Dark Night of the Soul
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Dark Night of the Soul is a term used to describe a specific phase in a person's spiritual life. It is used as a metaphor to describe the experience of loneliness and desolation that can occur during spiritual growth.
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The term and metaphysicality of the phrase "dark night of the soul" are taken from the writings of the Spanish poet and Roman Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross, a Carmelite priest in the 16th century. Dark Night of the Soul is the name of both a poem, and a commentary on that poem, and are among the Carmelite priest's most famous writings. They tell of his mystic development and the stages he went through on his quest for holiness.
The "dark night" could generally be described as a letting go of our ego's hold on the psyche, making room for change that can bring about a complete transformation of a person's way of defining his/her self and their relationship to God. The interim period can be frightening, hence the perceived "darkness". In the Christian tradition, during the "dark night" one who has developed a strong prayer life and consistent devotion to God suddenly finds traditional prayer extremely difficult and unrewarding for an extended period of time. The individual may feel as though God has suddenly abandoned them, or that their prayer life has collapsed.
Rather than being a negative event, the dark night is believed by mystics and others to be a blessing in disguise where the individual extends from a state of contemplative mental prayercontemplative prayer to an inability to pray. Particularly in Christianity, it is seen as a severe test of one's faith. The Dark Night comes in two phases: a first "Night of the Senses," and a second "Night of the Spirit."
Bernadette Roberts, author of The Path to No-Self, What is Self and The Experience of No-Self states:
"My view of what some authors call the "unitive stage"is that it begins with the Dark Night of the Spirit, or the onset of the transformational process - when the larva enters the cocoon, so to speak. Up to this point, we are actively reforming ourselves, doing what we can to bring about an abiding union with the divine. But at a certain point, when we have done all we can, the divine steps in and takes over. The transforming process is a divine undoing and redoing that culminates in what is called the state of "transforming union" or "mystical marriage", considered to be the definitive state for the Christian contemplative. In experience, the onset of this process is the descent of the cloud of unknowing, which, because his former light had gone out and left him in darkness, the contemplative initially interprets as the divine gone into hiding. In modern terms, the descent of the cloud is actually the falling away of the ego-center, which leaves us looking into a dark hole, a void or empty space in ourselves. Without the veil of the ego-center, we do not recognize the divine; it is not as we thought it should be. Seeing the divine, eye to eye is a reality that shatters our expectations of light and bliss. From here on we must feel our way in the dark, and the special eye that allows us to see in the dark opens up at this time."
[edit] In popular culture
Singer/songwriter Loreena McKennitt used "Dark Night of The Soul" as inspiration for the song of the same name on her 1994 LP The Mask and Mirror.
Author and humorist, Douglas Adams satirized the phrase with the title of his 1988 Science Fiction novel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
"The Dark Night of the Soul" is the eleventh track on the album "Guilt Show" by The Get Up Kids
"In the real dark night of the soul, it is always 3 o'clock in the morning." The Crack Up, F. Scott Fitzgerald
"In the real dark night of the soul, it is always 3am." In My Darkest Moment, Hanoi Rocks.
"Dark night of my soul." Timelessness, Fear Factory
[edit] See also
- Religious experience
- Christian Meditation
- Psychology of religion
- Christian mysticism
- Kohlberg's stages of moral development
- Loevinger's stages of ego development
[edit] References
- The chapter entitled "The Dark Night of the Soul" from Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism at Gnostic.org.
- Underhill, Evelyn. (re-issue 1999). Mysticism Oneworld Publications. ISBN 1-85168-196-5.
[edit] Further reading
- May, Gerald G. (2004). The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-055423-1.
[edit] External links
- Text of Dark Night of the Soul from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- Poem and text of Dark Night of the Soul From The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD, revised edition (1991), ICS Publications.
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
