The Dark Night of the Soul Fra.: Apfelmann -------------------------------------------
"The Dark Night of the Soul" is the name given to that experience of spiritual desolation that pass through
all students of the Occult
at one time or another. It is sometimes charcterised feelings that your occult anywhere, that the
by
studies or practises are not taken you
initial success
that one is sometimes
granted after a few
months of occult working, has suddenly dried up. There comes a desire
to give up
on everything, nothing seems to be said of this
as
working. St.John of the Cross. a christian mystic,
experience, to
appetites
to abandon exercises and meditation,
that
it; "...puts
sleep, deadens them, find pleasure in
anything.
the
sensory
spiritual
and deprives them of the ability
to
It binds the imagination, and impeeds it
from doing intellect
any
good
become
discursive work. dark and unable to
It makes the
memory cease, the
understand anything, and hence
it causes the will to become arrid and constrained, and all faculties empty cloud,
and useless. And over this hangs which
the
a dense and burdensome
afflicts the soul, and keeps it withdrawn from the good." Though the beginner may view the onset of such an
experience with
alarm (I know I did), the "Dark Night" is or destr-
not something bad
uctive. In one sense
it may be seen as
a trial, a test by
which the Gods examine
our resolve to continue with occult work, and
if you are
not completely
whole-hearted about your magical studies, it
is during this
period (at its beginning) that you
Dark Night
of the
Soul should be welcomened,
will give up. The
once recognised for what
it is (I have always received an innate "warning" just before the onset of such a period), will secure health soul`s Dark
as a person
might welcome an
and wellbeing. St.John of
operation that
the Cross embraced
the
1412 Night as a grace"
"sheer
Devine Appointment, calling it
a period of
and adding; "O guiding Night, O Night more lovely than Dawn, O Night that has united the lover with his beloved Transforming the Lover in her Beloved."
sense
When entering
of
the Dark
spiritual dryness and quarters, that all
existence, living.
such experiences
shows up the The
Night
should be
avoided, for so much of
way of bringing the Soul
that
deep
must
psychic transformation be set
overcome
by a
depression. The notion, in some
superficiality of
Dark Night is a
one is
may take place.
a peaceful
contemporary to stillness, so
All distractions
aside, and it is no good attempting
to fight or channel the
bursts of raw energy being. This inner outer depres-
that from time to time may course through your
compulsion to set everything aside results in the
sion, when nothing seems to excite.
1413 The only thing to do is obey your inner voice and
become still,
waiting for the inner transformation, (which the "Dark Night" heralds), to time of the
take place. You may
not be aware for
results of that inner change, but comes again
a very long
when the desire to work
and the depression lifts, the Dark Night has (for a moment)
passed. No
one
can help
during this
time, and
in many
cases there
is hardly anyone meaning advice
to turn for advice. One must disregard the well-
of family and friends to "snap out of it" this is no ordinary depression, but a deep spiritual experience which only those who have passed through themselves (in other words to a magical retreat) but for many, as the routines
of everyday life
can do
is
heart,
cultivate an inner and
wait, (like a will result in
solitude, a
prohibits this, all stillness and silence
you
chrysalis waits for the inner
a butterfly) for the Transformation to
of
changes that work itself out.
There are many pass through
such
"Dark Nights"
that the
occult
seeker must
during the mysterious process
trials but
of mitigation. They are all
experience teaches one to cope more efficiently.
With fractalic greetings and laughter
* Fra.: Apfelmann *