The Evil Eye

We all know what the 'blue eye' is, which we call 'nazarlık': a piece of glass made like a wheel, in the middle a blue eye looking you in the face, which is said to protect you from the evil eye. In Antioch (Antakya) we have a museum very rich in mosaics. One of these mosaics, called 'KAI SY', shows us the 'Evil Eye'. KAI SY = 'AND YOU'. By writing 'and you', the mosaic means: 'To those who wish you good, may good befall them; and to those who wish you evil, may evil befall them.' The message of this mosaic is 'What you wish for me, I wish for you' — a message of fighting evil and settling in goodness. This type of mosaic was found in front of houses in the Roman period, and is said to have served to drive away the evil eye and bad energy from these houses. The evil eye is a look believed to do harm to a person or a thing. This harm can come in the form of misfortune, accident, illness and even death.

The academic Alan Dundes spent years studying the phenomenon of the evil eye and says it is a folk belief in the Indo-European world and in the Semitic world, as we see in the texts of the Sumerians. Before drinking, clinking wine glasses, saying 'Ke bivas' — 'may you live' — when someone sneezes, are remnants of this type of belief left to us from those ancient times. Alan Dundes, in his work, drew on anthropology, ophthalmology, psychiatry, sociology and religious studies. The academic Needham says the evil eye is a synthetic figure that comes from jealousy, from wanting and not being able, from the notion of the evil sorcerer, from desire and from fear.

The hands found in the cave on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, more than 40,000 years old, give us an idea of the symbolic figure of protection, of driving away harm, illness or any other danger. The evil eye, which is a form of sorcerer's curse, has its roots in superstition and magical thinking. When the reason for some harm, illness or natural evil cannot be found, man has always found the solution in the evil eye. Since always, this answer has been given to the question 'Why do bad things happen to good people?': 'From the evil eye.' It is said that the eyes form the entrance to a person's soul because they have a special power. Avoiding someone's gaze is said to denounce the liar. A fixed stare can be interpreted as coming from affection or from menace, depending on the circumstances, and also shows a power of superiority. The gaze explains emotion, love, hatred, disgust, annoyance, insult, affection and surprise.

It is believed that the cross-eyed person brings bad luck, likewise the person with eyes of different colours. In many countries, praising a baby does not please the parents, because this too can bring bad luck. In Turkey putting a little blue eye with a safety pin on the baby's swaddling is very common. After praising a baby, one is told to spit three times in the baby's face saying 'pu, pu, pu'. In Greece, even when praising a woman's beauty, you must do the same thing. A protection against the evil eye was sometimes the garlic hung in a part of the house. Today there are a great many jewels that women wear, with precious stones, that resemble the blue eye. Do not think the superstition of the evil eye has been lost in today's world. According to many academics this superstition affects millions of people, whether in the Mediterranean region or in Latin America. In Hebrew we say 'Ayin ha-Ra'. One protection against the Ayin ha-Ra is what we call the 'hamsa', the hand with five fingers, which serves to drive away the 'evil eye'. I wish you all to be far from the evil hour and the evil eye. Source: Benjamin Radford and C. McKelvie