[67] what I mean by the two-edged character of genuine symbols^a. They symbolize the ultimate--ground of being^b, the object of our ultimate concern, or however you call it-- that is one edge of the sword. The other is that they take their symbolizing material out of the realm of our daily experience--for instance out of the realm of medicine^c. Now this has a consequence that the highest religious concept, salvation^d, is taken out of the realm of healing--salvus=healing, salvation means healing. And it is a very profound thing that we all shall remember, that salvation does not mean moral betterment, but healing, namely reestablishing the unity, MAKING-WHOLE, as the Greek term for healing is, which still appears in the New Testament^e. THIS has the consequence of the other edge, namely that the medical realm itself gets consecration from these symbols. The state of things in which, for instance, the medical realm is completely separated from the realm of the holy^f, the UNconsecrated existence of the cultural realms (amongst them for instance, the medical realm) is due to the fact that we have lost the understanding for the symbolic material which underlies our traditional religious symbols (for instance, that of salvation). Salvation is healing, and, as the New Testament stories show, it is also bodily healing--and it is certainly, very much so, psychological healing: the throwing-out of the demons, these ever-repeated stories in the New Testament, point to what today has become the great emergency of the American mind, namely the neurotic and psychotic diseases. Finally, it is healing in the CENTER of the personality and creates an ultimate unity in it. Now all this is expressed in a symbol which is understood. And we can carry this through also to the political realm, to the social realm, even to the economic realm, and I will do some of this in all these lectures. But here, from the point of view of religious language^g in which we still are, the decisive thing is to know the double-edged character of all symbols^h: they are taken from the ordinary material in which we are living our daily life, to which healing belongs, for instance; they apply it to our ultimate concern, and in doing so they give consecration to the realm from which they are taken. So if you keep in mind this double-edged character of symbols, then you will probably feel, much profounder than ordinarily, the necessity for the realms of our daily life (for instance, eating and drinking).