Abstract

Blazer, Dan MD, PhD

St. John of the Cross. Dark Night of the Soul. New York, Image Books, p 1959.

Saint John of the Cross (1542–1591), a Catholic mystic, was a major figure in the Catholic Reformation A Spanish mystic and Carmelite friar, he worked closely with Saint Teresa of Avila, another well-known mystic in the reformation of the Carmelite order. The Dark Night of the Soul, the best known of his written works, is actually the continuation of a longer work on the journey of the soul toward a greater union with and purification by God. The dark night represents the hardships and difficulties the soul meets as it seeks detachment from the world and reaches for the final light of union with the Creator. The book takes on special significance for the understanding of depression and spirituality in that the “dark night of the soul” has become a metaphor for a spiritual melancholy and emotional struggle that many have assumed must accompany any true spiritual growth. In reality, the book focuses upon a more narrow stage of spiritual growth for mystics in which St. John emphasizes that the mystic, by herself, cannot attain true spiritual cleansing and therefore must passively submit to God, a submission which leads through a period when the soul experiences no pleasure in the things of God or in creation, no sense of being in touch with God, and therefore steeped in melancholy.