The Evil Eye

[Evolved]

The Evil Eye

Excerpt:

Many books have been written about the evil eye. The classic 19th century text is "The Evil Eye: The Origins and Practices of Superstition" by Frederick Thomas Elworthy. A short popular survey is "Terrors of the Evil Eye Exposed" (reprinted as "Protection from Evil") by Henri Gamache. The most thought-provoking academic essay I have found on the psychology and the distribution of this belief in world cultures is "Wet and Dry: The Evil Eye" by Professor Alan Dundes, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. The article can be found in two of his books, "Interpreting Folklore" and "The Evil Eye: A Casebook," the latter a collection of scholarly writings assembled as a text for his anthropology-folklore students.

Dundes theorizes that the evil eye, which has a Middle-Eastern, Mediterranean, and Indo-European distribution pattern and was unknown in the Americas, Pacific Islands, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa or Australia until the introduction of European culture, is based upon underlying beliefs about water equating to life and dryness equating to death. He posits that the true "evil" done by the evil eye is that it causes living beings to "dry up" -- notably babies, milking animals, young fruit trees, and nursing mothers. The harm caused by overlooking consists of sudden vomiting or diarrhoea in children, drying up of milk in nursing mothers or livestock, withering of fruit on orchard trees, and loss of potency in men. In short, the envious eye "dries up liquids," according to Professor Alan Dundes -- a fact that he contends demonstrates its Middle Eastern desert origins.

As Dundes points out in support of this theory, evil eye belief is geographically spread out in a radiating ring from ancient Sumer, where it apparently got its start. It is mentioned the Old Testament of the Bible and believed by modern Arabs, Jews, and Christians. The belief extends eastward to India, westward to Spain and Portugal, northward to Scandinavia and Britain, and southward into North Africa. Although many people of European descent think it is universal, in fact China has no evil eye belief -- nor does Korea, Burma, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Sumatra, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Japan, Australia (aborigine), New Zealand (aborigine), North America (native), South America (native), or any of Africa south of the Sahara. It is generally referred to by scholars as a Semitic and Indo-European belief. The Westernmost pre-Columbian outpost of evil eye belief was along the Atlantic coast -- Ireland, England, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, and France; the easternmost pre-Columbian outpost of evil eye belief was India.

The epicenter of currently active evil eye belief is in nations along the Mediterranean and Aegean shores, plus India and the South American countries most influenced by Spanish conquest. It is now a fairly widespread belief among indigenous people in Latin America. Colonialists also spread it to North America, Australia, and New Zealand.

In the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean region, especially throughout Greece and up into Turkey, there is a strong tendency to view blue-eyed people as bearers of the evil eye -- probably because few locally-born people have blue eyes and those who do show up, such as tourists, are given to praising and cooing over babies, who are thought to be most at risk from the eye.

...

Has anyone had any experiences with this? I remember very well one time I was enjoying a quiet, peaceful moment to myself watching some birds and I looked over and saw this weird guy staring at me and he had the most demonic looking (dark) eyes. It wasn't just momentarily frightening, I was completely creeped out for the whole rest of the day.

[Scoob]

The Evil EyeHas anyone had any experiences with this? I remember very well one time I was enjoying a quiet, peaceful moment to myself watching some birds and I looked over and saw this weird guy staring at me and he had the most demonic looking (dark) eyes. It wasn't just momentarily frightening, I was completely creeped out for the whole rest of the day.

I've heard stories about things like this. Lots of Meds associate the evil eye with simple envy or anger usually. Maybe it's something more than that.

An Englishmen named Rupert Sheldrake wrote a good book studying this phenomenon, called "The Sense of Being Stared At." He cites numerous scientific studies showing that people do know when they're being stared at, and more. He considers the "Evil Eye" phenomenon to be part of this.

He also considers things like pets anticipating their owner's arrival, people thinking about a friend right before that person calls them on the telephone, etc - and cites controlled experiments on all these things. He relates this to the very practical advantage of prey animals knowing when a predator is focusing on them.

Supposedly the experiments overwhelmingly demonstrate that somehow, people *do* get a sense of when they're being paid attention to. You can see his website at http://www.sheldrake.org/

Sheldrake postulates an invisible "morphic field" which all living beings are part of and connected to. He says that when one thinks of someone, or looks at them, one extends some invisible part of their Will towards the object, who can feel this. So he'd say observation is not strictly passive, it's active. (Reminds me of Shroedinger's Cat...)

[Evolved]

So maybe this guy wanted to kill me or rape me and telepathically projected his evil feelings toward me?

This was a really weird and intense experience. It never happened before or since. I don't believe in stuff like this, but I don't think it's coincidence this creepy guy glares at me and I suddenly feel physically/mentally/emotionally/spiritually terrible at that moment. Maybe he was some kind of demon.