Spiritual darkness

“ As in a gloomy black night a fierce wind blows, and stirs and searches and shakes all the plants and seeds, so when man falls under the power of the darkness of the devil’s night, and is in night and darkness, he is agitated by that dreadful wind of sin that blows, and is shaken and stirred, and searched through all his nature, his soul, his thoughts, his understanding; and all the limbs of his body are shaken, and no member of either soul or body escapes free and immune from the sin that dwelleth in us. ”

“ For the nearer the soul approaches Him, the blacker is the darkness which it feels and the deeper is the obscurity which comes through its weakness; just as, the nearer a man approaches the sun, the greater are the darkness and the affliction caused him through the great splendour of the sun and through the weakness and impurity of his eyes. In the same way, so immense is the spiritual light of God, and so greatly does it transcend our natural understanding, that the nearer we approach it, the more it blinds and darkens us. ”

“ What the soul here endures is afflictions and suffering without the consolation of a certain hope of any light and spiritual good. Wherefore the yearning and the grief of this soul in this enkindling of love are greater because it is multiplied in two ways: first, by the spiritual darkness wherein it finds itself, which afflicts it with its doubts and misgivings; and then by the love of God, which enkindles and stimulates it, and, with its loving wound, causes it a wondrous fear. ”

“ When therefore the soul gives up all opinion of itself and renounces itself, because of the exceeding affliction and the death before its eyes, in that instant with a strong hand and an uplifted arm He rends the power of darkness through the shining of the Holy Ghost, and the soul passes through the dreadful places, escaping and passing through the sea of darkness and of the all-devouring fire. ”

“ And, by thus leaving it empty and in darkness, it purges and illumines it with Divine spiritual light, although the soul thinks not that it has this light, but believes itself to be in darkness, even as we have said of the ray of light, which although it be in the midst of the room, yet, if it be pure and meet nothing on its path, is not visible. ”

“ THE source of the grievous sufferings of the soul at this time is the consciousness of its own emptiness of God — while it is drawing nearer and nearer to Him — and also, the thick darkness with the spiritual fire, which dry and purify it, that, its purification ended, it may be united with God. For when God sends not forth a ray of supernatural light into the soul, He is to it intolerable darkness when He is even near to it in spirit, for the supernatural light by its very brightness obscures the mere natural light. ”

“ It is the light of this spiritual Sun which illumines the minds of both angels and men. This is "the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
And as natural darkness is the absence of natural light, so spiritual darkness is the absence of spiritual light. But there are two causes of natural darkness; one is the absence of light, and the other is a diseased state of the organs of vision. The darkness from the first of these causes is seldom of long duration; and if the organs of vision are preserved in a healthy condition, we shall be able to see when the light comes. ”

“ Agreeable to the Lord's own words: "He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." And what darkness is so dreadful as that which results from the loss of the moral or spiritual eyesight!—the loss of all desire for the true light, and even of the capacity to receive or apprehend it! "If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" saith the Lord.
Thus the practical tendency of this disclosure is seen to be good and wholesome. ”

“ THE darkness which the soul here describes relates, as we have said, to the desires and faculties, sensual, interior and spiritual, for all these are darkened in this night as to their natural light, so that, being purged in this respect, they may be illumined with respect to the supernatural. ”

“ In the vast forever, in the Science and truth of being, the only facts are Spirit and its innumerable creations. Darkness and chaos are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding, and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of nothingness.
We admit that black is not a color, because it reflects no light. So evil should be denied identity or power, Spiritual reflection because it has none of the divine hues. ”

“ And we may challenge all men to bring one text either from the Old or New Testament, which is any more to the purpose than this.
12. “But is not darkness much more profitable for the soul than light? Is not the work of God in the heart, most swiftly and effectually carried on, during a state of inward suffering? Is not a believer more swiftly and throughly purified, by sorrow than by joy? By anguish and pain and distress and spiritual martyrdoms, than by continual peace?” So the Mystics teach: so it is written in their books; but not in the oracles of God. ”

“ From all these it is freed when this night quenches within it all pleasures, whether from above or from below, and makes all meditation darkness to it, and grants it other innumerable blessings in the acquirement of the virtues, as we shall now show. For it will be a matter of great pleasure and great consolation, to one that journeys on this road, to see how that which seems to the soul so severe and adverse, and so contrary to spiritual pleasure, works in it so many blessings. ”

“ There needs no more than not to fight, and we are sure to be conquered. Let us only be careless or faint in our mind, let us be easy and indolent, and our natural darkness will soon return, and overspread our soul. It is enough therefore, if we give way to spiritual sloth: this will effectually darken the soul. It will as surely destroy the light of God, if not so swiftly, as murder or adultery.
10. But it is well to be observed, that the cause of our darkness, (whatsoever it be, whether omission or commission, whether inward or outward sin) is not always nigh at hand. ”

“ So dark also is the mind of the adult who has not appreciated what it has been taught, who reviles religion, sneers at the Word of God, calls all conversation about higher things hypocritical cant, and lives for self alone. Thus before regeneration, in all spiritual aspects, is the earth of man's mind without form and void, and thus does darkness dwell upon his mental deeps. ”

“ And it must be remembered that the first stanza, speaking of the sensual part, says that the soul went forth upon ‘a dark night,’ and here, speaking of the spiritual part, it says that it went forth ‘in darkness.’ For the darkness of the spiritual part is by far the greater, even as darkness is a greater obscurity than that of night. ”

“ The wicked are thrust out from the light, joy, and festivity into the darkness and gloom without, as into the remote gloom and anguish of a dungeon in which are found agony, wrath, and despair. Is this a description of hell —absence of spiritual light ”

“ Through the whole universe, visible and invisible, as a result, the dark lines run, and the drama of the whole process of the universe is the mighty issue between light and darkness, good and evil: Two universal qualities persist from {179} beginning to end and produce two kingdoms arrayed against each other—each within the other—one love, the other wrath; one light, the other darkness ”

“ This is to be understood with respect to occasions when God visits the soul by the instrumentality of a good angel, wherein, as has been said, the soul is not so totally in darkness and in concealment that the enemy cannot come within reach of it. But, when God Himself visits it, then the words of this line are indeed fulfilled, and it is in total darkness and in concealment from the enemy that the soul receives these spiritual favours of God. ”

“ For the spiritual and the sensual desires are put to sleep and mortified, so that they can experience [206] nothing, either Divine or human; the affections of the soul are oppressed and constrained, so that they can neither move nor find support in anything; the imagination is bound and can make no useful reflection; the memory is gone; the understanding is in darkness, unable to understand anything; and hence the will likewise is arid and constrained and all the faculties are void and useless ”

“ THE third kind of suffering and pain that the soul endures in this state results from the fact that two other extremes meet here in one, namely, the Divine and the human. The Divine is this purgative contemplation, and the human is the subject—that is, the soul. The Divine assails the soul in order to renew it and thus to make it Divine; and, stripping it of the habitual affections and attachments of the old man, to which it is very closely united, knit together and conformed, destroys and consumes its spiritual substance, and absorbs it in deep and profound darkness. ”

“ This is why those in the hells are said to be in darkness, and those in the heavens in light, "darkness" signifying falsity from evil, and "light" truth from good. They so turn themselves because all in the other life look towards what rules in their interiors, thus to their loves; and with angels and spirits the interiors determine the face; and in the spiritual world quarters are not fixed, as in the natural world, but are determined by the face. ”

“ I am sure, many that persuade themselves of heaven, are yet shut up in that dungeon of natural blindness and darkness of mind, and that so gross and thick darkness that it is not possible to make them conceive any notion of spiritual things, the common twilight of nature is almost extinguished, and little or nothing increased by their education in the visible church. ”

“ Therefore it is most fitting and necessary, if the soul is to pass to these great things, that this dark night of contemplation should first of all annihilate and undo it in its meannesses, bringing it into darkness, aridity, affliction and emptiness; for the light which is to be given to it is a Divine light of the highest kind, which transcends all natural light, and which by nature can find no place in the understanding. ”

“ CHAPTER V Sets down the first line and begins to explain how this dark contemplation is not only night for the soul but is also grief and torment.
THIS dark night is an inflowing of God into the soul, which purges it from its ignorances and imperfections, habitual natural and spiritual, and which is called by contemplatives infused contemplation, or mystical theology. Herein God secretly teaches the soul and instructs it in perfection of love without its doing anything, or understanding of what manner is this infused contemplation. ”

“ There is likewise another reason, which is no less effectual than the last, by which we may understand how the soul journeys securely in darkness; it is derived from the fortitude by which the soul is at once inspired in these obscure and afflictive dark waters of God. ”

“ Beheld by the dim and shifting light of a few candles, these painted horrors assume an aspect of ghastly reality. They start into life as we pass, then drop behind us into darkness. That darkness alone is awful. ”

“ All night the soul would fight against these perils, struggling continually towards the dawn. Then, as the sun came up, the soul would escape from the evil demons, and wander free of danger through the heavens once more until darkness fell. ”

“ This darkness should continue for as long as is needful in order to expel and annihilate the habit which the soul has long since formed in its manner of understanding, and the Divine light and illumination will then take its place. And thus, inasmuch as that power of understanding which it had aforetime is natural, it follows that the darkness which it here suffers is profound and horrible and most painful, for this darkness, being felt in the deepest substance of the spirit, seems to be substantial darkness. ”

“ In poverty, and without protection or support in all the apprehensions of my soul—that is, in the darkness of my understanding and the constraint of my will, in affliction and anguish with respect to memory, remaining in the dark in pure faith, which is dark night for the said natural faculties, the will alone being touched by grief and afflictions and yearnings for the love of God—I went forth from myself—that is, from my low manner of understanding, from my weak mode of loving and from my poor and limited manner of experiencing God, without being hindered therein by sensuality or the devil. ”

“ I will not here omit to mention the reason why this Divine light, which is always light to the soul, illumines it not as soon as it strikes it, as it does afterwards, but causes it the darkness and the trials of which we have spoken. ”

“ Thy day is closing in, but the heavens are now wider aflame with Thy light than ever before—Thy light, which I, a pagan, standing on the last verge of the old world, declare to be darkness, the coming night of pity and justice which is imminent, which is the twentieth century. ”

“ Therefore is hell called the everlasting pain, in which is neither hope nor mercy: So is it called utter darkness, in which we see neither the light of Sun, Moon, nor Star: and were our darkness like the darkness of the night, yet were there hope of mercy, but ours is perpetual darkness, clean exempt from the face of God. ”

“ I have no idea that chastisement from this stand will increase the darkness, or aggravate the transgression of the people; but if light breaks forth from any source and reflects upon the people, they then see the motes, the beams, and the dross in, themselves. While the light make manifest, the Spirit of God reveals the secrets of the heart, and makes manifest those dark spots that exist ”

“ This is not the light of the true sun." This darkness, through which we must pass, is simply the death of self-will and all carnal affections; it is that dying to the world which is the only gate of life. ”