YES (kind of?).

I have one word for you: Esfand.

So, superstition is one of those concepts that we each have our own personal beliefs in. I wouldn’t even say Iranians are more or less superstitious than others. We all personally have our own levels of beliefs or none at all.  Regardless, some of us do believe in the “evil eye” similar to other cultures out there. And we all have our own ways of “dismissing the evil eye”.

I recently asked some friends whether they  this is a tradition their families have incorporated into their lives. I have received mixed responses.  Seems like it is not as common as it used to be many years ago,  but it is in my household. I grew up with this. We would come back from a party or a “mehmoony” as we call it, regardless of the time if night (2am was very common) my mom would insist we come to the kitchen and basically inhale this smoke! and then I guess we were…safe? We just accepted it to be true.

Now you are really wondering what I am talking about.

So what is the “Esfand”?  Well, the short story… we pour these seeds into a pot (sometimes on aluminum foil), place then over the stove, once well heated a popping sound begins as smoke comes out, and we essentially inhale believing that we have now gotten rid of any “curses” instilled upon us through others. Some also say a prayer as they do this process. These seeds are not only native to Iran but also Afghanistan, Central Asia and Pakistan.

Click here for some more brief information around the seeds and their use.

Why?? I don’t even have a good answer for this! But there are few different situations that we do this. From my own experience it was typically when we may have received many compliments in one evening, or we just feel someone was giving off some negative feelings, we would then worry they MAYBE were giving us the “evil eye”. And just to be safe, that is what we did.

This is personally a tradition I am used to and I will admit that regardless if I think it actually works, I will incorporate it into my own life purely because it is tradition

Is this something you and/or your family does? What about in other cultures?  Would love to hear about your stories and experiences!