CRAZY WATER: An Eastern Tale retold by the Theologian and Iconographer Photis Kontoglu.

Once upon a time there was a Sultan who was good and just. This Sultan had a Vizier (Chief adviser) who was also good and just. The Vizier also happened to be an astrologer. One day the Vizier said to the Sultan he had  seen a sign in the heavens which said that it was going to rain "crazy" water, and whosoever drinks from that water will become crazy. All the people in the land will drink from that water and they will lose their reasoning, they will no longer have a good sense of anything, they will not be able to tell right from wrong, nor truth from falsehood, nor sweet from sour, not even justice from injustice.

When the Sultan heard this he turned to the Vizier and said, "Since everybody will lose their minds we must take care not to lose ours, for otherwise how will we make just judgments?" The Vizier told him that he was quite right and that he should order that the good water they now drank was collected and kept in special reservoirs, so that they wouldn't drink from the ruined water and make crazy and unjust judgments, but rather just ones, as they were obliged to. That is what happened.

A little while later it really did rain, and the rain that came down really was crazy water, and the people really did become crazy. The poor things no longer had any idea of what was happening to them. They thought that falsehood was truth, good was bad, and injustice was justice. However, the Sultan and his Vizier drank from the good water which they had stored away and so did not lose their reasoning, but rather judged everybody with justice and righteousness. However everybody took this the wrong way, and they were not pleased with the Sultan's and the Vizier's judgments. They shouted that they had been wronged, they nearly caused a revolution.

Some time later, when they had seen more than enough, the Sultan and the Vizier lost their courage, and the Sultan said to the Vizier, "Those poor fellows really have lost their minds, and they see everything the wrong way around. If we carry on like this they will kill us because we want to judge them correctly with justice. Therefore my dear Vizier, let's throw away the good water and let us also drink the crazy water. We will become like them and then they'll understand us and they'll love us again." That's what happened. They also drank from the crazy water, they lost their minds and started to make crazy and unjust judgments, and all the people were happy and congratulated the Sultan for his wisdom.

Kontoglu also commented "Let us not throw away the small amount of water that we have still kept in the reservoir of tradition. Let us rather drink from this good water, and let us call others to drink from it... Let them drink and be refreshed by the water that flows from the rock, from our good and immortal water, from the "water of life."

by  Marina M.Robb   

VISIT the Cyber Desert, an oasis for the Sahara of the Soul.  A site dedicated to prayer, the wisdom of the Holy Fathers and Mothers of the Desert and  the  ascetic  Orthodox tradition.

Comments

[Hermes]

This little parable is characteristic of a culture in the very late stage of its development whereby it uses foreign myths and storytelling as didactic tools whilst at the same time inadvertadly undermining the foundations of their own culture (Vico 1657 and Spengler 1926).

For example, why would a Greek use the story of their mortal enemy to tell them something about themselves? Surely this is absurd. One would say this is only the background and it is the internal logic of the parable that matters. However, one could also reply that the background and the internal logic is equally as important.

Also, the nature of the myths are not of the Hellenic spirit. Hellenism was underpinned by sophrosyne rather than rapturous visions and fantastical tales which are characteristic of people to the East.

Also, we see the entry of non-Hellenic rubbish like astrology into the Greek world. Astrology was first introduced in 280 BC by Berossus, a priest of Bel from Babylon, who opened a school of astrology in that year on the island of Cos, site of the medical school of Hippocrates. Prior to the loss of confidence amongst Greeks following the civil war, Asiatic religious divination was largely ridiculed. However, many proletariat Greeks living in larger cities such as Alexandria, without the immediate Polis structure that facilitated participation in political life, began to increasingly seek answers rather than delight in asking questions which resulted in increasingly Middle Eastern hocus pocus entering the Greek world (Gilbert Murray 1912).

Lastly, these little parables are from the desert. Not only is the geography different than the traditional Greek world but also the source of knowledge changes as Greeks moved away from political life back into caves and deserts to find visions and other highly suspicious sources of knowledge.

Basically, this parable shows how Greeks gradually lost their nerve, their courage, their belief in the human mind to grasp the meaning of life and sought answers in foreign tales which may seem attractive but are ultimately destructive. Today, we see many parallels amongst Greek youth who deride national stories and myths and institutions such as trying to burn Evzone compounds and burning flags in favour of foreign ideologies such as American free market capitalism and Marxism.

Finally, although Kontoglu was a great artist but it is very ironic that he uses stories by Christians to argue for tradition when Christianity was the one of the most powerful forces that helped to sweep away over 1000 years of Hellenic tradition.

[Anthimos]

Hermes, you an idiot!