On Not So Cant Superstition

Are you superstitious?

Yes, I am very superstitious.

Most of it is rooted in Deep Time beliefs transmitted to us mouth to ear by our forefathers and foremothers.

None of it is cant, insincere or sacrilegious.

Consider this, ladies and gents.

Many thousands of seasons ago, perhaps many tens of thousands, some people noticed certain patterns related to their lifestyles.

Such as, I don’t know but bear with me, such as stepping out of the house by putting your non-sinister (sinistra is left in ITA) foot first as opposed to stepping out with your leftie.

And through empirical experimentation they noticed that those hunters and gatherers who did the former had a better return to base ratio than those who stepped out of the tent or cave on their left foot.

And let’s assume that this realization was captured by the clan, who transmitted it to the tribe, who passed it on to the nation, who made it into its cultural norm. And let us assume as well that this custom crossed the border of that original people and was adopted or borrowed by another people.

And remember all of this was done via word of mouth. And somehow, when this surely pagan or at least pre-Christian custom, was welcomed by the Catholic Church, cause how else would we know of it, it was committed to paper.

Or perhaps it was done much earlier and a host of Latin writers jotted it down themselves.

Now, I am not saying that everything that is old is good and I ain’t saying that all the new stuff is better either.

But as a boy I put to the test most if not all my superstitions by not adopting them or by wilfully disconsidering or ignoring them.

Yes, folks, if there is a taboo out there I took a big dump on it and did it my way. But pretty soon, as I recall, things, bad dark things, happened to me.

Now, was it correlation or causation? Were my actions causing all my mishaps or did they just happen independently of my ignoring what tens of thousands of oral tradition told us?

Well, when people start dying around you, your mother goes nuts and is committed to the bedlam, I am not sure if you’re supposed to persevere in your delusions.

So, I stopped cold all my antics and reverted to obeying the Superstition Rules.

And lo and behold, what happened? The overcast skies turned sunny again and things fell into shape once more.

And that is how I found out that you don’t ever gift a watch to someone you want to see again. Because you won’t, if you do. You won’t if you do.

Incidentally, this sure makes sense given how employers reward employees retiring after 30 or 35 years by gifting them nice timepieces. It’s a send-off present, people. It’s still a boot, but a golden one at that.

My point is that most superstitions are rooted in empirical observation and a lot of trial and error.

We would do well to not reinvent the wheel, especially given how many people lost their lives, limbs and peace of mind by discovering it, in the first place.

If you believe in progress, you’ll do well to remember that its basis is not repeating the mistakes of the past ad nauseam.

Besides what is superstition if not custom. And as mariners say one must not interfere with custom.

Feel free to bash superstition all u want. For me, it is the immemorial custom of the land. And I swear, live and die by it.

The Evil Eye

Wikipedia dixit that the Evil Eye is a 5,000-year-old superstition that originated in ancient Mesopotamia or Sumeria. They say this because that’s how old the earliest historiographic evidence is. This is purely based conjecture that plainly equates the date of the oldest piece of unearthed evidence with the true age of this custom. I for one do not believe that to be true.

I think this is much much older. How old can it be? There is no way for us to know unless we go digging for prehistoric remains, that is remains that predate the written word.

What is the Evil Eye?

It is the multi-millenary belief that envious gazes cause misfortune, illness, or injury.

Personal note: I firmly believe this just because I have often been the target of such gazes, and have had to bear a bunch of headaches that did not resolve when confronted by modern medication. Instead these aches gave way to my grandmother’s incantations called DESCÂNTEC in Romanian, that she proffered over my lying in bed, followed by my moving from the initial position into another position. Afterwards, the splitting headache whose locus malorum was behind the eyes, and which had started right after my intersecting a person casting the evil eye, afterwards the ache would dissolve. How about that, eh!

For those of you who care about the prophylaxis of the Evil Eye, you must familiarize yourselves with this incantation formula that goes back to the Agathyrsi people. I for one think it predates them. I like to believe that superstitions connect us to our forefathers and foremothers who have inhabited the Earth in prehistoric times.

„De-i deochiat de bărbat, să-i crape boaşele, să-i cură pişăţii, nene creştine!
De-i deochiat de femeie, să-i crape ţâţele, să-i cură laptele, să-i moară copilul, nene creştine!
Să plece deochiul în vânt şi pe sub pământ!”.

“If a man cast the evil eye, may his balls burst, may his piss run dry, oh Christian cuz!
If a woman cast the evil eye, may her breasts burst, may her milk dry up, may her child die, oh Christian cuz!
May the evil eye be blown away by the wind and sink into the ground!”

Old Romanian folk incantation to cast away the evil eye back onto the perp.

The goal of the incantation is to provide immediate relief to the victim. It effects this by transferring the evil, the malheur from the recipient of the evil eye to the doer. The process is called descântec and that is how the evil eye or deochi is broken or annihilated, that is undone. The incantation is quite powerful and violent enough to scare away the evil spirit. Please note that my grandmother repeated these verses 100 times of more in a very low soothing voice focusing on the locus of the pain. Repetition did the trick.

According to ancient Akkadian cuneiform texts, the Evil Eye was the reason for a number of esoteric formulas that provided protection against or from negative energy manifestations that impacted its recipients somatically. This custom spread from Sumer to the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Europe, and that is when you start seeing nazar amulets.

Ancient Greece and Rome swore by it. They both held to be true the fact that envious glares could cause physical harm. If you think about it, that is why it’s never smart to ogle someone with evil intent or scrutiny. For one, you will get into trouble. You know who stares at others?

Second, if your intentions were not pure, you may get your evil energy back at you with interest.

Everything is driven by personal relations. So when the evil eye is cast by an envious jealous gent, it impacts another’s success, children, or possessions. When that happens, the somatic manifestation of that evil thought and stare develops in the target-person with ill consequences to their health and well-being.

The bottom line of this custom is protecting innocent victims from hidden animosity.

Talk about Shakespeare’s “There’s daggers in men’s smiles”, eh. (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3, Donalbain)

P.S. This is just a reminder that not all headaches are caused by envious bastards. Some of your maux de tête are just that. Pax vobiscum!