Conclusions, and Prognoses

Abstract In the conclusion, after a brief recapitulation of points covered in the book, some consequences are drawn, especially as regards medical metaphors. Paul Ricoeur’s claim that metaphor works by seeing one thing as another leads to ultimately to one thing being another. In this case, through conceptualizing and interpreting practices of spiritual direction as medical encounters, expertise, and art, monastics and others formed through consumption of this literature learn to see themselves in those roles and to act accordingly. Spiritual direction becomes a medical art. Likewise, a medical conceptualization inflects the economies of power operative in monastic settings while opening the possibility of an upward spiritual mobility—the sick can not only be healed but also become physicians themselves. There is, therefore, a tension in the asymmetric relationships of spiritual direction and monastic communities. Finally, it is suggests that this study provides the basis for much-needed analysis of Byzantine penitential practices and a more nuanced understanding of Byzantine spiritual direction.