Physician, heal thyself.

Kasmillos: What is meant by the command: "Physicisan, heal thyself?"

Straphalos: Why does that confuse you?

Kasmillos: Because, a physician can hardly work on oneself. Every physician I know seeks another physician when they themselves are sick.

Straphalos: Do you really think that the physician referred to in the sacred writings is a physical doctor?

Kasmillos: Ah! So you infer that the context requires this physician to be a physician of souls. Even so, the question stands. When such a one is suffering or misguided, they require another to help them.

Straphalos: I don't disupte that, however consider who a physician of souls really is. Who can be one?

Kasmillos: Anyone. All of us.

Straphalos: Really? You would truly assert that every person in the world is actively involved in the healing of someone else? If that were so, why do multitudes of suffering individuals wander through the world lost going from one soul to another, rejected by one, ignored by the next, unfulfilled and confused. If there were really so many phsyicians, why are there so many patients?

Kasmillos: Fine, semantics. What I mean is that all of us are called to be physicians of souls.

Straphalos: I would accept that, but the text does not say: "Potential Physician, heal thyself", it says "Physician, heal thyself." It speaks of a fully realized initiate, a Hierophant. A Revealer who changes and heals souls. One who sees clearly their calling, learned their art, and practices it conscientiously. If you really believe that this demanding exhortation is meant for merely anyone of good will and spiritual intent, then the sedentary nature of new age spirituality has confused your reasoning.

Kasmillos: How so? We each have a Higher Genius, we are all called to be as angels one day. We all have the power to help someone and should. The archetype of Hierophant belongs to all.

Straphalos: Yes, but it is foolish to act the part in service to others prior to genuine attainment. It would be as the blind leading the blind. What part does an amateur have in the performance of surgery? Society imprisons the quack who practices medicine irresponsibly and without true learning. Why is it so difficult to ascertain that not all are ready and capable, if even called at all in their present lifetime, to guide a wounded and suffering soul through spiritual healing?

Kasmillos: I can accept that not everyone would want to do such a thing. And, I can accept that not all who aspire to be of such service can do so without further development themselves. But, what of the original statement? It still tells a healer to seek their own healing from within rather than from outside themselves.

Straphalos: Yes.

Kasmillos: Although, I agree that we are all responsibile for our own development and happiness, I still believe it takes the help of others to do so.

Straphalos: You are wise to admit this. Very little in this world or the next can be accomplished by oneself alone, no matter how powerful, strong, or wise you may be. Those who imagine themselves powerful enough to survive in isolation and contain the courage to attempt to do so, quickly find themselves washed away by the flood of reality. If you ever doubt this, imagine what it would be like to be the only human being to survive the death of the entire species, to live a long and lonely existance on a barren, unpopulated world with no other living soul.

Kasmillos: Not a pleasant thought. And it certainly underlines my point.

Straphalos: Indeed, but also consider the Hierophant, the revealer, changer, and healer of souls. They are hardly alone for there are many patients for this kind of healer. But, they are also completely alone, for they are rarely in the presence of another healer of their calabre. God uses them efficiently for there are so few laborers and the need is so very great. There is a figuritive line out the door and around the corner for the help of such genuine healers. They are universally surrounded and yet alone at the same time. They must learn to heal themselves.

Kasmillos: Why can't one come into their lives to heal them, too, as they do for others?

Straphalos: Truly, though such Hierophants wander and seem to enter many lives, what they really do is make themselves available and others are brought to them. Those who come into their lives are those who are ready and needful of change, of healing, of initiation. When others don't need these things, they do not go to Hierophants, they go to others to fulfill lower needs. The golden treasures that a genuine Hierophant has in abundance can be acquired nowhere else and there is no price worthy of them, so they are often given freely. But, many are the places and people where lesser gifts may be bought, sold, and exchanged. So, that is where the multitudes spend most of their energy and desire.

Kasmillos: That is a very mournful and thankless state to assign such a spiritual worker. Surely, they would need assistance, themselves.

Straphalos: Agreed. All must be fed and cared for.

Kasmillos: Then how does the Physician, heal him or herself?

Straphalos: The Hierophant is a font of spiritual treasures. They must learn to give such gifts to themselves, as well. As they heal others, they must not neglect themselves, or they will die. They must take the time and effort to work their sacred art upon themselves, invoking, evoking, seeing, arising, revealing to themselves as they do for others. They must make spiritual medicines for themselves, as they do for others, and take them.

Kasmillos: Does that not mean they would also become in danger of "Drinking their own Koolade?" as popular wisdom says of cult leaders?

Straphalos: Absolutely! And now you understand why not everyone can be ready or even called to be a Physician of Souls. All who take this bitter-sweet burden stand in very real danger of delusion. They must have enough humility to allow themselves to be corrected, especially from their own kind. Now you see the role Physicians of Souls have for each other. They are not there to heal each other, they reflect and hold each other accountable for their delusions.

Kasmillos: I see, but is there really nothing the patient can give the physician in return for their work?

Straphalos: There is, but few pay it. Remember that when Christ healed the crowd of lepers, only one came back to thank him. Gratitude and payment are not reasonable motivators in the Telestic Art. Those who look for such are regularly disappointed by poverty and betrayal.

Kasmillos: So thanks is the payment?

Straphalos: No, there is a hidden part of the teaching about Christ and the Lepers that few know. From less read texts that have been held sacred to Church Tradition, it is known that the leper who turned back and thanked Christ later became a student of his and became a bishop of the early church, guiding and healing others.

Kasmillos: So the only sufficient payment to a genuine Hierophant for their service is to become one yourself.

Straphalos: Amen. And for every patient that becomes a genuine Physician in their own right, it makes the crowd that didn't worth healing.