The hopelessness all the existential philosophers describe raged through me. The bleak darkness was horrible in its truest sense. And then light dawned. DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL INTRODUCTION SOMEWHAT reluctantly, out of respect for a venerable tradition, we publish the Dark Night as a separate treatise, though in reality it is a continuation of the Ascent of Mount Carmel and fulfils the undertakings given in it: The first night or purgation is of the sensual part of the soul, which is treated in the I wanted to say, “No, absolutely not!” And I wondered why he hadn’t called another elder (I wasn’t one). The depression may be profound, but it is not permanent, nor is it fatal. He answered when I was disturbed by the idolatry I saw growing in my heart and asked for deliverance. She experienced what St John of the Cross described as the "dark night of the soul". The difference between the two nights can … Before the dark night, we’re prone to pat answers, dogmatism, and pride. When your body is deeply sick, it pulls your soul downward, like a weight tied around the ankle. She experienced what St John of the Cross described as the "dark night of the soul". The term "dark night of the soul" is used in Roman Catholicism for a spiritual crisis in a journey towards union with God, becoming Christlike, like that described by St. John of the Cross. A dark night of the soul is not something that one can choose to initiate — or participate in. Throw yourself on the living room floor if you must. Grief is a legitimate emotion, at times even a virtue, but there must be no place in the soul for bitterness. This is no ordinary fit of depression, but it is a depression that is linked to a crisis of faith, a crisis that comes when one senses the absence of God or gives rise to a feeling of abandonment by Him. At some point in the spiritual journey, we come to what St. John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul” – a season in which our experience of God feels more like absence than presence. Dark Night of the Soul. It was the malady that so afflicted Martin Luther that his melancholy threatened to destroy him. Moving Through A Dark Night of the Soul Into A New Phase of Awakened Light. Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever taught a “dark night of the soul.” The ideas contained in “The Dark Night of the Soul” have been applied in contexts outside of Catholicism. I sat in bed stunned, remembering my living room prayer. The details are too complex to include here, and not crucial to the point. 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