Barefoot Doctor (
a.k.a. Stephen Russell) is a
psychospiritual therapist who does his work in
London,
New Mexico, and
Thailand. He also produces
trance music and writes
books, of which
The Tao of Sexual Massage and
Barefoot Doctor's Guide to the Tao are his most
popular. Russell helps to describe the
concept of the barefoot
doctor in his
introduction to the latter mentioned book:
"In days of old, throughout the Orient, the barefoot doctor would patrol his local patch, going humbly (barefoot) from village to village, helping the people remain in good spirits and health.
His comprehensive healthcare services were offered with the loving heart of a true warrior without concern for financial or personal gain. As reward for his generosity, the local folk would take care of all his needs and ensure he would want for nothing.
This Barefoot Doctor of modern-day Taoist folk-hero fame lives and works (literally barefoot) in accordance with these principles and will never turn someone away who needs healing for having no money.
I see sixty people a week on average, some of whom are too sick to work, or, being unemployed, have no money. They bring me flowers, food and even little bits of "sacred" wood to burn in my fire.
Though reputed to be somewhat of a rascal in my private life, I have been living as a Taoist urban warrior and experimenting fearlessly with this system for the past twenty years or more, being at the time of writing an old bastard of forty-two, and having taught and been party to the healing of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, directly through my touch and indirectly through my writing, music and broadcasts."
Sure, Barefoot Doctor is a little cocky, but he writes with a certain tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and a complete and utter sense of honesty and reality that make his books a pleasure to read. I strongly recommend Barefoot Doctor's Guide to the Tao to anyone who is interested in Taoism and how it ties into the real, modern-day lifestyle (writeup on the book itself soon to come).