E is for Evil Eye

This post is a response to the Pagan Blog Project.


This past weekend, I attended a friend's birthday party. Perched at her kitchen table - I'm very short, and her chairs are very high - I sipped my gin concoction and looked around.

I see you touching yourself..

"Leanne," I said, noticing a few ornaments by the front door, "why do you have a collection of Evil Eye amulets?"

She did, too. About four of them. She informed me that she bought them while travelling in Turkey because they were pretty, and then told me that she'd had another hanging from the rearview mirror of her car, but it had broken.

"Lee, that means it took a hit for you!"

Across from me, our friend Halla nodded vigorously. Halla's family is Muslim, and she told us that she'd had a necklace with a Hamsa hand on it that broke. "I bought a new one right away," she informed us.

It struck me as amusing at the time - a kitchen full of women in their late twenties and early thirties, dressed smartly for a night out, discussing old folk beliefs. It is funny, but both Halla and I were dead serious about Leanne replacing the charm in her car.

The Evil Eye, also called 'malochia', is an old concept, and one that ties very closely to a specific emotion: envy. The Evil Eye is thought to be cast unconsciously in many cases, although it can also be deliberate and in some cases people are thought simply to have been born with this terrible gift!

Evil Eye amulets - blue eyes, or the Hamsa hands - are said to repel the accidentally malicious gaze of the envious. 'A hit' as I told my friend, meant that the amulet would absorb the energy instead of you, and the general consensus is that if this happens you do not pick the charm up. Just leave it, and be thankful it got the psychic whammajamma and not you.

The most frequent manifestation of the Evil Eye, according to Draja Mickaharic in his book Spiritual Cleansing is "a dull headache" and "lack of energy." Now, obviously there could be other reasons for such symptoms - if I went on that alone, then I'd be suffering from the Evil Eye after every trip to the mall.

It all seems silly, on one level - the idea that someone simply admiring you creates strife seems hopelessly rooted in religions where being meek and humble are virtues. But on the other hand...

I'm sure we all know one or two people who, although always polite and outwardly nice, never seem content with their own lives. The person in your circle of friends, perhaps, that you are loathe to share good news with because when you do they can't seem to help but say something like, "that's wonderful!...I wish I could catch such a break..." The coworker who is the first to remark on anyone else's success with a sneer.

Is it really completely insane to think these people might be casting - accidentally or not - malicious energy at those they envy?

...AM I being hexed when I go shopping?!

 Okay, so it's not time to panic and run screaming from the mall. (Only do that if there's zombies.) But if you're going to accept that all human beings have magical potential, you probably have to admit that, yeah, people could be fucking with it by accident. I am not advocating the 'I-am-constantly-under-magical-attack!' view of the world by any means. I do believe, however, that every magical practitioner should have a basic cleansing and protection routine.

In addition... if you're in a position where you know damn well people envy you, maybe it wouldn't hurt to take a few extra precautions against malochia: get an amulet, take a beer bath, tattoo a Hamsa hand on your body... although if that one takes a 'hit' I'm not sure how the hell it would manifest.

Hint: Don't do this.

And as long as you're examining yourself and the people in your life... make sure YOU'RE not the one giving others the Evil Eye.