evil eye Belief in the evil eye — that a human being can cause injury or death through a malevolent glance or stare — is a very widespread one, found in ancient Greek and Roman literature, in the Jewish, Christian, Bhuddist, Islamic, and Hindi traditions and, more generally, in the culture of most pre-literate societies. The exact nature of the damage which the evil eye is supposed to cause varies between cultures, but children and animals have often been thought to be most vulnerable, while already problematic experiences such as marriage or childbirth were also considered to be occasions when the evil eye could act especially effectively. Very often, the harm inflicted by the evil eye was linked to the envy of the person doing the harming, and the possession of an evil eye was often thought to reside in persons who displayed more general anti-social tendencies, such as meanness, selfishness, and envy. Accordingly, in many cultures (for example, pre-World War II central European Jewry) people were at pains not to advertise their wealth, talents, or achievements, lest this should bring down retribution from the malevolent and envious, while new-born babies, prominent men, and beautiful women were thought especially likely to attract the evil eye. Most cultures also recommended means of protection against the evil eye. Most often this was by amulets or charms, but sometimes by more immediate action such as spitting in the presence of, or making obscene gestures at, the person thought to possess the evil eye.
Although ethnographers and folklorists have noted the frequency with which belief in the evil eye has existed, they have been less forthcoming on the most important concern for the historian of the body: where the power to do harm in this way is thought to come from and how it is exercised. Again, ideas on this matter vary between cultures, but a few general points seem clear. Many religions believe in the existence of an all-seeing deity, which links the power of
vision, and hence the eye, very clearly to wider considerations of power and knowledge. These wider considerations led to such conceptualizations as that current in Christian Europe by the late Middle Ages, that the eye is not just the window of the soul, or a visible portrait of the invisible soul, but also a visible centre from which rays of sight emanate. There was proverbial wisdom in England around 1600 that the eyes were the window of the heart or the mind, for joy or anger could be seen through them.
A demonstration of how various ideas on the evil eye might run together at about that date is provided by Reginald Scot, an English gentleman who in 1584 published
The Discoverie of Witchcraft, a sceptical tract which denied the existence of witches. Scot devoted a chapter of his book to ‘inchanting or bewitching eies’. Here he cited such classical authors as Virgil, Theocritus, Cicero, Plutarch, and Philarchus. Some people, according to these writers, had two eyeballs, one of which was the seat of evil power which could be used to hurt young lambs or young children. Other people, it was held
‘reteine such venome in their eies, and send it foorth by beames and streames so violentlie, and therewith they annoie not onlie them with whom they are conversant continuallie; but also all other, whose companie they frequent, of what age, strength or complexion so ever they be’. Scot wrote of more general beliefs, which held that spirits emerging from the eye could infect the hearts of those against whom they were directed. He also noted that occult powers were ascribed to the gaze of
‘old women, in whome the ordinarie course of nature faileth in the office of purging their naturall monethlie humors’.Froth would therefore be left on mirrors which post-menopausal women had looked at.
These sorts of belief were clearly widespread, as was another set of beliefs, those in sympathetic magic or occult forces more generally. Thus it was easy to accept that malicious power could be transmitted through the eye, the window into the soul of the malevolent person. Some traditions gave a more elaborate explanation: post-Talmudic Jewish literature held variously that the evil eye contained the element of fire, and hence spread destruction, or that the glance of an angry man called into being an angry angel who took vengeance on the object of wrath. Belief in the evil eye also connected with a broader folklore about the eye. One very relevant belief, again seemingly widespread, was that meeting a person with a squint might lead to misfortune or loss. Here the connection is clear enough: an obvious physical deformity is linked with a supposed inner deformity, the willingness to do harm. But, at the very least, this widespread belief in the power of the evil eye demonstrates how one of the human senses, and the organ connected with it, could be seen as a channel for spreading harm, and also provides an interesting way of exploring some aspects of the folklore of the human body.
J. A. Sharpe
See also
witchcraft.
