Who Are These Mad Ones?

Abba Anthony said that the time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will rise up against him, saying that you are mad, because you are not like them.

– Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Anthony

From the Stories of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov…

–The king answered, “But if we alone are the sane ones, and the rest of the world is mad, then we will be the ones who everyone will consider to be the mad ones… let us make a mark on our foreheads so that we should at least know that we are mad. I will look at your forehead, and you will look at mine, and seeing this sign, we will know that we are both mad.”

Here’s what they did

“Long ago, in a faraway land, there was a strange type of mold that affected the grain in the fields. The king knew that if his people ate this grain, they would lose their mind and go mad. He discussed the problem with his chief adviser, and they decided to use the grain in the storehouses while trying to find a remedy for the afflicted grain. Time passed and the storehouses were empty, but still no remedy was found. The king decided that it would be better to feed his people the grain that would make them lose their mind than to let them die of starvation.

“I too will eat of this grain,” he told his adviser,

“so that I will be like my people –lost in madness. From that shared place, I will be able to lead them.”

“But what of me?” said the adviser,

“I will advise you, but you will not understand me.”

“You too must eat of the grain,” said the king,

“but there is one more thing. Before we eat this grain, I will order all my people to put a mark on their forehead. Every morning, they must look at their reflection and see this mark and ask themselves who they really are.”

How tragic if they forgot to look at their reflections…

From Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment:

“…He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.”