The Evil Eye, and a Little Protection Magic for When the World Gets Under Your Skin

The Peculiar Business of the Evil Eye

You have almost certainly seen the little blue glass eyes sold as protective charms. Perhaps you have one hanging somewhere in your house, or dangling from a bracelet.

The evil eye is much older and quite a bit stranger than its modern incarnation as a pretty blue accessory.

For centuries, people across different cultures have believed that another person's gaze could carry an influence capable of disturbing their health, happiness or good fortune.

Sometimes the danger was obvious enough. Someone dislikes you, envies your happiness, wishes you ill. Their hostile attention was believed to have the power to reach you.

But here's where things get peculiar.

They might admire you enormously.

Your beautiful new home. Your lovely child. Your extraordinary good luck. How wonderfully happy you seem.

Perhaps the admiration is perfectly sincere.

But envy is a small, hungry thing. It can sit very politely behind someone's teeth.

Some compliments arrive with little hooks sewn into them.

A person can admire something while feeling the sharp little sting of wanting it for themselves. Perhaps they mean every word of the compliment. Perhaps they're also quietly wondering why that lovely thing belongs to you.

And in certain evil-eye traditions, that complicated mixture of admiration and envy was considered quite enough to cause trouble.

Which explains a peculiar little habit found in several cultures.

Someone leans over a pram. Oh, what a beautiful baby! And then, almost in the same breath, God bless her.

That second little sentence has a job to do. In traditions where an admiring gaze might inadvertently bring the evil eye, the blessing is offered to protect the child from whatever misfortune the compliment might attract.

In Greece and Cyprus, you might hear three little spitting sounds, ftou, ftou, ftou, sent fluttering after an admiring remark.

In Arabic-speaking communities, there's mashallah, an acknowledgement of God's will. In Jewish traditions, someone mentioning their good fortune might add bli ayin hara, meaning “without the evil eye.”

Such small things. A whispered blessing. Three little noises made with the mouth. A few words slipped into the conversation like a protective stitch in the hem of a dress.

The compliment and its protection, delivered together.

Because attention, according to these traditions, had a way of travelling. A jealous glance could cross a crowded room, settle on somebody's happiness and cling there like a burr in a woollen stocking.

Small enough to miss. Stubborn enough to come home.

The Strange Mechanics of Fascination

How Does the Evil Eye Actually Work?

I was wondering, how exactly was a jealous glance supposed to cause harm? How could something as ordinary as looking at another person carry enough influence to disturb their health or happiness?

And I found that the old magicians had some theories about this.

In the sixteenth century, the magician and philosopher Cornelius Agrippa tried to explain how one person's influence might reach another.

In his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, he describes a phenomenon called fascination.

The word has acquired different associations today. We tend to think of fascination as interest, attraction or being captivated by something.

Agrippa meant something much more literal.

He believed the heart generated a subtle spiritual substance capable of carrying a person's passions and imaginative force.

And the eyes, apparently, were its little messengers.

According to Agrippa, this subtle spirit could send forth rays through the gaze, allowing one person's inner condition to act upon another.

Imagine two people looking directly at one another.

Agrippa even described the gaze as a kind of dart capable of penetrating the person receiving it.

Envy had very long fingers, apparently. It could touch you from the other side of a room.

Quite a dramatic explanation for an uncomfortable encounter at a dinner party.

Of course, this was Renaissance occult philosophy, rather than an established account of how the human body works. But within Agrippa's magical worldview, it offered an explanation for something people had feared for centuries: that another person's feelings, particularly powerful ones, might reach you through their gaze.

And the experience behind the belief is familiar enough.

Some encounters leave a stain.

A particular look. A pointed remark. A conversation that seemed perfectly ordinary at the time, but somehow leaves its mark on you.

You carry it home like a spot of red wine on a white shirt. Small, stubborn, and increasingly difficult to ignore.

Sometimes you leave a conversation feeling as though somebody has rearranged all the furniture inside you, and very badly.

And while an unpleasant encounter doesn't necessarily mean somebody has given you the evil eye, the feeling of carrying something away from another person is familiar enough.

Perhaps the old magicians were onto something about how entangled our lives are.

You are stitched into the world in a thousand places, most of them too small to see.

Every meeting leaves a stitch. Some hold us together. Some pull.

And while there are perfectly ordinary explanations for why certain people leave us feeling wonderful and others leave us feeling dreadful, the witches had their own ways of dealing with unwanted influences.

After all, we still want to move through the world. To be seen, admired, loved, surprised and occasionally swept quite off our feet.

We might also like a little say in what comes home with us.

Which brings us to the interesting business of magical protection.

The Heart as a Magical Centre

A Little Magic Begins at the Heart

Agrippa offers another intriguing idea in his discussion of the human soul.

He describes the soul as a divine light and the heart as the centre through which the soul becomes joined to the material body.

In his cosmology, an intermediary spiritual substance enters at the heart and extends throughout the body's members.

The heart, then, is an important meeting place between the visible and invisible aspects of human existence.

Your heart is a small, red room where the visible world meets the invisible one.

Think of it for a moment. Somewhere beneath your ribs, a little furnace has been tending its fire since before you knew your own name.

It's a rather beautiful starting point for a protective working.

There is a second idea we can borrow from Nigel G. Pearson's Treading the Mill.

Pearson describes a personal protection technique called the Circle-Cross, in which the practitioner uses the body, deliberate gestures, spoken words and visualized light to establish a protective magical enclosure.

Together, these ideas suggest an approach.

A boundary needn't be a wall. Sometimes a single thread, properly drawn, is enough to tell the world where you begin.

We've adapted those principles into the following TWC working, using an imagined silken thread and a small knot to complete the operation.

The silk, its colour and the words of the charm are our own additions.

And although this working is intended for protection against unwanted attention and the evil eye, you needn't decide that anyone has actually bewitched you before performing it.

You may simply wish to feel more firmly situated within yourself.

A Working from The Witches Circle

The Silken Circle

A small working for protection against envy, the evil eye and unwanted influences.

What You'll Need

Your two hands, a few quiet minutes and, if you wish, a small object to carry afterwards. A ring, a pendant or a smooth stone will do beautifully.

The First Part

Return to Your Heart

Stand with both feet comfortably on the floor.

Let your shoulders settle.

Place one hand over your heart and the other against your lower belly.

Take three slow breaths.

Feel the warmth beneath your palms. The movement of your ribs. The gentle rise and fall of your belly.

There is something magical about being able to feel yourself happening.

Now bring your attention to the space beneath the hand resting over your heart.

Imagine a small, steady light burning there.

Perhaps it's golden. Perhaps it's warm white, or the lovely deep red of embers glowing beneath ash.

Allow it to become a little brighter with each breath.

Imagine its warmth spreading into your chest, across your shoulders, down your arms and into your fingertips.

There you are.

Give yourself a moment.

The Second Part

Draw the Silken Thread

Imagine that between your thumb and forefinger rests a single strand of silk.

It's impossibly fine, almost weightless, but you can feel its delicate resistance as you draw it through your fingers.

Choose its colour.

Perhaps silver, like moonlight caught on water. Perhaps red as a pomegranate seed. Perhaps the exact shade of something you've loved all your life.

This silk belongs to you.

Imagine one end of it fastened gently at your heart, warmed by the small light you've awakened there.

Now, with your fingers holding the other end, begin to turn slowly through a full circle.

As you turn, imagine drawing the thread outward from your heart and around your body.

Feel it slip between your fingers.

The thread moves like water that has learned to hold its shape.

A cool, beautiful strand, catching the light as it moves.

Continue until you've returned to the place where you began.

The thread now forms a complete circle around you.

Imagine the circle extending above your head and beneath your feet, enclosing you within a delicate, continuous boundary.

The thread is fine enough to be almost invisible, but strong enough to hold its shape.

And it has one useful property.

Imagine silk so smooth that envy has nothing to hook its little claws into.

Any ill wish, envious attention or unwanted influence directed towards you finds nowhere to catch.

It slips across the silk like rain on polished leaves, leaving the thread undisturbed.

You can still see the world around you. Hear its sounds. Feel the warmth of the sun on your skin.

The circle moves with you. Its purpose is to help you remain yourself as you move among other people.

The Third Part

Tie the Knot

Bring your fingertips together at your heart.

Imagine taking the two ends of the thread and tying them into one small, beautiful knot.

Draw it closed with a gentle, deliberate pull.

A circle is a promise whose ends have found each other.

As you tighten the knot, speak the charm:

By the warmth of my own heart,
I draw this circle, fine and strong.
Let envy find no hold upon me.
Let ill wishes pass along.
What is mine remains with me.
What belongs to others passes by.

Take one final breath.

Feel the circle settle into place.

The silk moves with you, following your body as naturally as your shadow.

The knot holds.

A tiny piece of stubbornness, securing the boundary you've drawn.

And there it remains, until you choose to release it.

An Optional Addition

Give the Working Something to Live In

You can complete the working here.

Or you can give it a small physical anchor.

Some promises are too important to leave floating about in the air. So we tie them to something.

Before you tie your imaginary knot, take your chosen ring, pendant or stone into your hands.

Hold it against your heart for a moment.

Imagine the silken thread passing through the object before its two ends meet.

Then tie your knot and speak the charm.

In the symbolic language of this working, the object now carries the intention you've established.

An ordinary ring can become a little keeper of an extraordinary promise.

You might touch it before entering somewhere crowded, or when an interaction leaves you feeling unusually affected.

A small reminder of the circle you have already drawn.

Carry the charm in your pocket, warm from your skin, among the keys and receipts and other small evidence of being alive.

Let it become something familiar.

One Last Thing

And What If You've Already Come Home Feeling Dreadful?

Protection and cleansing are separate magical operations.

A protective circle symbolically establishes how you wish to meet the world.

A cleansing working marks the removal of something you no longer wish to carry.

Some traditional magical techniques use transference, in which an unwanted condition is symbolically passed into another object or substance and then physically removed.

Some workings involve water in which sickness is understood to be transferred away from a person.

It's an intriguing principle, and one that could inspire a separate working for those evenings when an unpleasant encounter seems to have followed you home.

Some moods really are like burrs. You brush against them for a moment and spend the rest of the afternoon picking them off.

But for now, the Silken Circle gives you something to establish before stepping out.

You can repeat it when you wish, perhaps before a difficult meeting, an important gathering or a day when you expect to be unusually visible.

There is no prescribed number of times it must be performed, and no reason to treat every uncomfortable glance as a threat requiring another protective ritual.

A practice intended to give you confidence should have an ending.

Be beautiful. Be visible. Enjoy being admired.

After all, the thread is fine enough to let the world remain beautiful, and strong enough to let you remain yourself.

And should the world become a little too interested in you, well, you know where your silk is.