The Evil Eye
What ever happened to eye contact? This morning on my way into the office, I made some mental notes about how many people would studiously avoid making even fleeting eye contact with me. Perhaps it was my clothing, body language or choice of hat? While seated on the train the odds were almost down to zero. I know from the experience of riding the subway in New York this is tantamount to putting your life on the line and an urban superstition of some power, but even in laid back Los Angeles it’s becoming just as bad. At a time when we should be joining together, smiling into each others eyes and reaching out, it’s becoming a progressively bleak picture. Why? The superstition that someone staring at you and thereby giving you “The Evil Eye” goes back thousands of years and I suppose even further if you want to include the kind of thing that happens between primates if they stare at each other. Try going to the zoo and having eye contact a male baboon in their cage – they go berserk .
I have seen signs on zoo cages warning not to provoke them this way and when I worked as a wild animal trainer, I was warned never to stare or have eye contact with chimpanzees for over a milli-second. Tradition says that it all has to do with jealousy and coveting something from someone else. In the case of the baboon cage, its tied into a mating ritual that spills over into that man/ape relationship we share. Professor Alan Dundes who teaches at The University of California at Berkeley covers the subject quite well:
“Almost everywhere that the evil eye belief exists, its effects are said to occur as an inadvertent side-effect of envy or praise. A typical account of such a mishap might be: “I dressed the baby in new clothes and took him to town and a woman who has no children saw him and said, ‘Oh, what a pretty child!’ and as soon as we got home he began to vomit!” The “evil” in these accounts of the evil eye indicate that it is thought to be situational in nature and that it is caused by a failure to restrain envy within proper social bounds.”
There are hundreds of books on the subject. Far too much information for me to attempt to go into here. These beliefs are as entrenched as throwing salt over your shoulder. Well, …maybe not your shoulder, but you get my drift. Today we have a version of this juju where we hear about psychics claiming to be able to get someone to turn their head around by simply staring at the back of their neck. 
Pssssshaw. I try it everyday on the train and I know it NEVER works. Let’s see someone step up to Randi’s million dollar challenge on that one. That should be easy enough for even the lowest totem on the psychic totem pole to be able to replicate. It’s not happening. It never has happened and I’m challenging anyone out there who says they can do it to prove it or admit it’s likely it never will happen. These superstitions are with us day to day and haunt our thinking. There I sat, knowing better and yet staring intently at the back of some random woman’s head when I could have been putting that same intensity of thought on world hunger or alternative energy. Silly me. A small thought, but like someone said about other things, one thought here, another there and pretty soon you have a whole lot of thoughts. In the case of The Evil Eye: centuries of wasted thought.
We can look and see The Evil Eye every where if we choose to. Pattern recognition and pareidolia examples aside, go on line and witness hundreds of businesses peddling pendants, tattoos, bracelets, charms and amulets in every shape and form. 
If it makes you feel safe wearing one of these, it’s no different than a rabbit’s foot. Belief is everything, but logic and skepticism should tell us it wasn’t very lucky for the rabbit was it?
There’s a whole reality show in there somewhere too.
Black magic, sorcery, figure casting, witchcraft and toying with The Evil Eye all have at their source the one main ingredient that makes all these charms, curses and fetishes work: FEAR. It’s all down to that in our supposedly sophisticated and intellectually advanced society isn’t it? The “All-Knowing All Seeing Eye” that brings to mind Orwell and Big Brother still works it’s primal magic on us. Don’t think so? Think you are immune? No way. 
Take a look at the world’s most infamous network logo:
So can that all seeing eye turn itself in on itself and take a close look at the ancient cults, invocations and countless subliminal links it has made to all of our subconscious minds since it was first introduced into our living rooms back in 1951? I might be asking too much here and posing a rhetorical question like trying to operate on your own eye or fixng your own teeth, but there’s a method to my madness. Is the CBS logo supposed to be watching out for us or at us? CBS logo designer William Golden has stated that the logo had shaker roots, but I’m putting my money on a much more ancient and far more decidedly sinister lineage. But then again, …that’s just me. Nonetheless, if you fancy yourself The Modern Television Executive In the Know, it might be best to cover all your bases and eschew the rabbit’s foot by spending six bucks for one of these:
As the executive who may indeed be in need of the proper etiquette and occult use of such bewitchery, please allow me to help you in the ways of the paranormal. As a member of “The Skeptologists” team of qualified experts, I hereby offer my personal services to help unearth the truth behind the myths and misconceptions which may have grown to enormous proportions within your august corporate community. With your endorsement, I will travel to your headquarters and provide discrete consultation on the full import of your situation. In the interests of professionalism and conformity to established standards of good or proper behavior and in accordance with all conventional political correctness, I promise to avoid any mention or use of grave dirt, nail parings, voodoo candles or locks of hair.
I await as your obedient servant.
Eye contact with strangers in public is often given and/or taken as a tacit invitation of sorts, a subtle declaration of openness to some level of contact. Most passing strangers, being sane, reward it with a smile and a nod or a ‘mornin’ or ‘hey, how ya doin’?’. The quick ‘lookaway’ seems an indication of ‘leave me alone’.
My work often takes me to the downtown streets of a capital city where you ought spend wisely and judiciously any eye contact with strangers on the street. This office is within two blocks of the County jail, the courthouse, two homeless shelters, at least a dozen bailbond offices, a half dozen liquor stores, numerous pawn shops, and if all that doesn’t establish a high prevalence of shady characters, it is also true you can’t throw a rock down there without hitting a lawyer in the back. You are just as likely to walk past an armed robber bailed out ten minutes ago as you are the state governor, city mayor, or any number of politicos, so you can see these are shark-infested waters with me a comparative blood-trailing guppy.
Never took notes, but it seems like every, oh, fifteenth case of eye contact ends up in me fending off some cockamamie boozy spiel that ends up with a suggestion I voluntarily fork over some coin, all for a good cause, of course. Sometimes you can see it coming and avoid extending any invitation to converse, but other times the most unlikely seeming people turn out to be street scammers.
My favorites: The well-dressed elderly man who’s been carrying the same fan belt around for ten years asking for money to buy another so he can get his poor church bus full of children back to their quaint village in the provinces. The homeless street sharp who’d got hold of a Catholic priest get-up used to cadge coin, a uniform he put on and took off every ‘work’ day, like a cop or fireman with a real job. The guy who sits in the same place all day every day holding a beer stein for spare change and a handwritten cardboard sign reading: “Why lie? I need BEER.”
Don’t know much about the Evil Eye, except that looking into my wife’s eyes makes me feel guilty even when I’ve done nothing wrong, which is easily half the time, sometimes more. In the unlikely event any of you might meet her one day, please keep that last bit to yourself.
You’re right about the fear, but I can’t put it down to mere superstition. See the news story (linked from my name); eye contact between the occupants of two vehicles stopped at a traffic light resulted in an unprovoked attack. Consider the consequences if the victims had not turned out to be plainclothes police officers. I believe it’s most often fear of this kind of immediate reaction that leads people to avoid eye contact.
I’ve always associated the eye-voidance with lack of education. In Chicago if I wanted a knife in my back I just had to stare at the appropriate minority and odds are they’d whip out a knife and say something like “whatchoulookinat” or “youwannatrouble?”. My dad used to say “it must be the monkey gene in them” because many monkeys (and apes too) go crazy when you look at them for any length of time.
My Arab friends say if someone doesn’t look at you they must be lying, and in Arizona and Texas people assume you’re up to no good if you stare everywhere but at them when you’re speaking to someone.
It’s sad that the monkey behavior is beginning to dominate in society. I always thought it was strange how the guys who’d whip out their knives didn’t seem to do anything all day but gawk at the passing women. Big cities tend to have more of the monkey behavior though; I guess in small towns you get told off if you act like that. I’ll pass on the spit-in-your-hand-and-shake routines though.
Small towns = less strangers = less unpredictable reactions.
Living where I do in woo-world, (Salinas) our residents often cite “el ojo” for reasons of evil. Here the common belief is that if you see a beautiful baby then you can not look at it if you aren’t boing to also be able to touch it. Looking and praising a baby will give it “el ojo”, touching it will take the curse off. I’m totally serious, this of course is only from our Mexican culture, the more reciently arrived from Mexico the stronger the belief. I have heard new white mothers complain that they can’t stroll through the mall without some older woman bending over the baby and touching it.
An ex-employee of mine was complaining one day that her son was ill because his grandfather (the in-law) looked at the child and gave him “el ojo” just from walking in the room and looking directly at the baby, it seems the only way they were able to take the curse off the child was to rub it with “un huevo” (an egg) and then break it in a glass of water and look at the bubbles to see if you got all the evil out. I’m totally serious!
Um, is it the egg or the baby that’s broken in a glass of water?
DA-“Um, is it the egg or the baby that’s broken in a glass of water?”
Good point, I hadn’t looked at it that way.LQTM.
Great post, but I have a slight nitpick – Professor Dundes doesn’t “teach” at Cal-Berkeley, he “taught.” Sadly, he passed away in 2005.
It’s just that I’m babysitting a grandchild and I kind of need to know.
Staring is a sign or aggression in most animals. An attack, offensive or defensive, is preceded by a very direct and intense stare in many species. If you are approached by an angry dog, you avoid eye contact or even looking them in the face.
I really think this is why little kids are terrified of the characters in amusement parks– eyes and ears are trained directly forward in an intense stare directed at the child, who instinctually recognizes this as a prelude to possible attack.
“Um, is it the egg or the baby that’s broken in a glass of water?
Well babies do indeed make bubbles. But they rarely make them when broken into a glass of water. At least not in my very extensive experience.
I would try the egg first.
You are so right, Susan. Mine just made bubbles in the bath, followed by a guilty grin, followed yet by… evil -but evil only in odor.
Will try the egg first. What use a broken baby?
Personal contact, even pleasant personal contact, takes time and energy; in a big city, it’s rude to assume that any random stranger on the street wants to spend their time and energy on *you*, out of millions of others. Eye contact, especially hard eye contact, is essentially a demand for attention – something you do not have a social right to in a big city. However, the less crowding, the more reasonable it is to assume that someone will be not only willing but happy to grant you that attention.
In addition, people with autism or Asperger’s syndrome naturally find any eye contact extremely invasive. Ironically, these people are far *less* likely to lie than people with ‘normal’ mental wiring.
As a teenager, I realized that most people who looked at me would eventually try to talk to me. I had way too many creeps hit on me for a long time, and way too many wanting to preach about their religion. Then there are people who want to talk about the weather when I’m trying to read, or people asking for spare change, which I never have anyway. Some people think that if you look at them, it’s an invitation for them to come over and bug you, so I just try to discourage them from the beginning. I guess there are just more possibilities for an annoying interaction than a pleasant one.
Thank Dog for cheap sunglasses.
Eye contact is very different for men and women. Between a man and woman= possible sexual attraction. Between woman and woman= possible defusing of tension, friendliness. Between man and man= possible challenge. In the somewhat weird book, “Self-Made Man” the author described how different her interactions were in public places when she dressed as a man.
“In the somewhat weird book, “Self-Made Man” the author described how different her interactions were in public places when she dressed as a man.”
I just spent an hour walking the streets dressed up as a woman. You’re right. I got a whole different set of interactions.
DA–
Shouldn’t we be thanking ZZ Top for those?
You forgot to mention one other aspect of this fascinating subject. Many people avoid taking the initiative to make eye contact because they fear rejection if the other person ignores them. As you rightly point out, there are many possible reasons why people might chose to ignore someone who initiates eye contact with them.
The Devil’s Advocate makes a very good point about sunglasses. No wonder i like them so much. They are great for reducing the risk involved at looking at someone and for making it easy to ignore someone who looks at you.
I also just wanted to comment on the belief that staring at someone will cause them to look at you. This is not entirely a fallacy. If you turn your head or even just your eyes to look at someone, that person may notice the motion in his or her peripheral vision, causing that person to turn and look back. This can easily be mistaken as a woo woo moment. Of course, staring at the back of someone’s head and willing them to look at you doesn’t work, though sometimes i wish it did!
Ranson: “DA–Shouldn’t we be thanking ZZ Top for those?”
Absolutely. And they should thank Dog.
Jeshua: “The Devil’s Advocate makes a very good point about sunglasses. No wonder i like them so much.”
I would also recommend as prophylactic appurtenances eye patches and temporary facial tattoos. As refers the latter, get the moisture-applicable, NOT the iron-ons. Making that mistake is why I wear an eye patch and sunglasses. Ah, but every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man.
Thank you, Devil’s Advocate, for your suggestions. I have tried the temporary tattoos with some success, but as a performing musician, the eye patch restricted my vision too much and the see-through eye patch just didn’t have the same effect.