Tempting Fate (The Evil Eye): A Different Vision

Abstract

Eye in certain cultural and religious beliefs stands for envy which is the concern of this paper. This paper, therefore, examines seeing or eyeing as a sort of envy through a cross-cultural, cross-linguistic, and cross-religious examination of the ideologies, beliefs, references, and senses related to envy. Envy is to wish someone bad luck or fortune due to the possession or dispossession of a certain thing, quality, or object. In many cultures and traditions, looking or eyeing is believed to cause bad luck, danger, or undesirable fate. It is very common that some people believe in envy. This paper, accordingly, addresses this issue by highlighting the reasons, effects, and consequences of such human acts. The study, finally, reaches some conclusions and results.