Evil Eye
Ill-wishing is the simplest form of psychic
attack. The technique of "overlooking" the
victim with
a glance has been termed the Evil Eye. Europeans for a
long time believed that when you look at something, a ray
or beam or force of some kind flows out from your eyes to
the thing seen, and that the ray or force which emanates
from some people's eyes, voluntarily or involuntarily, is
noxious and destructive.
Sir
Walter Scott was responsible for the term "glamour" taking on its correct
meaning. His ability to enchant women, by casting his eyes upon
them in a certain manner, caused
them to hallucinate. This charming, or enchanting, of another
person by a glance was the original meaning of the word"
fascinating."(power27).
Stories in which a hero becomes the helpless captive
of a beautiful enchantress, who snares him by deluding his
senses, are common in legend and folktale. The powerful
sexual attraction of the great enchantress is reflected in
the connotations of all these words: fascinating, glamorous,
charmer, enchanting, entrancing, bewitching. The close
connection between sex and the magic of sight also comes
out in the belief that the Evil Eye was particularly likely to
cause impotence.
This form of black magic gave new
meaning to the expression "if looks could kill." Ancient
humans had not only to fear the gaze of their mortal enemies but
also the
watchfulness of the gods who might be envious. To primitive
people, Nature is a capricious, vengeful, and above all
jealous god, perpetually seeking to regain from the hunter
or farmer the riches so hardly won from the earth. Even the
deserts were once assumed to be populated by hostile
demons whose looks could, quite literally, kill.
The belief was that as a result of
black magic, the human eye could emit a ray which under certain
circumstances could be highly dangerous to the person on
whom it was focused-particularly if the onlooker was
malicious or jealous. An attack of this kind was usually
anticipated on those occasions when people seemed
temporarily to have overcome the hostile forces surrounding
them.
There were two forms of the Evil Eye.
One was involuntary, over which the possessor had no conscious
control. The other was inspired by premeditated malice
Presence of the power in an individual was usually shown
by some abnormality-crossed or diverging eyes, one eye
set above the other, or eyes of contrasting colors. In India
any individual so afflicted was shunned like a pariah.
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