The "evil" eye?

[Aimskylove]

When I was about 11 years old I moved back to my country the Dominican Republic. I was just thinking of memories when I remembered something worth sharing here!
When I moved there my half sister told me that there is something called "mal de ojo" (evil eye) which in many different countries believe that someone can cast you bad luck by giving you an evil eye. I know its well known with the Greek culture and that its "avoided" by wearing an eye. Well she said that she had to cut her hair short once because a girl in school gave her the "evil eye" and her hair started to fall out. I freaked out! lol. She told me I had to wear a red ribbon in my hair to keep others from casting the bad eye upon me. Haha. Do I believe it? Meh. Not really. But it was something I thought was definitely worth sharing! :)

[mom2fourgirls]

I am Armenian and I believe if you wear the evil eye jewelery on your body.. You will be saved from bad luck and such :) and I have a lot of jewelery with the evil eye in it :) I never heard of hair falling off when someone gave you the evil eye though!!!

[emelnd]

I am Turkish, we have these myths there too. (Mom to 4 girls, don't hate me)

I love the evil eye beads that are supposed to protect you from that. If your friend is worried about it she can wear those, they will give her peace of mind, lol!

Me, I don't believe it. People can get you upset by giving you a nasty stare though!

I had this one:
http://14kevileye.com/slide_pages/slide1-1.htm

It looks better in person, a prettier blue. It was the first gift my boyfriend gave me. He is not Turkish, he just saw them and thought they were nice looking. It broke many times before it finally was broken again and lost. :(

[julierockhead]

I don't believe in the evil eye as a magical thing, but when someone looks at you with dislike, jealousy, hatred, I think something deep down in you senses it, and responds.

[Ligeia_13]

Oooooh yeah, its a biggie in here in Greece. I don't believe it. I think its utter crap.

[KwaveT]

To me this sort of thing is pure superstition. Needless to say, I don't believe in this either. It's quite interesting nonetheless.

[MinderMutsig]

My aunt was from Russia and she believed in the evil eye. When my nephew was a baby we would often find pins on weird places on the inside of his clothing and she'd be all secretive and flustered about it. Finally she told us it was protection from the evil eye.

Personally I think the kid needed protection from her with all those pins inside his clothing. It was the #1 thing to look for when babysitting when he started crying for no obvious reason. Most of the time he didn't need a diaper change or a bottle, he needed those pins removed from where they were sticking him. He often had little cuts when the pins had opened and pierced his skin. Poor baby. :(

After a couple of months my uncle put his foot down and told her she was not allowed to do that anymore because it might seriously hurt the baby.

[katsrevenge]

Not quite the same.. but my Southern US gramma once had me tie a red string around my wrist for protection when I first flew in a plane.

And I love those evil eye breads. I need some of those!

[free_hug]

Well, supposedly in most Western cultures the bride will have to wear a thin veil in front of her face. And the origin of this custom is not just aesthetical reasons :) it's a form of protection from the evil eye itself.

You don't have to believe in any superstition to understand the bad stuff about that look of jealousy and hatred :/ It might not make your hair fall out, but yeah, an appropriate response, even a physical one, is not impossible.





ETA: I had to correct "bride", because at first I wrote "braid" instead. Bad LHC influence I guess ;)

[jacqueline101]

That's interesting.

[In2wishin]

I think we have all seen someone give the "evil eye" (or "stink eye" if you prefer). Like all curses, they only have power over you if you believe that they do.

[alyaziaaah]

well, energy creates matter (quantumphysics). therefore any strongly concentrated energy has an impact somehow.
since thought are energy = matter, in that context, yes, and people simplify those energies with names like evil eye, black, white magic, blessing, luck, etc. it just depends if you give the chance to be open to a certain energy.
since believing is thinking is energy is matter, better not to believe in it :wigtongue
to be honest, i had my fair share with stuff like that, i'd rather to talk about it but i know that stuff exists in this world that can blow our minds :lipssealed:

[alyaziaaah]

i meant i would rather not* talk about it

[leslissocool]

When I was a baby I was told I had it. Apparently the first day my stepmother met me ( she was pregnant with my half brother already) I was a newborn, that day my crib got infested with giant red ants that bit my whole body.

Do I believe it? Not really. But my family (both sides) took me to do the egg cleanse thingy to get it out. They certainly did!

My stepmother hates my guts. Her family hated my mother's for generations.

[irisheyes]

My mother believed in the evil eye. She was a Catholic, so if she thought someone gave her the evil eye, she made the sign of the cross. My mother in law was Italian, and she used the Italian horn (aka a cornuta) to ward off evil. She also used a hand gesture called mano cornuta to send the evil eye right back to whoever gave it to her.

[GabrielleRose]

My family calls it "ojo" and they believe in it and I do at times. Supposedly my uncle had gotten "ojo" when he was a baby from a woman on the bus that he started foaming at the mouth or something like that so my granny did the egg cleansing as leslissocool mentioned. My mom said I also got it as a baby so again my granny did it to me, and of course placed the cracked egg underneath my crib and I got better.

[DancingQueen]

Well, maybe I should get one of those, I get a lot of evil stares from some girls. :D

The nastiest one though, came from a guy on the Azores. I was on family vacation, and we were just leaving the restaurant. This guy stared at me, like he literally wanted to kill me. I was probably 30 centimeters taller than him, but for some reason (maybe the death stare), it kind of freaked me out. Anyway, we sat in our rented car, and first thing that happens, my father (who is a really good driver), backs into an iron pole...

[MasCat]

Well, I know some superstitions regarding the evil eye:
- children had a red bead placed on their clothing or on somewhere near, so the "evil eye" would fall on the red accent rather than the child - people still do that a lot :)
- the veil of the bride is supposed to protect not only the bride herself, but the whole wedding procession
- Gorali horses have shiny elements on their tack - big disks - it is said that those are like mirrors, sending the "eil eye" right back to its sender.

Didn't have any personal occurrences of the EE in my life though :)

[Lippytoes]

I don't believe in the evil eye as a magical thing, but when someone looks at you with dislike, jealousy, hatred, I think something deep down in you senses it, and responds.

This is really awesomely said.

I think evil eye folklore is really interesting - how it's found pretty much around the world in some form or other.

[Anje]

I find it interesting that evil eye beads are invariably of blue eyes, from cultures I usually think of as being majority dark-eyed. Can't help but wonder if the origins included being mistrustful of people who didn't look ordinary.

[MasCat]

Well, it is fascinating, as evli eye beads in Poland are always red, and the stereotypical Polish girl is a blue-eyed blonde (altough it's very mixed actually)

[CoyoteSarah]

Historically, a lot of things were done to repel evil or bad things. Embroidery at the collars, cuffs and seams of garments( 'weak areas'), red and blue colors in jewelry and clothes, using kohl to create a birthmark on a pretty baby, giving kids 'bad names' and dressing sons as daughters, various charms designed to attract or repel EE, bells and jingly things. Then there's graveyard dust, salt, witch bottles, witch balls, etc. Its fascinating really. Even in the Muslim community, where we're not supposed to be superstitious, when complimenting someone or something, we say 'mashallah' instead of 'how pretty' or whatever, to avoid EE supposedly.

[AnqeIicDemise]

I've heard about the evil eye causing a horrible lice infestation. Grandma emphasized that she'd pissed off *one* of a pair of twins and that was just worse than a single person. Twins, apparently, are majorly magical. ^-^

She insisted I wear red somewhere, all the time, to avoid the evil eye.

ETA: whenever mom had birds nesting, she'd tie a red ribbon about the cage to draw away the EE.