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Accepted Paper:

A sensual route of healing: triggering embodiment in the Greek 'evil eye'  
Eugenia Roussou (Centre for Research in Anthropology - CRIA, ISCTE-IUL, IN2PAST)

Paper short abstract:

Greek'evil-eye'is caused by senses and feelings,producing somatic suffering;it is then cured through a ritual healing process which stimulates senses and emotions.This route challenges embodied perceptions and meanings,rendering mind-body and'biomedical'-'traditional' healing polarisations obsolete.

Paper long abstract:

Evil eye in Greece is the belief that the human eye, through gazing, and the human mouth, through gossiping, has the power to cause symptoms of illness on the individual body. These somatic effects cannot be removed unless a certain religious ritual practice is performed. A practice which is multi-dimensional and varied, yet it always involves the engagement of the senses. Sight, taste, hearing and touch are multiply activated while the healing process is on its way, and they play a significant role in the path of patients' return to a health-state. During this course of treatment, what evil-eyed individuals feel and the emotion they exchange with their healer is considered vital for their physical shifting to a healthy embodiment. Consequently, healing is achieved only when the interaction among the mode in which people use, perceive and feel their body, the intertwining of sensualities and sensibilities, and the emotional mobility grows to be meaningful.

Panel W003
Feeling and curing: senses and emotions in medical anthropology
  Session 1