The Evil Eye

We read about the evil eye briefly in our first text, A History of Magic, but I never really thought about it until I was talking with one of my classmates about it. To her, the evil eye is a real thing, but my conversation with her was my first time learning in depth about it. So, if you are reading this, I hope I did it justice and got it right by you. 

According to my friend, the evil eye is something you get when you brag about your accomplishments to someone and they become jealous of your success. Their jealousy is directed at you and it brings misfortune upon you. In an example she shared with me, her boyfriend got the evil eye. He worked really hard to be able to buy himself a new car, and he was naturally proud of it, but once he shared about it to his relatives, they became jealous and the car broke down. In an example regarding her own experience, her mom admonished her for sharing her success in school for fear that she would get the evil eye and jinx her success. I also remember she told me a way you could identify the person who’s given you the evil eye. To do so, you can put salt across the doorway, and when the person who’s thought ill of you crosses it, they will become sick.

I’ve been pondering this for a couple of days now, and the moral takeaway I think the evil eye is trying to convey is that one should always be humble, not arrogantly lording their accomplishments over others. But I worry that a belief in the evil eye will create unintended consequences. I worry that being so afraid of sharing one’s successes, may cause one to struggle to be proud of themself or fail to celebrate the times when they’ve worked hard. I think having pride in yourself and people to share it with can improve your self esteem. But what do I know? I’m not a psychology major. This is merely my perspective from introspection. 

I did some digging in A History of Magic to refresh my memory on the evil eye and the book defines it as “a curse believed to be cast by a malevolent gaze, usually fixed on a person when they are unaware”. It talks about a few different cultures that believe in the evil eye, and nearly all of them have some form of talisman, often a pendant, to protect oneself from it. It has origins in ancient Greek culture, which calls it “baskania”. In Roman culture, a bulla was worn as a pendant to ward off the evil eye. The Byzantines also believed in the evil eye and wore engraved stones as amulets or protective images on their clothes to deflect it. Muslims were another group mentioned in the textbook that likewise believe in the evil eye and wear protective talismans with passages from the Quran. In Latin American culture, the evil eye is called “mal de ojo” and is associated with witchcraft. Today, lots of people wear eye shaped pendants on necklaces or bracelets to absorb the negativity directed at them by the evil eye.  Doing more research on the internet, it seems that nearly every culture has some concept of the evil eye. (I’ll include some images of the protective talismans from different cultures at the end.)

With so many cultures in agreement about the existence of the evil eye, it makes me wonder if it actually is real. While it may not be supported by science, is the evil eye real cosmic karma out punishing people for their arrogance? Or is it merely a concept made up by the people of our world to enforce humbleness? I’m not sure I’m sold on either side of that debate yet, but next time I will certainly think twice before sharing my accomplishments.