Ericksonian Fable: The Domesticated Camel

Post Written By Eugene Morgan

Domesticated Camel

While traveling through a desert, an old man spotted a tamed camel. “My master abandoned me, “the camel cried, “I won’t survive the desert.”  After hearing this the old man took his saddle off the camel he was riding on and placed it on the abandoned camel’s back. “What are you doing,” the camel asked.  The old man replied, “You say you don’t have a master. I’ll be your master. “But you’re deserting your own camel,” the domesticated camel stated.  The old man said, “No, I don’t own this camel.

The old man jumped on the camel’s back and yelled, “Go towards the sun!” After traveling a ways the old man cried, “I’m thirsty!  Would you like a drink of water?”  “I’m not thirsty,” the camel answered. So the old man took a drink.  After a while the old man said, “I’m thirsty! Would you like some water?”  Again, the camel said, “No!”  So the old man took another drink of water.

Later, the camel and the old man had dinner and called it a night. The temperature began dropping.  The old man was asleep when his trembled body had awakened him from the bitter cold. “My fur keeps me warm on cold nights like this,” the camel said, “If you like, you can lie next to me.”  The old man took his offer.

After a sound sleep, the early morning sun had awakened the camel and the old man. “You would have found me dead but because of your warm fur I am alive. Thank you.”

Just after they were about to continue on west, a desert sandstorm erupted. What was in front of him, the old man could no longer see but the sand storm. “Get behind me!” the camel yelled.  “That way you will be protected.  My long eyelashes and ear hairs will protect me from the sandstorm.”  The old man was very grateful for this and thanked the camel.

After a long journey, the old man said, “I have reached my destination.” He took his saddle off the camel’s back. “Are you deserting me too?” asked the camel.  “I’ve saved your life!” the camel cried. “The desert heat, the desert cold, the desert sandstorm-these are events from which you saved me,” the old man replied, “so you don’t need a master.  The master of the desert is you, not me.”

In this above story the domesticated camel was blinded by his belief that he could not live on his own without his master.  His belief was like a tether.  He could only go as far as the boundary of his belief that he can only enter the desert unless his master was directing him.  So the old man decided to take this journey in the desert with this camel.   Because the domesticated camel needed proof that he could rely on himself.   The old man understood that physically that he could not survive in the desert alone but he knew the camel could.   Although, camel’s natural habitat is the desert, he needed proof that this was true.  The camel needed to experience this first hand.  While the camel and old man traveled through the desert, the old man encountered thirst, high temperature during the day, and cold temperature during the night and the sandstorm during the morning.  But these things did not faze the camel.  This is the point the old man wanted the camel to understand.  The camel took it for granted his capacities or his unused capacities.  His belief tether his understanding until the old man said in the punch line of the story, “The desert heat, the desert cold, the desert sandstorm-these are events from which you saved me.  So you don’t need a master-the master of the desert is you, not me.”

You have a lifetime of learnings and experiences that you automatically send to your unconscious mind.  The problem is that you leave these unused acquired capacities and latent potentials in the background of your mind.  Instead Milton Erickson has learned to bring these unused capacities and latent potentials to the foreground as resources to help patients and students cope with their daily realities.