The belief that misfortune can somehow be projected onto one person by

another through a glance is ancient and universal. It was based on a

misunderstanding of how the faculty of vision functions. Centuries ago it was
thought that the eye perceives the outer world by projecting forth invisible rays
onto external objects such as trees, mountains, stones and clouds. It was
assumed that we became aware of our surroundings visually by a kind of
optical touch that relied on these rays as channels of communication, just as
we become aware of the texture of objects by physically touching them with
our hands.
If these projected rays existed, the thinking went, then the sight must be an
active, not a passive, sense. Unless we actively sent forth these rays from our
eyes, we would be blind. This explained why some individuals were unable to
see, even though their eyes looked normal and healthy.
We now know that sight is a passive faculty in the sense that light, reflected
from the surface of objects in our environment, or generated from heated
objects, enters our eyes without the need for us to project rays to link us to the
objects. Whereas in the past our eyes were considered to be energy projectors,
today they are considered to be open windows.
Neither of these popular notions is entirely accurate, since the faculty of sight
entails much more than simply receiving radiant energy that shines upon our
optic nerves -- sight is a perception that occurs in our brains, where the light
received is processed into images that we can comprehend. But the older folk
explanation for how our eyes see the world helps to explain the underlying
beliefs about the evil eye.
The evil eye in its purest form was understood to be the deliberate projection of
a ray of occult energy with the malicious intention to cause harm. Several
factors were thought to make it more powerful. If the person sending it was
from a family or tribe noted for works of black magic, it would derive increased
power from this hereditary predisposition. If the eye from which the evil was
projected was bloodshot, or deformed in some way, this also increased its
force. If a glance from the evil eye was sent in a sidelong way, from the corner
of the eye of the malicious person, it was more powerful. Most important of all,
the effect was believed fatal if the person "overlooked" by the evil eye actually
met the malicious gaze directly.
There are various ways to turn aside or at least lessen the harmful effects of
this baleful sidelong glance. Laughter was thought to weaken its power. Other
forms of ridicule, such as a bared backside, were also effective. A mirror could
be used to reflect the ray back upon the person sending it out. Similarly, a
shiny object such as a large, bright piece of jewelry attracted the focus of the

person projecting the malicious ray, so that it did not enter the eye of the
victim directly.
Another good defense was to carry the image of an eye as jewelry or
embroidered into clothing or as a tattoo -- the belief was that the ray from this
artificial eye would extend itself first and displace the ray from the evil eye.
These artificial eyes were sometimes realistic, but often they were highly
stylized and almost unnoticed in the pattern of cloth or the decoration on
metalwork.
A popular gesture to defuse the power of the glance involved making a fist in
which the thumb is thrust between the index and middle finger. This hand
gesture was also used as the pattern for a charm to be carried on the body as a
constant defense -- see the illustration at the top of this page. It's difficult to
imagine what practical purpose this gesture might serve, even in a symbolic
sense, but it was believed to be a highly effective means of protection.
For Christians, to cross oneself and to utter a prayer under the breath offered
some protection. A cross or crucifix worn around the neck was a sentinel
against not only vampires, but the evil eye as well.
Stories of the evil eye are ancient. The philosopher Francis Bacon observed
"Scripture calleth envy an evil eye," a reference to Proverbs 23:6-8, which
reads: "Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou
his dainty meats; for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: eat and drink, saith
he to thee; but his heart is not with thee. The morsel which thou hast eaten
shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words."
The Greek poet Apollonius of Rhodes, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, at the end
of the first century, wrote of how the sorceress Medea destroyed the giant Talos
with nothing more than the malice of her gaze:
"Then, with incantations, she invoked the Spirits of Death, the swift hounds of
Hades who feed on souls and haunt the lower air to pounce on living men. She
sank to her knees and called upon them, three times in song, three times with
spoken prayers. She steeled herself with their malignity and bewitched the
eyes of Talos with the evil in her own. She flung at him the full force of her
malevolence, and in an ecstasy of rage she plied him with images of death."
The Roman historian Pliny the Elder, who also lived during the first century,
recorded earlier accounts of particular tribes, the Triballi and the Illyrii, some of
the members of which possessed the power of the evil eye as a genetic
inheritance. He wrote about "persons of this description, who also have the
power of fascination with the eyes, and can even kill those on whom they fix
their gaze for any length of time, more especially if their look denotes anger."

Pliny recorded several details concerning this type of person. He wrote that the
pupils of their eyes are double. The same was reported about a certain tribe in
Scythia known as the Bythiae, and a tribe in Pontus called the Thibii.
Sometimes the pupils in the eyes of the Thibii resembled the shape of a horse.
It was said that the bodies of members of this tribe possessing the evil eye
would not sink in water, not even when they were weighed down by the sodden
mass of their clothing.
It was common to refer to those accused of having the evil eye as witches. One
of the trials used to test a witch during the Middle Ages and Renaissance was
to throw her into water and watch to see whether or not the accused witch
sank. If the unfortunate person sank, she was declared innocent. Presumably
someone tried to fish her out before she drowned, although this is not stated
when this form of witch test is mentioned in the histories. This method of
testing a witch is at least as old as Pliny's source, which places it before the
time of Christ.
The term "witch" was used in an extremely negative way in past centuries. It
was a catch-all term for sorcerers, murders, poisoners, baby-killers, heretics
and other wicked types. What they had in common was the belief by their
accusers -- usually an incorrect belief -- that they accomplished their evil deeds
through the agency of black magic.
It is important to realize that the witches of modern times are sane, decent
folks who do not perform black magic. Nor do they have the evil eye. There is
nothing in common between the modern witch and the poor unfortunate
innocents falsely accused in the Middle Ages of witchcraft. Nor is there any
similarity between the modern witch and the ugly fantasy that existed in the
minds of the medieval witch-finders.
In addition to those accused of sorcery and witchcraft, certain animals were
also believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to have the power of the evil
eye. One such beast was the European wolf. It was thought that if a wolf
approached a man unseen and set the ray of its gaze upon him, the man would
at once be struck speechless with paralyzing fear. The wolf was then free to
attack and kill the man, since he could neither run away nor cry out to attract
the attention of others.
This spell of the evil eye would persist, even if the wolf came out from hiding so
that the man could look upon it. However, if it happened that the man saw the
wolf first, the gaze of the wolf would lack its paralyzing effect. It was believed
that the ray from the eye of the man extending itself to the wolf prevented the
ray from the wolf's eye from reaching the man -- the same theory that caused
individuals to wear images of eyes on their clothing.

No such complication existed in the myth of the basilisk, a serpent whose gaze
falling upon a man at once made him immobile. We still have a remnant of this
ancient belief in the form of the folk tale that says a snake can charm its prey
so that it remains motionless until it is killed. The same sort of belief was also
held with regard to the hyena by the ancient Romans.
Belief in the evil eye has never ceased since the dawn of recorded history. It is
still widely held in the Mediterranean region, where it has persisted in exactly
the same form for thousands of years in an unbroken tradition. It is said to be
especially common among the working classes in Italy, Greece and Sicily.
Even in modern Africa, tribal witch hunts are conducted against those
unfortunate citizens accused by their neighbors of having the evil eye, and of
causing bad luck or sickness by their mere glance. Countless innocent
individuals, men and woman, have been murdered on the twin charges of
witchcraft and the evil eye.
It would be difficult to maintain that there is no such thing as the evil eye,
when the belief is so widespread across both time and cultural boundaries. At
the same time it is obvious that the traditional explanation as to how the evil
eye works must be incorrect. How then does it work?
When a malicious glance is sent from the eye of a spiteful person directly into
the eye of another person who is susceptible to suggestion, and is predisposed
to anticipate supernatural attacks and resulting misfortunes, it implants itself in
the imagination of the victim like a black seed, and begins to grow, nourished
by the fear and expectation of the victim. As a result, the mind of the person
assaulted by the evil eye turns against itself, and actually creates the
misfortunes that it most fears.
In the same way that a hypnotist can put someone into a hypnotic state and
place the suggestion directly into their subconscious mind that they will feel
better and better about themselves with each passing day, the glance of the
evil eye implants the suggestion directly into the subconscious of a person that
they will suffer greater and greater misfortune with each passing day. It does
this below the level of words.
So great is the power of the human mind over the body it inhabits, the evil eye
has actually been recorded to have killed some of those afflicted with it. Once a
man is utterly convinced on the subconscious level that he is worthless, that he
is to be despised and hated, that he is destined to suffer misfortunes and die,
and furthermore that these conditions in his life are inevitable, he cannot help
but begin to destroy his life by his unconscious actions.

In effect, those afflicted by the evil eye become their own assassins. Even when
they do not utterly poison their lives, they can cause great suffering to
themselves and by extension to those around them. Their suffering is real, and
because they are at war against themselves, it is difficult to help them.
Even though there is no malicious ray or agent transmitted across space from
the eye of the spiteful person to the eye of the victim, the effect of turning
one's own subconscious mind against oneself can be deadly. Yet it is scarcely
fair to blame the person who triggered this self-destructive cycle merely
because that person looked at the sufferer in an unfriendly manner.
Indeed, many who suffer from the effects of the evil eye can not even blame it
on the malicious wishes or intentions of another person. They are so
predisposed to look for the evil eye in every sidelong glance from a stranger,
that they bring misfortune upon themselves by imagining an evil glance where
none exists. The demons they battle are inside them, and require no assistance
from outside to cause misfortune.
It was common in ancient times for anyone who could not defend himself,
particularly for elderly women who mumbled and had cataracts, to be accused
of the evil eye without the slightest provocation, without even so much as a
hard look cast upon their neighbors. Strangers, those who lived alone, or those
of a different racial group were especially vulnerable to this sort of false
accusation. The more they protested their innocence, the less they were
believed. The evidence of their supposed crimes was plain for all to see -wasn't the person who had accused them suffering misfortune after
misfortune? Why was he sick, if not from the evil eye? This argument has no
logic, but it usually prevailed, because human beings will always believe what
they wish to believe.
The best defense against the evil eye is to grow up, get a life, and stop
imagining evil forces where none exist. It is only the belief in the evil eye that
gives it power. That is why laughter and a cynical attitude are such effective
countermeasures. Unfortunately, not everyone can be so sane and adult. To
those suffering from the evil eye -- those who are convinced on the
subconscious level that they have been attacked -- the horror and despair are
very real. They see their lives crumbling around them, and are willing to do
anything to save themselves.
Victims of the evil eye frequently seek out help from gypsies and fortunetellers, because they feel that they have nowhere else to turn. Doctors and
psychologists dismiss their fears. Even priests and rabbis no longer realize that
the terrible effects of the evil eye are quite real to those who suffer from them.
Shut out from the churches, the clinics, the hospitals, where are they to turn?

Some unscrupulous fortune-tellers deliberately try to convince clients that they

have fallen victim to the evil eye. If they are successful, they offer to lift the
curse for a price -- a high price. So desperate are the suffers, they are eager to
agree to almost anything. The fortune-teller performs a few meaningless
gestures, mumbles a few words, or tells the sufferer to do some silly action,
and takes the money to the bank.
The sad thing is that the cure of the fortune-teller often works, because it
removes the black seed implanted in the subconscious mind of the victim. It
stands to reason that if a man can turn his own deep mind into his enemy, he
can also turn it into his friend. In the same way a person can persuade himself
that he is cursed because of a glance from a passing stranger, so can he
persuade himself that he is cured from that curse by following the instructions
of a fortune-teller. The eye of the stranger has no power. Neither do the
instructions of the fortune-teller. All power lies in the mind of the self-elected
victim.
If you believe that you are the victim of the evil eye, and are suffering
misfortunes because someone has cast a hateful glance upon you, this is what
you may do to cure yourself. Take a piece of paper and a pen, and draw an eye
upon the paper. Turn it over and write your own name upon the back. Hold it up
and look at the eye for a while, and imagine the face of the person you are
convinced has cast the evil eye upon you. Thrust the point of the pen directly
through the middle of the eye on the paper, and at the same time say these
words: "The eye is blind, it cannot find me." Repeat the words three times.
Understand in your heart that you are now free from the curse. Fold the paper
twice, dig a hole in the ground, and bury the paper under the earth where it will
lie undisturbed in darkness. Your will suffer no more misfortunes.

The Evil Eye is one of the oldest and mostly wide spread inborn superstitions to
possess man. The belief that there is a transmittal power of Evil existing in
man, which can suddenly discharge upon any object it beholds, has existed
since the time of prehistoric man. The origin of the belief is lost in the age of
obscurity but carried forward and documented during the time when Witchcraft
and Magic long preceded the world of Science. Its existence was attested to in
Egyptian Hieroglyphics, the Bible and the classic Greek and Roman Writings. It
was widely believed by the Ancients that certain envious or evil people could
induce sickness and death merely by casting their Eye on another person. Its
piercing force avowed to be so powerful could infect surrounding objects.
There are two kinds of conditions associated with the Evil Eye...

The Moral and the Natural.

The moral power is exercised by the will performing the consciously deliberate
action created in the mind. More terrible are those in whom the power of the
evil eye is natural and whose destructive look unconsciously can produce
harmful effects.
Throughout the years scientists, philosophers and sceptics called the belief of
the evil eye a foolish primitive superstition. Even still it continues to influence
many people around the world today.
"Evil Eye" symptoms:
1. Total head and back of the neck pain and the feeling of heavy eyes.
2. An Acute uneasiness or apprehension: everything seems to go wrong.
3. Stomach ache accompanied with dizziness and a feeling of vomiting.

The Evil Eye is a kind of negative power we all more or less carry within
ourselves. If we stare too long on a person, animal or even an object we may
inflict damage through this power. It is often totally unconsciously, but the
staring in itself often comes from admiration or envy, which are perfect
channels for the Evil Eye.
The victim will suddenly get a headache, a dizzy spell, faint, fall ill or even die,
depending on the Evil Eye's strength and the victims' susceptibility