Rationale of the Turkish Eye
The roots of the Evil Eye phenomenon reach back into Babylon and Ancient Egypt. It is also encountered among the Sumerians and the Hittites. In their view, evil feelings from within the human being go out through the eyes. The eyes are the most expressive and obvious part of the body. The belief of the Turkish Eye exists in the countries of the Mediterranean Shores, Arabia, Turkey up to India. The Turks call this amulet: "nazar boncuk".
Some sources have it that the origins of the blue eye are due to the invasions of people from the North. Norse people had blue eyes, and the peoples of Anatolia believed the former to have cast an Evil Eye upon them, so they created the blue eye in response.
In Central Asia during the ages of shamanism Turks held similar superstitions. Throughout their history the peoples of Anatolia formed ideas about all kinds of Evil Eye influences and they used horseshoes, garlic, wolf's tooth, dried thorn, lead, certain stones &c. But the crystal blue eye has always been most popular.
Nowadays, in certain small villages of Western Turkey there are primitive furnaces where crystal eyes are being produced. They recycle used crystal and they use cobalt, opal and zinc for colour. Also to yield good results they generally use pine wood to heat the furnaces.
The Turkish Eye is typical for Turkey. One can see it hanging from front door knobs of houses and offices, from the rearview mirror of cars, from the neck or in the wallet, as a bracelet or stuck to the swaddling cloth of a newborn baby (a safety pin adorned with little Turkish Eyes). If you want to protect your home or office you should place a Turkish Eye near the entry in such a way that all visitors may readily see it.
How does "nazar" (Evil Eye) happen according to the Turkish tradition? You have a new car and your neighbour says: "What a good car!" Later on some damage or accident befalls the car. This means he worked a "nazar" because when he said what he did he was possessed by envy or evil feelings which he was trying to conceal. To avoid such situations one should harbour a Turkish Eye. This can happen to a child, an animal &c. Therefore after saying "what a good car!" one must say "Mashallah, nazar deymesin" meaning: "May the Evil Eye stay away from it."
By analysing this amulet from a parascientific point of view we reach the conclusion that the traditional teaching about the gaze being literally capable of jinxing a person, an animal or an object is a sure fact. In fact the eyes have the capacity for propelling our psychic force onto a certain direction in the concrete world. The Turkish Eye manages to curtail this effect on sight by rapidly deflecting the attention of the person who was about to concentrate on us thus breaking down the concentration and force of such a person in a simple and efficient manner. avatar soundtrack |
