The Sympathetic Life Gives Birth to the Hermetic Life

Usually how it works nowadays is that the Sympathetic Life gives birth to the Hermetic Life. A monk will advance to a certain degree and he'll be blessed by his spiritual father to go out and live as a hermit. So many of our saints of modern times started out that way. St. Paisius the Great of Menathus who we just read about for instance. And so you see this all throughout these works showing that to live a hermit's life is very advanced and it requires a great blessing from the monastery from the spiritual father.