In the beginning, the priestly function was also the healing function. The physician and the priest were one. The shaman was the great religious spirit, the healer, the foreteller, the one who allied with and contended with the Devas and forces of nature. He/she was the channel between the flock and higher forces, connecting them with the Divine, and their power was acquired from both above and below. Every culture has had its physician priests from time immemorial.

The god-descended pharaohs of ancient Egypt exercised the authority, power and healing of both roles. Jesus was the supreme physician, who called upon the healing power of the almighty Father; but he was the rabbi as well. Moses, too, derived his power to heal from the divine source. He was the high priest who met with God's Presence on the mountaintop and carried His message to His people. He functioned as miracle worker, messenger of God and healer of humankind's soul.

Sigmund Freud attributed the creation of monotheism to Moses, and believed that he was actually the Pharaoh Akhnaton who brought monotheism to Egypt and was sorely persecuted for it.

There have also always been wise women healers and shamans; and in recent times, there have been many great physician-priestesses. Sometimes these women are the partners of holy men. "The Mother," the life partner to Sri Aurobindo, was a healer in her own right and the teacher-adviser who succeeded him. Aurobindo considered The Mother to be his Shakti, the great creative female power, the nurturer and the one who brings forth. Indeed, she protected him and nurtured him while he continued to infuse her and his disciples with the wisdom received from his own meditative inspirations and from his studies, which he transmitted in voluminous written and oral teachings. A recent avatar, Madame Blavatsky, dedicated her strength and energy to healing the world through the dissemination of ageless wisdom from the Masters of the East. In India, Mother Theresa lived the life of a saint while yet incarnate. An exemplary healer of souls, she ministered to the desperately poor and to babies who were victims of AIDS.

Elizabeth Kübler Ross is a supreme example of the physician-priestess. Renowned for her work, she brought the science of helping the dying patient to the attention of the medical community worldwide. She went on to discover the meaning of life after death, and brought comfort not only to the dying but to their families as well. I had the privilege of meeting her once, and she told me that when a person went far enough into meditation or heightened awareness, "they," the spiritual guides, met you and allowed you to visit the other side and then return. Her work has been part of an emerging series of adventures into the world beyond this body, and is parallel to that of Raymond Moody, author of Life After Death, and Kenneth Ring, author of Going to Omega.

Although the medical community has lost its understanding of the priestly side of healing, many of us can still remember times when this was not so. Even in the early twentieth century, the physician was still viewed almost as a priest, revered and called upon in times of spiritual as well as physical need. In turn, with no concern for money, he exercised the powers generated through idealism and self-sacrificing concern for his patient. When I was a child, Dr. Rubin was always ready to be at my bedside when we needed him. All that was necessary was for him to be there, and all would be well with the world. I would know that I was protected and healed.

I remember what an idealistic profession medicine was when I went to medical school, and, in turn, with how much reverence the physician was treated. Sadly, the physician's calling has become degraded, contaminated by over-organization, materialism, and businesslike bottom-line. Today we are faced with a gerrymandered outline of physician-function, which has grown like Topsy until it has almost burst the bounds of the house that created it. Insurance, originally a creative ideal designed to share the cost of catastrophic expense, has now become the giant who devours its own children, suffocating the energy of the physician while creating more and more degeneration of health care. Reverence for the physician-priest has given way to distrust, distance, misanthropy and separatism. And why not? Even in psychiatry the quick fix by drugs is preferred to the more strenuous, but really more rewarding, treatment by understanding.

Biological psychiatry is in the ascendancy, often leading to tragedy. This tragedy can be seen in the case of a twenty-six-year-old woman who came to me after being treated elsewhere for "depression." Her so-called "disorder" was only ordinary human sadness that was caused by a failed marriage into which she had allowed herself to be precipitated, and an exaggerated sense of self-criticism that relentlessly pursued her when she failed at anything. Another psychiatrist had diagnosed her as having a major disorder, manic-depression or schizophrenia, the latter because she had spoken to him about certain spiritual experiences. In search of a "cure," she was transferred from one pharmacological specialist to another, filled with powerful medications and, when each one failed, she was given another and yet another. Nowhere in her treatment scheme was there the kind of psychological investigation that would lead to compassionate understanding. Worse yet, when she wanted to stop the medications, she was confronted with dire predictions of what would happen to her because she had a "serious chemical imbalance." Heroically, she took a chance, stopped all medication -- and felt better. When she was referred to me, I found her to be a woman who had a great introspective capacity along with a strong ego and personality; therefore, someone who could expand into health through therapeutic understanding -- someone who very much wanted to. She made rapid progress within a drug-free treatment that helped her to understand her feelings and what had caused them.

This story illustrates the destructive effects of the unspoken but active alliance between the pharmaceutical industry and the physician and, in truth, society itself. The fact is that doctors are looking for a way to deliver a fast cure, patients are looking for the magical and easy way, and pharmaceutical companies are looking to enlarge the figures on the much-worshipped bottom line. This is a powerful combination, an unconscious collusion, which cements us into a materialistic approach to medicine. It shuts the door on humanistic, person-to-person understanding and help.

There is an amazing amount of ignorance in clinical medicine of the ordinary psychology of the patient. Doctors are unwilling to acknowledge that psychological stresses express themselves in psychosomatic disorders and psychosomatic prolongation of organic disturbance. This leads to the high cost of suffering and the high cost of medical care, for if the patient is not fully diagnosed, the treatment will at best be partial, and sometimes it is far off center.

The Return of the Spiritual

In the midst of this alienation from humanistic and spiritual values, there is also a "return" taking place. More and more people are turning to spirituality rather than to organized religion. More and more are finding, within their own hearts, the Christ message, the God-infused spirit, the conjunction with all humankind, with all nature and with the omnipotent All, Itself. Small groups are springing up all over the country and the world: A Course in Miracles groups; self-help groups; addiction groups practicing the Twelve Steps (themselves of spiritual origin).

More and more individuals in the West are becoming interested in and practicing Buddhism, Sufism and Zen. There is a growing respect for the wisdom of the Native American traditions, the Irish Wiccan tradition, and even the mystery traditions of Christianity. All of these paths are pursued as a way out of existential despair into something more and more meaningful. All of these groups are rising; and as they rise, they draw toward each other. One day, not too distant, they will aggregate and will create a critical mass, and then the message of God will be spread to all.

Hopefully, at this time, the physician will have become a priest once more and will spread the message through his/her example. The message begins with the return of the physician to the priestly functions, to administering to those who seek out him or her for healing with compassion and whole vision in a way that honors the soul as well as the body. This kind of healing will extend far beyond the physico-chemical, laboratory-minded principles that now dehumanize both the caretaker and the cared-for.

Tools for the Spiritual Transformation of the Doctor

The essence of the transformation of the doctor in the return to the physician-priest will be the personal transformational experience. The transformational experience of the doctor, psychiatrist, counselor or family practitioner, can only be achieved through a courageous self-exploration.

But remember ­- we are all physician-healers, to ourselves and to others. The transformation of society begins with us.

This article contains excerpts from Dr. Maurie Pressman's forthcoming book, Entering the Supermind: Visions from the Soul, to be published by Sterling House Publishers, Pittsburgh, June, 1999. Dr. Pressman is also the co-author (with Patricia Joudry) of Twin Souls: A Guide to Finding Your True Spiritual Partner, published by Carol Southern Books, an imprint of Crown Publishers, New York.

Maurie D. Pressman, M.D. is Emeritus Chairman of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Temple University Health Sciences Center. He is Medical Director at the Center for Psychiatric Wellness, clinics that operate in Philadelphia and Haddonfield, N.J. These clinics bridge traditional and spiritual psychotherapy. Dr. Pressman can be reached at 200 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106; telephone 215-922-0204; fax 215-922-3008.