Evil Eye

The color blue is thought to protect against the evil eye in Mediterranean cultures. This article unfolds the yet-unstudied role played by kabbalistic theology, symbolism, and myth in the construction of the color blue as a protective color for Jews. It traces particularly the development of a medieval kabbalistic myth of a dazzling blue garment of the feminine aspect of the godhead, protecting her from contact with evil forces. The article shows how this myth became the foundation for various practices against the evil eye among Jews in the modern period and contextualizes this myth within theories about the evil eye.

In emphasizing equivalences with conceptions of evil eye, accounts of Ethiopian buda understate the capacity of these beings to transform into hyenas. The case study presented here highlights how this element of the buda belief reveals a social realm that extends beyond the strictly human.

A particularly attractive but hitherto unidentified Berber type of costume, a striped  haik (a rectangular flat weave garment worn by  women) appeared on the Moroccan textile art market a number of years ago. L. Viola during one of his recent field trips identified for the first time the tribe that produced them. These Berber weavings are generally about 50 years old (but are still produced) and were woven in the Ait Moussa villages of the Mejjat Anti-Atlas tribe. While Lucien Viola traces their history and beliefs, Alexandra Sachs, co-author, describes their aesthetic and exceptional visual impact.
This article was published by Hali Magazine (issue 200 summer 2019) An Infinity of Stripes.

The first section was published under the title: "Research Evangelism among Folk Muslims: Calling Missionaries to Christian Cultural Anthropology."  This section is an adaptation of that article. The second section is an application of the author's dissertation to the issue of the Evil Eye.

As a Christo-Ethnologist you must evaluate the culture and world-view with Biblical lenses.  Missionaries to any people must be students of cultural anthropology so as to fully understand the people they seek to reach.  They study the host country’s religion and culture in order to discover what is Biblical and what is not, what needs to be changed according to the Word of God, and what can stay. They use the local and religious knowledge as bridges to the gospel and Biblical doctrines. This very long and sometimes tedious learning journey, sometimes called Christo-ethnology, is invaluable. In short, Christo-Ethnology is the study or observation of a culture that evaluates from a Biblical perspective, for the purpose of conforming faith and practices to the word of God. In this article, I expose readers to the major Folk Islamic categories that are commonly found in the Muslim world.  In the second section, I explore a biblical perspective to the Muslim concept of the Evil Eye (nazar), and necessary renouncements and declarations that must be considered for Believers from a Muslim Background (BMBs).

According to the “evil eye” superstition, an intense envious glance can lead to several instances of misfortune or physical discomfort. The Greek folk tradition abounds in related diagnostic, prophylactic and healing “remedies.” The author presents a theoretical approach that gives weight to anthropological, psychological andparapsychological explanations.
            Keywords: evil eye, superstition, envy, Greece, explanation

This paper proposes a novel source for – or at least influence on – the iconography of the Moon trump in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, which preserves the design from the Tarot de Marseille. In fact, the Moon template appears to date back to the earliest days of the Tarot. The proposed source or prototype is a Greco-Roman talismanic design against the Evil Eye known as the "all-suffering eye", which frequently occupies the reverse face of Byzantine copper/bronze "Holy Rider" amulets. The paper identifies compositional elements that correspond in the Evil Eye and Moon card designs, presents reasons why the moon and the Evil Eye might have been thought of as cognates, and considers other likely inputs into the Moon card's visual program.

Situated near the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:19-24 provides a treatment of materialism that acts as a connecting point between Jesus’ teaching on piety in 6:1-18 and His teaching on priorities in 6:25-34.  Contrasting two treasures, two eyes, and two masters, Jesus speaks in familiar rabbinic idiom to unpack rich biblical concepts.  By contrasting treasure on earth with treasure in heaven Jesus calls His disciples to give generously to those in need, understanding that one’s affections will flow in the direction of one’s treasure.  By contrasting a healthy eye with an unhealthy eye He teaches that generosity will fill one’s life with light, while greed will have the opposite effect, filling the heart with darkness.  Lastly, by contrasting two masters Jesus teaches His followers that they must choose who to serve, as they cannot serve both God and Money.  These concepts are explored and developed by using both biblical and extra-biblical sources.

The paper proposes that the Egyptian-style imagery on a 5-6th century CE magical amulet discovered at Nea Paphos in Cyprus (Inv. no. PAP/FR 44/2011) draws upon an apotropaic design against the Evil Eye known as the “All-Suffering Eye,” which dates back to the time of the early Roman Empire and is common on Byzantine "Holy Rider" medallions. [Note that the journal cannot support non-Latin characters, so Beta code is used for Greek transliteration, most notably IAEW for ιαεω.]

“Participation”, real or mystical, is used in this paper as an analytical concept in the study of the relationship between “agency” and practices/rituals dealing with traditional medicine in the Middle East. The paper proposes that “participation” creates a sense of agency, an aspect of conscious experience that indicates the feeling of control over practices or actions and their outcomes. Within the framework of participation, a traditional healer, shaikh or mystic (Sufi) leader, is represented as a conscious agent who exercises an impact on other persons including those suffering from physical and psychological problems such as illness, ecstasy, spirit possession or altered state of mind. Theoretically, this paper examines Stanley Tambiah’s concept of “participation” that may occur when persons, groups, animals, places, and natural phenomena are in a relation of contiguity and translate that relation into one of existential immediacy and contact and shared affinities. The paper investigates to what extent traditional healers manipulate this concept or belief (of participation) as an agency in impacting and healing people.

Η πίστη στο «κακό μάτι» και το «μάτιασμα» απαντάται από την αρχαιότητα σε πολλές περιοχές του κόσμου, και επιβιώνει μέχρι και σήμερα ως μια από τις βαθύτερα ριζωμένες προλήψεις. Τα σχετικά λαογραφικά στοιχεία είναι πλούσια, εντούτοις η επιστημονική προσέγγιση της σχετικής δεισιδαιμονίας παραμένει νεφελώδης. Ως εκ τούτου, στο παρόν άρθρο θα επιχειρήσουμε να προσεγγίσουμε το σχετικό φαινόμενο κριτικά, στηριζόμενοι τόσο στη θυμοσοφία, όσο και στα σύγχρονα παραψυχολογικά αλλά και ψυχονευροανοσολογικά ευρήματα και υποθέσεις.

This paper underlines that the evil eye during the Middle Ages was defined as a disease, framed in the humoral medicine. This fact is crucial to understand the evil eye lore occurrences in Argentina, where it is only seen as a folk illness, rather than a power to damage. The authors sustains that medical elite knowledge from the XVI century, brought by the conquerors, filtered down in Argentina, generating the evil eye lore as a disease, explained through natural causations, and the characterization of the gazers and the victims in terms of the humoral medicine. In parallel, the low social sectors immigrants´ brought the Spanish evil eye popular lore, from the conquest´s times to the latest immigrations waves from the XIX and XX centuries. The result is a synthesis between the Argentine evil eye lore and the Spanish evil eye lore, which is characteristic from Argentina and other Latin American countries.

El Tratado de la fascinación de Enrique de Villena (1384-1438) es el primer texto en la Península Ibérica y el segundo en toda la Europa Occidental dedicado exclusivamente a tratar el tema del aojamiento. Redactado en forma de epístola para su amigo Juan Fernández Válera, en él construyó un discurso apologético de prácticas cabalísticas para curar y proteger contra el aojamiento que circularon a través del rabino Hasdai Crescas y su grupo en la Corte de Juan I de Aragón. Sin embargo, Enrique de Villena debió ajustar su discurso al de la ortodoxia tras las implicancias que cábala y aojamiento tuvieron luego de la Disputa de Tortosa de 1413 y la regulación de las prácticas curativas por parte de las coronas de Aragón y Castilla.

The present chapter traces how the rabbis in the tractate of Hagigah developed the biblical commands concerning cultic pilgrimage into laws for a bygone Jerusalem temple pilgrimage to see and be seen by God. Our investigation points to how the desire for, and loss of, the sight of God’s face punctuates and centers the Babylonian Talmud tractate of Hagigah. The biblical commandment to "see the face of God three times a year" allowed the rabbis to conjure forms and narratives of pilgrimage in an age of Greek and Roman "visual piety" but without the Jerusalem temple. The chapter shows how in varying ways earlier and later rabbis construct a pilgrimage of reciprocal vision (in which pilgrim and god mutually behold and are beheld), particularly in the Babylonian Talmud which emphasizes "homovisuality."

With the rise of Northern and Central European Protestant thought, Portugal and Spain, under the constant heavy influence of the Catholic Church, found themselves under a long intellectual blockade on new knowledge arising from outside their own borders. This situation, in time, signified that Iberian knowledge became trapped in a kind of self reference loop of classical scholasticism. Particularly in the area of medical knowledge, this situation in term meant that there was a gradual approach and blurring of academic knowledge and magical/traditional healing, generating a complex landscape of health professionals both sanctioned and unsanctioned.
Eventually, by the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 18th, with the growing Enlightenment movement in Europe, a number of physicians, by acquiring positions of relevance as familiares of the inquisition so as to aid in the persecution and conviction of non-academic magical healer, began to have access to European medical literature, leading them to gradually implement and assimilate new medical knowledge into their traditional Galenic formation. As this new stream of knowledge collided with traditional Portuguese Galenic medicine, several physicians can be observed to attempt to negotiate their personal position along a spectrum of traditionalism vs. progress, a gradual movement which would eventually lead to the violent reformation of the Jesuit run University of Coimbra and the banishment of that particular religious order from the country by the Marquis of Pombal in 1759.
This thesis hopes to expose this particular transitional moment in Portuguese medical and chymical knowledge. In particular, given the position of several physicians as familiares of the inquisition, how these articulated and defined concepts such as magic, sorcery and witchcraft into their own transitional practices; from where do these concepts arise (from adherence to traditional Catholic doctrine or more modern concepts of Natural Magic), what powers they attributed to these and how these could be medically treated and remedied.
For this end a number of physicians will be analyzed who can be observed to place themselves on various positions along the traditionalism vs. progress spectrum: João Curvo Semedo, a famous and influential physician, chymist and segredista, by far the most innovative of the analyzed group; Francisco da Fonseca Henriques, personal physician of King John V and harmonizer of tradition and progress; and finally Bernardo Pereira, a strict catholic traditionalist attempting to salvage what he sees as the collapse of traditional knowledge.

Geçmişten Geleceğe Küçük Asya-Anadolu (Ed. M. Aça - M. Ali Yolcu)

Bu çalışmada neler var?
Evlerin duvarına veya bahçelere asılan kafatasları, çocuk beşiklerine asılan kaplumbağa kabukları... Nazara karşı koruyuculuğuna inanılan kemikler, iskelet parçaları, kafatasları, kabuklar... Peki bunlar nazara karşı neden koruyucu olarak seçilmiştir? Bu tercihin ruh inancıyla ilgisi nedir? Ruh iskelette midir? Canlılığın ve ölümün birlikteliği nasıl hierofaniler meydana getirmektedir? İye/koruyucu varlık inanışlarının iskelet parçalarının kullanımı üzerinde etkisi var mıdır? Ölen insanlar için "kemikleri sızlamak" deyimi neden kullanılır? Günümüzde insan kemiklerini toz hale getirerek yiyen topluluklar var mıdır?

El trabajo consiste en un análisis histórico cultural del Tratado de la Fascinación (1425?) y del Tratado de Astrología (1438?) de Enrique de Villena (1384-1434), buscando evidenciar a partir de éstas, por un lado, las tácticas, apropiaciones y operaciones culturales de un esoterista frente al orden cultural hegemónico construido por la Iglesia y las legislaciones de los reinos; y por otro, la circulación y lucha por su significado de diversas prácticas y representaciones vinculadas al esoterismo occidental (magia, astrología, alquimia, aojamiento, cábala) que pueden encontrarse en la cultura de la Península Ibérica a principios del siglo XV entre cristianos, judíos y musulmanes. A partir de la categoría esoterismo y en diálogo crítico con las perspectivas de la Historia de la Ciencia y de la Filología, inscribimos a Villena y su producción erudita dentro de los discursos, prácticas y representaciones esotéricas de ese período hispánico bajomedieval y en las polémicas generadas en el resto del ámbito europeo occidental. Ello, por cuanto sobre los agentes culturales vinculados a estas prácticas y representaciones convergen e interactúan en este período las polémicas antimágicas erigidas por los representantes de la Iglesia que buscaron criticar, estigmatizar, demonizar, y perseguir al esoterismo. En ese marco surgieron apologías como nuestros textos que buscaron justificar, legitimar y defender las prácticas y representaciones esotéricas, elaboradas por Villena así como por otros magi de la baja edad media y la temprana modernidad.

In this study, the inscriptions on the houses in the town of Ağın of Elazığ are discussed. With the surface survey carried out in the area, a total of 56 house inscriptions have been located. These inscriptions have been analyzed in terms of their various features; like their location on the houses, material, technique, decoration, script variety and content. When we look at the contents of the inscriptions, the earliest of which belongs to 1620 and the latest to 1955, it is understood that most of them are religious phrases that eliminate the bad effect of evil eye. The most common of these is Maşallah, which is also found in some suras in the Koran. In addition to this, there are also writings in the form of prayer, prose or poetry which indicate various wishes and hopes. Most of the inscriptions bear dates but only a few have the names of the donors. The scripts are mostly plain, however, some are quite aesthetic, executed in different shapes, such as, pitcher, medallion, tughra. Although most of the examples discussed are Turkish inscriptions with Arabic letters, it can be seen that the inscription tradition was also carried out in a similar way in the houses built after the adoption of the new alphabet.

Bu çalışmada, Elazığ’ın Ağın ilçesindeki evler üzerinde yer alan kitabeler ele alınmıştır. Bu kapsamda yapılan araştırma sonucunda 56 ev kitabesi tespit edilmiştir. Tespit edilen kitabeler, yapı üzerindeki konum, malzeme, teknik, süsleme, yazı karakteri ve metin içeriği gibi özellikleri bakımından değerlendirilmiştir. En erken tarihlisi 1620, en geç tarihlisi ise 1955 yılına ait olan kitabelerin içeriğine bakıldığında, büyük çoğunluğunun nazarın kötü etkisini ortadan kaldırıcı dini ibareler olduğu anlaşılmaktadır. Bu ibarelerin başında Kur’an-ı Kerîm’de çeşitli surelerde geçen “Mâşallah” ibaresi gelmektedir. Bunun dışında çeşitli dilek ve temennileri belirten dua, düz yazı veya şiir şeklindeki yazılarla da karşılaşılmıştır. Kitabelerin çoğunluğunda tarih ibaresi bulunmaktadır. Az sayıda örnekte ise bani isimleri yer almaktadır. Çoğu zaman istifsiz bir şekilde işlenen yazılar, bazı örneklerde ibrik, madalyon, tuğra gibi farklı formlarda hazırlanarak estetik bir görünüme kavuşturulmuştur. Ele alınan örneklerin çoğunluğunu Arap harfli Türkçe kitabeler oluşturmakla beraber, alfabe değişimini takiben inşa edilmiş evlerde de kitabe geleneğinin benzer bir şekilde sürdürüldüğü görülmektedir.

Arm. gočazm, used of ‘turquoise’ and ‘lapis lazuli’ in the 17th c., translates in the Bible as an unknown stone, the ligure, but the names have been mixed up. In Epiphanius’ De Gemmis (394) and the manuscript Erevan 1500 (1292), it has been re-placed by amet‘ist(os) ‘amethyst’. Seeing that the amethyst is called ‘ên ‘ēḡlā ‘calf’s eye’ in the same passage of the Syriac bible, gočazm must be a loanword from MP *go-čašm ‘ox eye’. It was borrowed with the meaning ‘evil-eye amulet’; such amulets typically consist of blue gemstones or dried sheep eyes. In Turkish, certain types with eye decorations are called öküzgöz ‘ox eye’ or danagöz ‘cow eye’, and are used as protective beads on cattle. The sibilant in gočazm was fronted under the influence of MP asmān- ‘sky’ as in asmān-gōn ‘sky-blue, light blue’ which may itself, as a noun, have referred directly to blue gems; at least its Classical Persian descendant was borrowed into Andalusian Arabic as ‘smānjūn ‘sapphire’. Voicing of Arm. *-sN- occurs in some Iranian loanwords, e.g. yazmik ‘jasmin’ < Pahl. yasmīn.

RESUMEN El acervo popular ha recogido y mantenido, a lo largo de generaciones, la creencia en el mal de ojo. La base de esta superstición, relacionada con la envidia, tiene su origen en la Antigüedad y hay constancia de que, tanto en Grecia como en Roma existían prácticas rituales para aojar y maldecir, es decir, para causar mal por medio de la mirada o de la voz. Por otra parte, en la Edad Media, ya casi en los albores del Renacimiento, la bula papal de Inocencio VIII (1484), Summis desiderantes affectibus, y la posterior publicación del manual inquisitorial, Malleus maleficarum (1486), tendrían una influencia nefasta para todos aquellos, principalmente mujeres, que practicaban este tipo de rituales para ahuyentar el mal. En este estudio se realizará un breve recorrido por el mal de ojo: amuletos y protecciones contra el maleficio; quién es susceptible de sufrirlo y por qué; cuáles son sus síntomas, cómo se detecta; quién lo echa, por qué motivo y cómo lo hace; quién lo puede quitar y qué métodos utiliza para ello. Asimismo y para ilustrar este análisis, se compararán algunos casos de aojamiento en México, en contraste con algunos testimonios europeos recogidos en trabajo de campo (desde 2011 a 2015) y entre informantes de diversa procedencia:

Сред трансилванските цигани е записано описание на изготвянето на предпазен амулет за защита от влиянието, съотв. въздействието, на лоши очи (урочасване). Записът е публикуван в Seligmann, S. Der böse Blick und Verwandtes. B. 2. Berlin, 1910, 379. Превод от немски на български език – Георги Мишев.

The mosaic from the House of Nestor was discovered in Sheikh Zuweid on the western shore of Sinai, by
Jean Clédat in 1912. It covered the floor of a reception room of a large villa with private baths. Today the
mosaic from the House of Nestor with two mythological panels, three Greek metrical inscriptions and an
interesting geometric carpet are very well known by the specialists of the Late Antiquity. Fifteen years ago I
had the pleasure to make an interpretation of its iconological programme where I had put together the
inscriptions and the images to explain the sense of the mosaic. Hippolytus and Phaedra panel is linked with
the inscription evoking the envy (phtonos) and baskanos (evil eye) - warning for incoming guests. The
second scene of thiasos of Dionysos is associated with the non-violent, happy and festive character of the
reception room in the house. After a very careful study of the style of the mosaic the date of its execution
seems to be around 450 AD. It is possible that it was executed by a mosaic workshop from Egypt
(Alexandria), however it is not excluded that the workshop could have come from Gaza.I would like to
present the oldest and recent researches of my colleagues specialists of Late Antiquity who wrote about the
programme of the mosaic. I think that it is important after one hundred years of scholarly research to make a
recapitulation of the state of research on its semantic programme. Rina Talgam (Hebrew University),
Vlastimil Drbal (Academy of Science, Prague), Delphine Laurentzen (Académie de Créteil), Gianfranco
Agosti (Universita di Roma, La Sapienza) and some others wrote about the programme of mosaic evoking its
connections with the culture and civilization of Late Antiquity in the Near East. I will also discuss the question
of a mysterious word "telete" present on the panel of Dionysos. I believe that its meaning seems clear.

Evil eye belief is found in many parts of the world and it plays a major social role in a large number of cultural contexts. The history of evil eye bead usage dated back to ancient times, but upon time it's meaning have been reconstructed by culture. This paper focused on an amulet based commodity " evil eye bead " used against evil eye and for ornament in Turkey. In order to analyze the myth of evil eye bead, two-sectioned survey was conducted. First section determined evil eye belief rate, participant profile and objects against evil eye. In the second section, the semantic dimensions of evil eye bead was analyzed in the myth level encompassing its perception and function as a cultural opponent act. This paper interrogated the role of culture, geography, and history on the evil eye bead myth.

Conferring the name 'evil' upon events or acts communicates a degree of suffering and violence that evades comprehension. Despite actively fleeing from it in our thoughts and daily lives, we are obsessed with evil, fixated upon its political spectacles and media simulations.  Evil is perhaps the most recalcitrant difficulty for those of faith. At the same time, uttering its name is an embarrassment to present-day sensibilities, appearing as an antiquated term of a bygone era that attributed evil to fate and mysterious forces. Nonetheless, stripped of overt religious and metaphysical language and limited to individual intent, measurable harm, or systems of power and oppression, evil continues to be recognized, if not explicitly named, in the egregious violations of rights and fairness. Although there are numerous accounts of evils perpetrated throughout history, few have attempted to offer an integrated and comprehensive description of its invariant features displayed across time and context. This work offers such a description of evil by deploying a phenomenology of givenness, which seeks to remove theoretical limitations and manipulations to permit the phenomenon to manifest itself on its own terms. Consequently, this work does not address whether evil exists, why evil happens, or what is responsible for it. Instead, it asks how evil imposes itself on us in its distinct manners and modes of appearing. The thanatonic is the name given to this phenomenological possibility of evil, departing from its historical instantiations and common interpretations as a moral judgment or supernatural force. Four figures of the thanatonic are identified: trauma, evil eye, foreign-body, and abject.  Each distinctly imposes itself through a parasitic mode of givenness, characterizing how the phenomenon of evil manifests itself through dissimulation and diminishment. The culminating effect of this parasitic givenness is a self who becomes a vector for re-transmitting the phenomenon of evil unto others, named here the thanatonic ego.

Cheikh Zouède est un village localisé sur la côte ouest du Sinaï, entre Rafah (19 km au sud) et El' Arîche et quelques dizaines de kilomètres de Gaza (54 km au S.-O. de Gaza et 144 km de Jérusalem). Il est identifié avec Bitulion, une ville épiscopale au VIe siècle dont l'histoire remonte à l'époque sémitique avec quelques fondations. A l'époque ptolémaïque existe un bourg, Bytyl, témoigné par la céramique rhodienne (amphores estampillées).
La fouille de 1913 n'était qu'un dégagement rapide des vestiges archéologiques sans méthode au sens actuel du terme. La mosaïque figurative (4,75 x 3 m), très bien conservée, occupe la partie Est d'une grande pièce rectangulaire (7,25 x 6,60 m). A l'ouest de cette mosaïque est juxtaposé un panneau géométrique (1, 72 x 1,65 m). Ces deux mosaïques polychromes contrastent avec le sol monochrome en tesselles blanche.
Le visiteur se trouvait d'abord en face d'une longue inscription, le panneau central déroulé en deux registres figurait un thiase dionysiaque, enfin le dernier illustrait le mythe de Phèdre et d'Hippolyte accompagné au-dessus d'une inscription et couronné d'une autre.
L’auteur analyse trois inscriptions et trois images figurées du point de vue du vocabulaire utilises, de  l’iconographie ainsi que de l’iconologie en suivant leurs apparitions depuis la tragédie grecque jusqu’ à l’époque tardive.
Nous nous demandons si l'inscription contre le Mauvais Œil et l'Envie est placée intentionnellement près du mythe de Phèdre et d'Hippolyte. Il fait allusion aux conséquences destructrices d'un regard maléfique, malheur à celui qui tenterait d'entrer avec de semblables intentions. l'hypothèse nous semble défendable. Nous connaissons toute une série d'inscriptions exprimant l'idée : « Que l'on souhaite du bien ou du mal, il sera rendu au double ».
Dionysos et Héraclès sont associés dans les écrits théologiques de Julien. Le premier veille que la vie ait un sens et le deuxième est un dieu <<gardien>> et <<protecteur>> du monde. Ces caractéristiques attribuées à Dionysos et à Héraclès expliquent leur présence sur cette mosaïque.
Il serait tout à fait justifié de comparer le programme de la mosaïque de Cheikh Zouède avec celui de la villa gauloise de Vinon en Narbonnaise interprétée d'une façon excellente par Henri Lavagne. Nous voyons aussi quelques parallèles avec des inscriptions saluant le visiteur (HAIREI) et l’avertissant (KAISU) en même temps. C'est le cas de la maison de Dionysos à Néa Paphos qui a fait l’objet d’une très bonne étude de Ch. Kondelon. Les mosaïques du vestibule de la maison du Mauvais Œil ont également le pouvoir protecteur comme Doro Levi l’a justement expliqué.
Ce pavement du Sinaï d'une vaste propriété nous laisse penser que ses habitants devaient être hellénisées et profondément païens. Ils se servent de la mythologie pour décorer leur demeure et se protègent contre l'intrusion des forces maléfiques. Le propriétaire est un homme cultivé et le filokalos. Le choix des sujets mythologiques pour représenter des idées qui sont exprimées sur d'autres mosaïques d'une façon beaucoup moins sophistiquée témoigne de son goût raffiné. La date de l'exécution de la mosaïque reste discutable, malgré quelques analogies iconographiques et stylistiques suggérant plutôt la période entre les premières moitiés du IVe et du Ve siècles ( sur la datation et le style de la mosaïque cf. M. T. Olszewski, La mosaïque de style naïf de Cheikh Zouède au Sinaï , Archeologia (Warsaw) 53, 2002, pp. 45–61, pls III+VI).

The belief that certain people have the ability to harm other people or objects with a mere glance may well predate history. References to this superstition are contained in various Sumerian incantations dating to the Old Babylonian period (ca. 2000-1600 B.C.E.). In recent years, Assyriologists have started to develop an interest in the psychology of this ancient superstition. In particular, Markham Geller (2003:115-134) has suggested that the Sumerian incantations, which make up the bulk of evil eye incantations from ancient Mesopotamia, were composed by specialist exorcists to treat paranoid schizophrenia. This article will investigate the possibility that an incantation against witchcraft and the evil eye contained in the well-known Maqlū-series may well have been designed to treat agoraphobia.

According to the census conducted in 2002, the number of Turks living in North Macedonia is around eighty thousand. In the historical process, there are scientists who argue that the first settlement of the Turkish people in the region was thanks to the Avars, Pechenegs and Cumans. Although Turks are found in every region of the country, Mavrova Rostusha and Jupa Regions are among the regions where Turks reside.
Evil eye is explained as the damaging effect of the negativity in the gaze of some people on living or non-living things. According to the beliefs in the traditional life of the Turks, people and places where there is no God’s holiness is exposed to evil eye. It is possible to see various cult elements in the practices carried out to bring this holines back to people or places where the God’s holiness is thought to have been lost or to preserve the existing holiness. In this study, it has been tried to reveal the nature cult elements, especially the cult of ancestors, in the emergence, detection, protection and treatment methods of the evil eye, through field research in Kocacık, Novak, Papradnik in the Jupa region of N. Macedonia and Mogorçe in the Rostusha region. The relations between the practices, methods and beliefs determined depending on traditional beliefs with ancestors, fire, water and tree cults, similarities in the Turkish world and their connections with Turkish narratives are shown.
Keywords: North Macedonia, evil eye, cults, beliefs, rituals.

Mā shāʾ Allāh is an Arabic expression used as a spoken amulet in Arabian culture prior Islam, and continued in Islamic heritage, to protect from the evil eye or to bring well luck even. This paper surveys the ‘Mā shāʾ Allāh' and related inscriptions Yā Ḥāfiẓ' and Yā Ḥafīẓ in the Balkans. It focuses on the extant writings on ottoman buildings in Greece. In this regard, it publishes a group of new inscription. The study also investigates the visual impact of such inscriptions. It analyses these inscriptions considering functional, regional, chronological and calligraphic stylistic criteria. The paper characterises the meaning of the ‘Mā shāʾ Allāh' inscription either as a direct message or as a mirror reflects some aspects of the period and society to which belongs. Moreover, it examines the significance of writing the Mā shāʾ Allāh in Greek alphabet ‘Mάσαλα and Μασαλαχ' on Christian buildings and objects. The paper concludes that the Mā shāʾ Allāh acquired over centuries a popular folkloric cultural concept as a talisman to protect from the evil eye rather than its own original religious expression.

The supernatural is extraordinary or it is something associated with the forces that cannot be apprehended
or cannot be proven by science. Supernaturalism includes existence of ghosts and any other power that is invisible to
human eye. The paper explores the perception of magic and evil eye that are prevalent in our society. Further it focuses
on how gender, education and socioeconomic status are associated with the keeping the existence of supernatural
beliefs alive. This study was conducted qualitatively by collecting a sample of 70 respondents randomly from
Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The results showed that, gender, socio economic status and level of education were
important factors defining the prevalence of superstitious beliefs. People belonging to lower socio-economic class and
less educated respondents were found to be more superstitious.

Halk arasında "zararlı bakış" anlamında kullanılan 'nazar', dünya üzerinde birçok topluluk arasında yaygın olarak rastlanan bir inanıştır. Bu inanışa göre bir kişinin bakışı kırılma, bozulma, sakatlama gibi olumsuz etkilere sebep olabilir. Bundan dolayı insanlar bu zararlı etkiyi gidermek amacıyla sağaltma uygulamaları geliştirmişlerdir. Bunlardan birisi de Kayseri merkezinde ve İncesu'nun Subaşı Köyü'nde (Kayseri) uygulanan 'göz basması' uygulamasıdır. Bu çalışmada uygulamaların icraları verildikten sonra uygulamaların aşamaları ve uygulamalarda kullanılan materyaller karşılaştırmalı olarak değerlendirilmeye çalışılmıştır.

'In this fascinating book, Eugenia Roussou captures how "energy" has become a bridge connecting traditional Greek conceptions of the evil eye with New Age spiritualities. This contribution to the anthropology of religion captures the dimensions of a Greek vernacular religiosity, still influenced by Greek Orthodox Christianity, yet spanning beyond it.'

Charles Stewart, Professor of Anthropology, University College London, UK

'Reflecting more than a decade of anthropological work, this is a meticulously researched, eloquently written and deeply personal ethnography about the lived religion of contemporary Greece. It sheds new light into the everyday practices of Greeks and connects these practices with the broader cross-cultural currents of New Age religiosity as well as the scholarly research on the multiple meanings of spirituality in different cultures.' Victor Roudometof, Associate Professor, University of Cyprus, Cyprus

Abstract:
This anthropological work thoroughly illustrates the novel synthesis of Christian religion and New Age spirituality in Greece. It challenges the single-faith approach that traditionally ties southern European countries to Christianity and focuses on how processes of globalization influence and transform vernacular religiosity. Based on long-term anthropological fieldwork in Greece, this book demonstrates how the popular belief in the 'evil eye' produces a creative affinity between religion and spirituality in everyday practice. The author analyses a variety of significant research themes, including lived and vernacular religion, alternative spirituality and healing, ritual performance and religious material culture. The book offers an innovative social scientific interpretation of contemporary religiosity, while engaging with a multiplicity of theoretical, analytic and empirical directions. It contributes to current key debates in social sciences with regard to globalization and secularization, religious pluralism, contemporary spirituality and the New Age movement, gender, power and the body, health, illness and alternative therapeutic systems, senses, perception and the supernatural, the spiritual marketplace, creativity and the individualization of religion in a multicultural world.

In recent years historians have taken an increasing interest in the senses in the past, both in terms of how people in the past understood the senses, and how our sensory experience of the past world, if we were placed in it, would diverge from our experience of the modern environment.  However, somewhat less consideration has been given to how past understandings of the sensory world are still current in our present world, and how this helps to explain contemporary beliefs and cultural phenomena.  This short article looks at one sense, sight, and explores some implications of the survival of older understandings of optics in our contemporary world.  This means that beliefs which may appear illogical to (some) modern eyes, may seem perfectly sensible in the past, or in some circumstances, if the processes of seeing and perception are understood in a particular way.  This present article touches on some of these apparently pre-scientific vestiges, including the evil eye, mirror magic and physiognomy, as an invitation to further exploration.