Explaining the Evil Eye to Sam Harris

one of the examples that I've seen new atheist types you could call them or you know rationalist types used to criticize religion has been to criticize the evil eye and that the evil eye is this example of superstition and you know kind of silly magical thinking which which think that somehow someone can look at you and can affect you can have this effect on you by by looking at you in a certain way you know almost like in a magical manner and just how silly that is and how it's silly for people to to be worried about that and to think about that in traditional cultures and so I thought that you know in my opinion in my thought the evil eye is actually something which is quite obvious to understand and so hopefully I can give you a little bit of an explanation of what that might be [Music] this is Jonathan Petro welcome to the symbolic world [Music] [Applause] problem the problem of understanding a lot of traditional thinking and really just thinking is something that I've been trying to explain to my channel for quite a while now and the problem is the rationalists approach to reality and let's say the kind of Enlightenment approach reality which is to remove the viewer from causality which is to completely act as if we are not part of the causal links in the world and so once you start to reintegrate the the conscious agent or the viewer into the relationships of causality and you start to see that that is inevitable then what happens is that the your perception of how causality works is going to slightly change especially in in terms of human interactions and human life and so when you hear someone who to me it's a it's almost a surprise to hear someone talk about how silly it is to think that someone can destroy you by looking at you in a certain manner that someone could cause misfortune in your life by looking at you in a certain manner I often think that people who who can't see that that's possible are people who maybe don't live in communities people who don't have families maybe because in a world where everybody is connected and I can understand because we do live in a world where communities are falling apart where we live in these anonymous suburbs in these anonymous cities but in a world where people are linked together where everybody knows each other and everybody talks about each other then then the notion that you can destroy someone by looking at them in a certain manner all of a sudden starts to take on a little bit more meaning and so what I'm going to try to do is I'm going to try to give you analogies to maybe help you understand how something like the evil I can work now it is it is difficult for us to completely understand because we are we do live in a world that is materialistic in a world that is disconnected and communities that are disconnected but hopefully this will help you to kind of get a glimpse of what something like the evil eye could be and how the mechanisms of causality could function in such a such a trope let's especially such a social trope let's say now the most simple example is to look in your own life and to notice those moments where the manner in which someone looked at you does in fact bring you at least small misfortune now a good example is I'm sure everybody has experienced the going into a store and going up to to a clerk or to someone who's working there and the person looking at you with just utter contempt and giving you that that look like you are absolutely nothing now for some people not for everybody but for some people that can seriously affect them and it can affect them for hours on end it can affect them for a whole day it could affect them for quite it could cause us a mental obsession which makes you think about that person and think about well you know what they did you the way they looked at you now bring that now closer within your circle imagine someone you love imagine your spouse imagine your your parents look at you in a certain manner you know and look at you with contempt but imagine that you you you could tell you could make it into a technique and you could you could do it it could be pretty powerful you can make it into a technique where you would actually consciously look at someone you know with a cold contempt look and then act as if you're not doing it now that would be even more powerful you could have an even more effect on someone if you did that you look at them with contempt and then you say something oh no no everything's fine no no no I love you you know and then you can utterly start to destroy someone now this is the problem the problem is that we don't we don't see that that you know your misfortune is also caused by your interactions with other people that the man in which you interact by other people will and can bring you to experience misfortune and living in in a relationship let's say with someone who would do that to you who would look at you in a certain way who would pretend that they're not doing it who act as if you know they they they they would say they love you but look at you with utter contempt constantly that could make you sick it could make you you know lose your job it could make you you know start to to to be distracted could call maybe you could have a car accident because of that because you're distracted because you're taken up by this this disturbing this disturbing fact in your life now the type of causality is not the same type as the scientists would want because there is no there is no you can't measure the atoms between someone in your life acting and looking at you with utter content let's say and the car accident you would have because as you're driving you're you're distracted by what's happening and because you're distracted by what's happening maybe you're struggling in your job maybe you're having financial problems and all of that is racking up and building up to a point where you're crossing you're you're turning on the light and smash into a car and but there is a causality between all of those things it's just not the same type of causality now the examples that I'm using are our psychological let's say they are some that we can understand in a more immediate manner let's say because we still have access to it but imagine a society imagine a human society which would have four generations after generations millennia after millennia refined the art of looking refined the art of looking at someone in a manner that will have an effect on it an effect on that person now to say that that's impossible is is to me is just crazy because it not only is it possible we have these types of Sciences in other aspects for example you can imagine someone imagine someone like Marilyn Monroe who has completely mastered the art of seduction who has completely mastered the art of looking at a man in a certain manner in order to attract that man's attention in order to get into that person's head and affect them and you'll find people con artists who will be able by the way they they look at you by the way they interact with you in very very subtle subtle terms will be able to gain your trust in order to then go in and destroy your life now we can see that let's say in in terms of seduction we understand because we see people who do it we see people in movies we see people you know we have stories of men who who are able to seduce seduce many many women just with very very subtle techniques they don't actually care about those people they don't they don't they only see it almost as a game that they're playing in order to have power and to have effect on others now imagine the same thing happening in a culture but in a negative way that is that someone could master the art of effecting people negatively with with a a look with a man or a man in which they they look at you and they know that if they do it in a certain manner not only will it affect you but then other people will notice that you are doing that to them and then and then it will create a chain of causality around you in your in your community which will slowly bring you down and which which could destroy your life you know one way or the other and so so so so let's look let's and and the problem is that it's very difficult to describe these scientifically some of these techniques are very very subtle they're they're they're extremely difficult to quantify a good way to understand that is to understand for example hypnotism the capacity someone can have to hypnotize someone else now if you just take if you just read a article on how to hypnotize someone and then you try to hypnotize yourself you probably will not be able to do it you will you would have to have learned from someone who is capable of doing it and you would pick up these subtle signs these these subtle manners of acting just like for example it's probably very difficult to learn to sell something just by reading a book on how to sell but being in contact with someone who's a very good salesman will help you pick up these very very subtle cues that will make you into a good salesman or will make you into a good hypnotist and so in the same manner a such a skill as you know the capacity to affect someone with with a look you know it's not difficult to imagine that that could appear in a culture and become a prominent aspect of a culture and that it wouldn't have an effect especially like I said in a culture that is tightly knitted and the connection between everybody are real now people will say yeah but you're just cycle looks like a son you know making it psychological and and you're just you know you're trying to explain away the magical aspect of it but the problem is that people I think most people don't understand what magic is or how magic was perceived in traditional cultures we have a kind of weird materialist vision of how what what magical skills are what that would have been in traditional cultures and in traditional cultures it was in for example in the middle-ages magic was not seen as necessarily something which was evil or a cult or whatever it was just seen as the a manner in which to interact with reality a manner in which to affect reality and if it was bad it was bad because you could use that man that that skill like you could use seduction like you could use the capacity to hypnotize someone you could use that skill to cause damage and so that was the problem with the way that that magic was like it was bad magic which was a problem using subtle skills subtle human capacity to affect the world in a negative way now one of the things then that that I need to explain for example is the the protection talisman and so people who try to ward off the evil eye and will wear a talisman to ward to ward them off and you'll say well that's just silly why would wearing some type if what you're saying the evil eye is what you're saying it is then why would wearing a talisman of the evil eye ward off that type of interaction and the answer is I can give you the answer by explaining it this way you you want someone to do well at at an interview and you you want them to to succeed what do you tell them you say wear a suit wear a tie dress up wear something that's going to make you sit straight right and then you'll have a better chance of getting the job and you think well what does that have to do with anything what if your job what if the job has nothing to do with the way you dress or the way you comport yourself what if your job is sitting in in an office typing on a computer why would you wear a suit that has there's no there's no material causality between you wearing a suit for an interview and you getting the job but see once again there's this ignorance if you wear a suit you will be conscious that you are wearing this suit you will be aware of how you are dressed facing the person in front of you it is it is creating that awareness of your presentation to the other which is what will make you more conscious of how you present yourself more conscious of how you speak more conscious of how the person is responding to you now the notion of wearing a talisman is the same thing that is if you wear a talisman against the evil eye it is because you are conscious of the evil eye that is you are making yourself aware that this is possible and you're also making yourself aware that you do not want to be influenced in that manner but you're not just signaling it to to yourself if you wear a pendant with a talisman for example you're also signaling it to everybody around you maybe to the person who who wants to destroy you but then also to the people around you which are part of that network of connections and so that signaling is a signaling which will to a certain extent block the capacity that the person has to affect you because you're making you're making yourself and you're making other people aware that this dynamic is is going on in and I do not want it to affect me and so the type of causality is a different type of causality and say and and the problem is that it is also not because it's not quantifiable you could wear a talent to protect yourself from the evil eye and then you could it could not work that's totally possible just like you could wear a suit to go to an interview to help yourself present yourself better and to be more straight and then but then you could overcome that and your slobby self and your your your kind of chaotic you know incapacity to present yourself is going to be stronger than your talisman that you're wearing in that interview but it doesn't mean that it that it that it doesn't help and that it's not part of the structure you know just because it doesn't work all the time does it mean that it's not something that if you do can have an effect on these types of interactions and so you know we and and so there are many many ways that we do that you know today someone who for example someone who for example doesn't want to I don't know who doesn't want to watch porn on their computer who doesn't want to drink who doesn't want to who doesn't want to to do certain things you can and it can help you to have signs signifiers that you wear on yourself something to remind you something that acts as a little barrier towards that behavior that you want to stop you can have all kinds of little things that you can do to kind of help you are those things impervious no of course not they're not but can they help yes they can and it's really that type of understanding that you can you can see I'll give you a very good example that I had went through myself you know I kind of I gotta come from a punk rock teenage existence and you can see I kind of have long hair sometimes I have it even longer it's tied because I know I don't work for anybody I work for myself and have a beard and everything and for very long time I would I love to wear linen when I'm traveling because you know it's very it's very comfortable you don't need a belt you wear linen pants without a belt you can wear a linen shirt it's very nice and comfortable it's a one day I went on an airplane and I had long hair I had pulled it in a ponytail and I was wearing all linen clothing and I went up to the security and the security guard pulled me aside and I was like what's going on and then I heard him on his his walkie-talkie he told he said I've got a Rambler I was like what a Rambler what the heck is that and so they came and they searched my bag and they made me touch this little thing and then it's like I realized it what they they thought is that I probably have and I probably have and someone because of the way I'm dressed because I'm wearing linen because I have long hair because I have a beard all of that together makes it look you know like I'm a patchouli wearing hippy that probably has drugs in their back and so the manner in which I dressed the type of things that I was wearing had a causality in my life it was affecting my life and and you know that to be true you tell someone you see someone where who has neck tattoos or he has facial tattoos and you think that is going to seriously affect your existence in the negative sense but you can the same thing can be in the in the positive sense for example Coptic Christians would tattoo a cross on their arm and you would think okay so why would they do that well there are plenty of reasons why they would do that you could and if you ask them they might say something like it is a protection I put the cross on my hand to protect me and you'll say oh that's just you know easiest superstitious of course it's just superstition then why would putting a cross on your on your hand protect you why would doing the sign of the Cross protect you and so imagine now that that Coptic Christian is in a situation where there's pressure and there is right now in Egypt pressure for you to convert to Islam pressure for you to let's say compromise on what you believe and on your faith now that thing is marked on your skin you have a cross on your skin and so if you do compromise your yourself and you do compromise would you believe if you convert to Islam through social pressure or you are you you do something of the like then you will have this burning mark on your hand to constantly remind you of what what you did and so the mark act as a protection it does it literally does act as a protection it protects you it protects you from going in certain directions from certain things let's say happening to you now is it is it possible to surmount that is it possible to break that that that protection is possible to still convert to Islam yes of course it is but just because it's not it doesn't help you in 100 percent of the times does it mean that it also that it doesn't help you that it can't help you if to you it's important to remain faithful to what you believe okay so yeah so I think I'm Way past explaining the evil eye and I'm just I'm now I'm basically explaining the whole whole systems of how these types of of causalities can work and how they're not they're not they're not the same types of causalities that scientists like to look at but they they exist nonetheless and everybody I know engages in those types of causalities by the way they dress by the way they present themselves and then also can have effect on others by the way they they say certain things by the way they they use passive aggressive behavior or whatever it is you can affect someone else's life and and you don't have to see that as superstitious all right so I hope you enjoyed this discussion yeah and I will see you soon if you enjoyed this content and our exploration of symbolism get involved I love to read your insights and questions in the comment section you can also share this video on social media to your friends and as you can please consider supporting us financially through patreon or PayPal you'll find those links in the description below

Channel: Jonathan Pageau

Views: 144,027

Keywords: Jonathan Pageau, symbolic world, jonathan pageau, jordan peterson, the evil eye, magic, occult symbolism, symbolism, sam harris, bret weinstein, intellectual dark web

Id: Y9-EMGBzbbw

Length: 22min 57sec (1377 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 14 2018