Holy Sewer Water??

Rusty emailed me this story. It was originally published in the Phuket Gazette, but I have editted it for length. Although the Buddha never taught anything about the spirit world, this article shows how real the spirit world is here in Thailand. Although the story is humorous, it is a sad statement of how gullible people can be.

Last month in Phrae Thailand, a water spring was discovered in the middle of Anong Kwanphetch's front lawn. After investigating, she discovered water bubbling up out of the ground. When she poked around to find the source of the water, it began flowing even stronger than before. Amazed, she rushed to tell the neighbors about her discovery thinking the spring was connected to a vision she had about her late grandmother the night before. Thinking that her grandmother’s apparition was a hint that the water from the spring could be carrying magical powers, Anong brought flowers, candles and incense to worship the spring, asking it to provide water for her to keep as a cure-all potion.

News travels quickly in rural Thai villages, and before long word of the phenomenon had spread throughout the district and into neighboring ones. One neighbor said she had to wait in line for her chance to collect some of the miraculous elixir. Like many others, she offered candles, incense, flowers and money. The crowds around the spring grew quickly as some 1,000 villagers rushed to collect bottles of the holy water. When some villagers called for the spring to perform a miracle and send forth bubbles, it immediately responded and answered their pleas.

Word of the find soon spread to district authorities and before long some public health officers came to investigate. Unable to stop the villagers from acting on their beliefs, they allowed them to continue collecting the water but implored them to boil it before drinking. They were scared that if the water stopped flowing while they collected water, it would cause bigger problems. They waited for the crowds to thin in order to collect a sample. When they tried to collect a sample of the water, the spring suddenly stopped and the ground became dry. Finally the officers had to beg for a sample from one of the villagers. After about 20 minutes, the water began to flow again, leaving villagers suspicious that the officials’ attempts to collect a sample had angered some deities.

Surin Niphayothin, finally got to the bottom of things. He and a group of villagers began digging for the source of the mysterious liquid and soon found a small, leaky PVC pipe. On further investigation, K. Surin found that the pipe led straight to the old toilet of a house no more than four meters away.

When villagers who had been drinking the “holy” water learned its true source, scores of them joined in a large mass vomiting session. The owners of the pipe said they had been installing a new toilet and that the plumbing work must have caused the sewerage pipe to crack. They said they had no idea their old toilet could have been the source of the “holy” spring.