into the hero’s journey, where the hero saves the village, the city, the civilization, even humankind itself.

However, these myths are also metaphors for the good and evil within us, and our wishes are reflective of this. Our wishes become classic cases of ethical egoism, the theory that we act primarily in our self-interest, some cases extending to selfishness. Our self-interest is subjective, and can fluctuate, depending on the circumstances.

We have all wished for the amenities of life – a new car, a new home, a great job, a large nest egg, an abundance of good quality supportive friends, a loving, sustaining relationship, and so on. We may even hold or rub a symbolic object as we do this.

Many of us in our homes and places of worship ask for things like happiness, prosperity, love, good health, and power or influence. We pray to a deity in hopes that these things will be brought into our lives. We believe that if we obey, our wishes will come true.

Some of us will ask for good things to come to others, especially those who love and support us. We ask for the strength and ingenuity to make the kind of positive change we want. Ask any bright-eyed young person entering into society, and they will say to us that they want to change the world.

Many of us wish for a better version of ourselves within that world-changing context. We often quote Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Though this is profound, it is inaccurate. He actually said:

We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.

Some of us will wish harm to come to another person or group for how we have been, or how we feel we have been wronged. We curse them, and desire to see them suffer as we have suffered. Our anger and bitterness grow as we seek to exact punishment, wishing that some force would orchestrate their demise. Those who are religious say, “God don’t like ugly,” as they pray for retribution.

Hitman Jules Winnfield played by Samuel Jackson in the iconic film Pulp Fiction performs a creative version of Ezekiel 25:17 before blowing away his contracted target:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon you.

These good or harmful wishes not only may have beautiful or grave consequences to the intended target(s), but it may also return to us many fold – the universal law of reciprocity related to the golden rule, which can also be related to Deontology or duty ethics, the normative ethical theory that actions are right or wrong based on rules rather than consequences.

But what perhaps is not acknowledged is that anything that one asks, there is always a quid pro quo attached. Many of us who are stepped in ethical egoism may not adhere to this principle. We concentrate on what will be given to us, and not on what will be required of us, for the requirement may not only be what we don’t want, but it may be something that will be uncomfortable, even painful.

For whatever is given, something must be taken.

This is famously depicted in the film The Silence of the Lambs, where Dr. Hannibal Lecter requires FBI agent Clarice Starling to tell something about her personal life in exchange for information on serial killer Buffalo Bill. She recalls the experience of the crying of lambs as they were being slaughtered. Starling is shaken to her core, running out of the sanatorium in tatters.

The djinn requires souls for a wish to be granted. What we are being required most likely will be far less, but something within our finite nature of which we must adhere, or what has been granted may be taken away from us.

Perhaps it is as simple as paying it forward, or reaching back to give to others as we have been given, to lift someone up as we have been uplifted. An opportunity should not be an orphan.

Then there are wishes granted through nefarious means, and they too require such a return. Our deals may involve compromising our morals and ethics, even doing something criminal like lying, embezzlement, extortion, or worse, brutal or fatal physical harm. Then before we know it, we are on a downward spiral, seemingly unable to get ourselves out of the hell we created.

Our wishes are often for the greater good. Altruism is at our core. It influences our intentions. Even those kinds call for an element of sacrifice in return. It may require giving additional time, energy and resources. Depending once again on circumstances, it may require the greatest sacrifice – our lives.

So, wish away, just know that there is always something waiting for you on the other side. Always remember, there is no free wish in this world, or beyond it.