The Seven Roles// #5 The Priest

When we leave the All that Is we are ‘fragments’. Picture a spark of pure white light. One of the first things we do is choose our ROLE. Picture the white spark passing through a prism and becoming one of the 7 colors within the white.
Priest // 4 to 5% of the population
The Priest is the Cardinal pole of the Inspirational Roles [the Ordinal pole is Server.] Priests are the heart of humankind.
The Priest is a channel. S/he lifts others up, inspires them to higher aspirations. Using causes, symbols and optimism, the Priest provokes noble virtues and raises the consciousness of the rest of us. We owe them our utopian visions, our spiritual awakenings, our aspirations toward the light.
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In the Positive Pole of Compassion, Priests feel sympathy for others and seek to alleviate their pain by encouraging them to discover a way out of whatever misery they find themselves in.
These extremely high-frequency folks can live lives of such agape [unconditional love] and compassion that they tend to cycle off the planet much faster than the rest of us do.

Often impulsive and quick-thinking, Priests can overreach, though.
In the Negative Pole of Zeal, the Priest crusades to reform the perceived wrongs of the world.
In fact, numerous Baby and Young Priests were, literally, instrumental in sending those Medieval knights on their Crusades against the ‘Infidel’ in Jerusalem—something no Mature or Old Priest would ever do. Older Priests recognize that the ‘Other’ is every bit as human as ‘We’ are.
Younger Priests, however, can make much negative karma for themselves and lead others to do the same if they’re manifesting their negative pole of zeal.
On the other hand, the Priest in its positive pole can help save us from ourselves in the right circumstances.

Many Priests literally fulfill the name of their Role type, of course. They pursue a career in the field of religion. It might be as sheikh in a temple, rabbi in a synagogue, priest in a church, or minister of a congregation.

Historically, Priests have served in the capacity of tribal shamans or holy personages, temple priests or priestesses in ancient nations such as Egypt and Babylon, as Monks in monasteries and nuns in convents. Their role was to initiate people into the mysteries, to reveal higher truths, to lead in the worship of God or gods, and to speak for the deity. Wherever and whenever there has been pious activity, there has been a Priest.

Priests may find their calling in the medical profession, healing bodies rather than minds, although this is more often the province of Servers. A Priest in this role will usually be more aware than the Server of the psychological components of healing. The Priest/Server pair can make a great all-round healing team. The Priest wants to heal the spirit, the Server wants to heal the body. Still, on occasion, physical healing can be every bit as much a natural function of the Priest as the Server.

Priests are not always blatantly pious or religious. Another favorite life role can be psychology, covering every activity from counseling to psychiatry. Here they can apply their natural desire to heal to the task of healing the minds and spirits of their clients. Priests are very big on mental health— fulfillment, positive attitude and joy.

One problem Priests experience is an inherent sense that they are enlightened — even when they're not. This can translate into a mistaken feeling of superiority. It is in fact this very feeling which causes them to presume that they know what to do to help other people out of their problems. So, they can be guilty of offering unsolicited advice.

The old joke about the Boy Scout who spent all afternoon helping the old lady cross the street could describe the overly zealous Priest: When asked why it took so long, the Scout answers: “She didn't want to go.”

Priests can be very moralistic and self-righteous in their attempts to show people a “better” way of living. An arrogant Priest might be guilty of "helping" people who didn't ask and don't want that help. He might say within himself, "They don't know what they need, but I do." Priests can be preachy, evangelistic, and fanatical about their righteous cause.
The recent spate of ministers in the US and Sheikhs in the Middle East, in particular, who have presumed to tell us what God wants us to do or who God loves or, even more ominously, who God hates may well be Priests in their arrogant, overzealous negative poles. This can lead not only the Priests themselves but their followers into creating karma that can take generations to balance.

They can crusade zealously for reforms. They can be so overly optimistic about their own ability to transcend limitations, and so hopeful for others, that they tend to overestimate the amount of progress they can effect. They have a difficult time with the concept of leaving well enough alone, since they are always trying to improve things.

In their highest expression, Priests give advice tactfully, and only at the request of those needing assistance or advice. Older Priests have learned that they have limitations, and that other people do, too. They eventually learn that it is best not to try for too much too quickly.

Even though they can tend to be moralistic and self-righteous, one of the nice things about Priests is that they tend to forgive easily. If they ask too much of you, they’ll accept the fact that you can’t ever quite keep up with them.
Likewise, if you snap at them for intruding too far into your life, they’re likely to back off—at least for a while—and give you some breathing room. Their forgiving natures will ensure they’ll be there when you ARE ready for that next step [maybe even before you’re quite ready.]

Priests have the feeling that they have a Mission in life — a cosmic or divine Destiny. They sense that they are guided by the hand of God [whether they call it that or not] to show others the way to Truth.
The more downtrodden and wretched a person is, or the more destitute of hope the situation, the more fulfillment the Priest feels in tackling the problem.

It is not uncommon to see a Priest, especially a female one, marry some down-and-out ne'er-do-well with the hope of changing him. It might be an alcoholic or a drug-addict that she intends to save. It fulfills her Priest nature to try to rescue him from himself. "What does she see in him?" people might ask. What she sees is an opportunity to exercise her Priest essence and save a soul.

Priests can be so sure of themselves they try to live other people's lives for them.
Not having health insurance, I go to a free health clinic once a month for checkups and free meds. The staff volunteer their time.
I think one of the doctors may be an over-zealous Priest and a reformed smoker. He has used guilt, deceit and other manipulations to try to get me to quit smoking. I'm sure he's trying to 'do the right thing' as he perceives it. But, my view is that my life belongs to me, darn it!
The result is that I simply dig in my heels and avoid the clinic when he is likely to be there. Over-zealousness can backfire.

We all probably, at one time or another, act like priests when we feel high, or need a priest when we feel low. We reach down and take the hand of those we perceive as a step or so behind us in order to pull them "up" with us as we seek to transcend our human limitations. We also reach toward those who are a little “ahead of” us, to be pulled along with them as they strive to excel. Priests just do it all the time.

One of their favorite sayings might be, “You can do better than that.” If the Priest isn’t behind the pulpit, he or she is up on a soap box— preaching, exhorting, campaigning, crusading, proselytizing, provoking, and evangelizing.

Priests look on the bright side, and see the world as miraculous or what it can become. A phrase that describes the viewpoint of the Priest can be found in the Desiderata: “Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” You don’t get much more optimistic than that.

Even though they make up a miniscule part of the population, Priests, by their very natures, tend to become well known pretty often:
John Calvin (Protestant Reformation), Saint Dominic (founder of the Dominican monks), St. Francis of Assisi, Joan of Arc, Jesse Jackson, Carl Jung (psychologist and mystic), Abraham Maslow (psychologist), Oral Roberts, Carl Rogers (the founder of Client-centered Psychology, Rogers seems to have mastered the idea that he cannot effect change faster than the client wishes), Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr.

Nancy Reagan, Ayn Rand and Richard Bach [all of whom are sure they know best and can become preachy about it].

Adolf Hitler, Ayatollah Khomeini, Jerry Falwell, Sun Myung Moon and Charles Manson are all obviously young Priests, currently very busy creating karma they’re going to spend a fair amount of time balancing out later. [I’ve read that Hitler was 5th level Baby, fwiw.]
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Not to belabor a point TOO much, but G.W. Bush’s assertion that God wanted him to be president suggests that he might be a Priest—and he certainly seems zealous enough to fit the Role.
No, I haven’t read what Role he may be—this just seems a logical conclusion, given his history. Furthermore, he seems to be manifesting at the Baby Soul Age [see The Baby Soul post above.]