I was born in Turkey. The evil eye symbol is everywhere there. It's in the culture and part of my culture. Large evil eyes are hanging on household walls, baby pins, jewellery, almost everything and everywhere, you name it.
When I started my jewellery making business in Australia, I was selling evil eye designs, and people were asking me what does this symbol mean? What is the evil eye used for?
I explained that the evil eye protects from jealousy, from evil people or jealous thoughts thinking ill will towards you, or back luck. So in a way, protecting against bad luck.
Recently I decided to look further into my culture and to investigate more in-depth about evil eyes. I was surprised to find out that this symbol, with its beautiful ancient colour and pattern, reaches as far back in history as the 6th century BC, where it appeared on drinking vessels. I found some impressive looking examples.
I was impressed by how far back it was dating and surviving all the centuries, still as popular in this exotic part of the world until this modern day.
But I have a mechanical engineering degree; I am a very realistic person; I believe in science, so naturally, I am sceptical of ancient traditions and superstitions.
During my research, I came across this experiment in a documentary channel discovery one day. It both amazed me and convinced me of the evil eye's influence. You see, there were two groups of people. The first group was placed in a room with a bowl full of chocolate bars for sale in the room. In this room, fake eyes were placed upon the walls, which subconsciously gave the impression of being watched. Everybody in this group paid the money for the chocolate bars.
However the 2nd group, there were no eyes on the walls. So as a result, many people did not pay any money for chocolate bars for sale but just grabbed a chocolate bar because nothing or nobody was watching them.
So the result of an evil eye is the same, based on human nature and natural nature. Call it subconscious protection.
In nature, you can find eye symbols on some animals like butterflies to protect themselves from predators. This butterfly eye or butterfly "lie" is the strongest symbolic image ever created.