The Evil Eye

“So there’s the Evil Eye and the Evil Eye is present in a lot of Middle Eastern and sometimes in Greek. So essentially, it’s an abstracted eye; it’s like a blue circle, a white circle inside of that and a black dot in that. So essentially, the logic behind that, is if someone says something they like about you like “Ooh I like your hair,” you’ll walk off and if you don’t have the evil eye on you, your hair will catch on fire, or “Ohh I like your eyes,” you’ll go and get burned or something and your eyes will screw up. So it’s to ward off the bad stuff I mean, and so everyone tends to keep one of those on them, like on a keychain or on a bracelet. The Evil Eye helps protect you against people who say things like “Oh you have a really nice dress…fuckin’ hate that dress,” and then like…cause the idea is that the people who are complimenting you are secretly jealous of you. And it’s carried over, so even if you don’t have an eye on you, as long as you have a blue, like a turquoise blue on you, then you’re good.”

Based on how widespread the belief is, people in the Middle East well acknowledge the idea of jealousy and people feel that so much, that there is a strong need for protection. The symbol of the Evil Eye can be seen in a lot of places including even merchandise like jewelry and clothing. Before hearing this, I heard of the Evil Eye and seen it, but I assumed it did evil against you rather than ward it off. The name itself contradicts Western norms as usually when in America, you call something evil, you are saying that that the object itself is evil. It is interesting too that though people are aware of who is wronging them, they cling to the protection of an object rather than actively confronting the person who wished ill on them. Perhaps this is because they believe there is so much ill wishing and jealousy around, that it’s easier to rely on one thing than to strike back at everything else.