1Cademy - The Tale of the Schoolboys and the Power of Suggestion in the Masnavi

Learn Before

مثنوی معنوی: دفتر سوم / Masnavi: Book Three
دفتر سوم - بخش ۵۸ - مثال رنجور شدن آدمی بوهم تعظیم خلق و رغبت مشتریان بوی و حکایت معلم / Book Three - Section 58 - An Example of a Person Becoming Ill Through the Delusion of People's Veneration and Customers' Desire for Him, and the Tale of the Teacher
دفتر سوم - بخش ۶۰ - در وهم افکندن کودکان اوستاد را / Book Three - Section 60 - The Children Casting Delusion Upon the Master

Concept

The Tale of the Schoolboys and the Power of Suggestion in the Masnavi

In Book 3 of Jalaluddin Rumi's Masnavi, the tale of the schoolboys and their teacher illustrates the destructive power of collective suggestion and false imagination ( $وهم$ , wahm). Seeking a holiday from school, the children conspire to repeatedly tell their healthy teacher that he looks pale and ill. When the first student remarks on his pallor, the teacher dismisses the comment, but a 'dust of evil imagination' subtly settles in his heart. As each subsequent student enters and repeats the same fabricated observation, the teacher's doubt amplifies. Eventually, the cumulative force of their suggestion overpowers his reality, leaving him genuinely bewildered and convinced of his own sickness. Rumi uses this narrative to demonstrate how repeated falsehoods can manipulate the mind, warning against the human intellect's vulnerability to baseless delusions.