A story about the wizard and the sheep

In the middle of a large forest, there lived a wizard who had a large flock of sheep. He ate one sheep from the flock every day for lunch. Because of this the sheep were very scared and kept running away from him through the forest, so he had to spend a lot of time searching for them in the forest and bringing them back to the flock. Whenever he wanted to kill a sheep for lunch, they would squeal, desperately fight and resist, their screams frightening and warning the other sheep.

Then the magician decided to change tactics and started talking to each sheep individually and proposed something different to each of them. For example, he said to one: "You are not a sheep, you are a person like me, you have nothing to fear, because I only kill and eat sheep, and you are the only person in this flock, and that means you are my best friend". He said to another: "Why do you run away from me like other sheep, you are a lion and you have nothing to fear, I only kill sheep, and you are my friend." He said to a third sheep: "Look, you are not a sheep, you are a wolf. A wolf whom I respect. As before, I will continue to kill one sheep of the flock every day, and the wolf, the wizard's best friend, has no reason to fear.''

In this way, he spoke to each sheep and suggested that he/she was not a sheep, but a completely different animal, different from all the other sheep in the flock. After these talks, the behavior of the sheep changed completely – they grazed peacefully and never ran away into the forest again. And every time the magician killed a sheep, they thought to themselves: "Well, he only kills sheep, I am - a lion, a wolf, a man ... the magician's best friend, I have nothing to fear."

So the sheep, which he was killing, did not resist. He just went from one to the other saying, “Oh, my best friend, long time no see. Come to my yard. I need your advice about the flock of sheep.' And the "chosen" sheep proudly went to the magician's yard where he really talked about what was happening in the flock. The victim would happily tell him everything, and then the wizard would kill her.

And since death occurred immediately, the sheep did not have time to understand anything. The wizard was very pleased. He raised the self-esteem of each sheep, and as a result they no longer thought about the inevitable death, they were less nervous, they enjoyed their lives and calmly grazed their grass, and precisely because of this their meat was much tastier.

So for many years, the wizard managed a large herd with ease. The most interesting thing is that the sheep themselves started helping him. If a sheep was overly cautious and started to realize what was happening, then the other sheep... (because they are, lions, humans, wolves...), and as such are the wizard's best friends, informed him about the strange behavior of that sheep. The next day the wizard ate the wary sheep with great relish.

 

The story of the magician and the sheep was a favorite story of George Gurdjieff, who often told it to his students.

 

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