Customer Reviews

The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth

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In this book, profound but obscure like the material with which it deals, psychiatrist Gerald May describes a process of spiritual growth that is operational in the difficult seasons of life.

Drawing from the experiences of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, he explores a journey of consciousness that leads us into the recognition of "our deep and irrevocable communion with the Divine".

It is a path through darkness, a path of letting go, a path of abandoning oneself, losing oneself, and in so doing ultimately finding what is real. The following quotes reveal something of this journey:

* The darkness of the night implies nothing sinister, only that the liberation takes place in hidden ways, beneath our knowledge and understanding.

* Although not knowing may itself seem like a bad thing, I am convinced it is one of the great gifts of the dark night of the soul.

* The spiritual life for Theresa and John has nothing to do with actually getting closer to God. Union with God is neither acquired nor received; it is realized, and in that sense it is something that can be yearned for, sought after, and - with God's grace - found.

* The dark night helps us to become what we are created to be: lovers of God and one another.

* ...we are not only born with God at our center, but we are born with a heart full of desire for God. This yearning is our fundamental motive force; it is the human spirit. It is the energy behind everything we seek and aspire to.

* Liberation, whether experienced pleasurably or painfully, always involves relinquishment, some kind of loss.

* Sometimes the only way we can enter the deeper dimensions of the journey is by being unable to see where we are going.

* ...in worldly matters it is good to have light so we know where to go without stumbling. But in spiritual matters it is precisely when we do think we know where to go that we are most likely to stumble.

* When we cannot chart our own course, we become vulnerable to God's protection, and the darkness becomes a "guiding night," a "night more kindly than the dawn."

* We cannot achieve our own liberation or fulfillment; we would not even know where to begin. But neither does God reach down from the sky and manipulate us like puppets. ...the process of the dark night is neither accomplished on our own nor worked within us by God alone.

* Though we don't realize it at the time, when habitual senses of God do disappear in the process of the dark night, it is surely because it is time for us to relinquish our attachment to them. We have made an idol of our images and feelings of God, giving them more importance than the true God that they represent.

* The darkness, the holy unknowing that characterizes this freedom, is the opposite of confusion and ignorance. Confusion happens when mystery is an enemy and we feel we must solve it to master our destinies. And ignorance is not knowing that we do not know. In the liberation of the night we are freed from having to figure things out, and we find delight in knowing that we do not know.

It is comforting to come to understand that what we may experience as painful, dry, and difficult periods of life are often seasons of deep becoming. It is another way by which we learn that, as the Lord said it to St. Paul, "My grace is sufficient; my power is made perfect in weakness".

Pray-ers who have experienced the rich silence of quiet prayer typically find themselves feeling strangely unsatisfied after praying this prayer for a while. The sense of God's presence and love wanes and a growing sense of one's being somehow off track increases. This beautifully written and highly informative little book by one of the present time's most eloquent and knowledgeable mystics is a trustworthy guide to what lies ahead. It's central message is that the prayer of quiet is God's doing, not one's own, and that one's emotional and psychological responses are transitory and not of God. The call is to wait patiently, trustingly, and faithfully, and know that in the dark mystery God is working to bring the soul closer to God. Dr. May's decades of reading and praying with John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila shine forth in this book.

Gerald May in this book helps the reader to appreciate the spiritualities of both St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. Rather than looking at the dark night of the soul as something negative, the author looks at it from a very positive perspective. He says, "The dark night is a profoundly good thing. It is an ongoing spiritual process in which we are liberated from attachments and compulsions and empowered to live and love more freely." There is a strong liberation perspective in the whole book. Again and again, the author looks at this phenomenon as liberation for freedom and this freedom is freedom for love.

The author identifies some misunderstandings that people have about the dark night and tries to correct them. He says it is not negative or sinister; there is no need for a big and dramatic tragedy for authentic spiritual growth to take place; and that the dark night of the soul is not something that occurs once in a lifetime.

Attachment is a compulsive condition that robs us of our freedom. He describes unpleasant attachments as those we consider as being bad habits. He says when these hinder our love, they become addictions and in spiritual life, the objects of our attachments and addictions become idols. He says our attachments are very successfully when we live in denial. The problem with spiritual denial is that it makes us unaware of our idolatry and enables us to believe we have a full and free capacity for love.

The author says for St. John of the Cross, the dark night of the soul is "a secret way in which God not only liberates us from our attachments and idolatries, but also brings us to the realization of our true nature. The night is the means by which we find our heart's desire, our freedom for love." Though the dark night is meant to liberate us, it may not feel pleasurable. One feeling certain in the experience is that of obscurity and a sense of loss. Even when this experience seems to be pleasant, they would still be some sense of grief because of the loss involved in the liberation.

The freedom experienced in the dark night of the soul is a freedom to love. It is not just freedom from, it is a freedom for love. The author says, "Human beings exist because of love, and the meaning and goal of our lives is love. ... Liberation from attachment is only a means to this end." In this sense then, the dark night experience helps us to become who we truly are, to realize our true nature and capabilities as that of love. In this experience, we are no longer blurred by our selfish desires, nor are our lives veiled in denial. We become the person God created us to be.

I find chapter six of the book, "The Dark Night Today" as the most important chapter in the book. He uses the dark night experience to discuss depression, addiction, personality and gender, spiritual companionship and social systems.

I highly recommend this book. It is clear, well written and practical.

This book put together and explained the dark night so clearly and simply that I recommend it to anyone who is interested in understanding it from a modern perspective. G. May gives very concrete examples and clears up many points in the writings of St. John of the Cross and his soul friend St.Teresa of Avila. A good solid introduction that doesn't skimp on the poety and genius of these great spiritual masters.

In his last book published before his death, Jerry May unfolds his vast knowledge and understanding of the spirtual state known as the Dark Night. Contrary to what one might think, the Dark Night is not the same as clinical depression, nor is it dark and depressing. Rather, it is, in the words of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, "obscure," because we don't understand what God is accomplishing in us. It is a very comforting and illuminating book. No one can make these Sixteenth Century saints clearer in the light of modern psychiatry like Gerald May, MD. An excellent book.

If you're familiar with Gerald May, you know he's spent the past couple of decades searching through the world's different spiritualities to find "authenticity" for life, so it's not surprising he's finally stumbled upon Catholic mystics. And it's also not surprising that he's worked hard to recast John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila in his own image, removing the most important aspects of their lives, which is Jesus crucified (he's called "John of the Cross" for a reason, you know).

This is not a book that portrays these two mystics accurately, nor does it put forth any form of orthodox Christianity, but is just one of the many dumbed down versions of New Age Christianity out there claiming that "God is nada, no-thing" (page 179) and that John of the Cross was not seeking "any specific image of God" for "It is neither the name (God, Allah, or Krishna) or the man (Jesus or Buddha) that is the final object of [man's] loving desire." (ibid)

And he concludes with the unhelpful advice "that's the devil of it; there is no way to know for sure. All we can do is hope for the dawn." In reality, John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila both knew for sure, even in their darkest nights - they couldn't see it, they couldn't experience it, they couldn't feel it, but they knew, and in faith continued on anyway.

Anyone really interested in these two saints' thoughts and experiences would be better off getting the Kavanaugh or the Peers translations of their works (available for free online or in cheap paperback editions) and working through them personally.

If you are a mystic, if you know God by direct intimate experience, you need not read this book.

If you think mysticism is better left to the few then you are probably not ready to ready this book.

If you recognize that you are on your way along the only real journey in life then I recommend reading this book.

We might think from the title of John's book, The Dark Night of the Soul, is of something completely painful, scary, horrible that we have to get through once before the final prize.

We might think that a psychiatrist's explanation would be a bunch of medical mumbo jumbo devoid of a personal spiritual perspective.

We would be wrong on both accounts.

Dr. Gerald May provides numerous insights from his study of himself and of the old Spanish writings of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila - two Spanish mystics who lived about 400 years ago.

If found two points particularly enlightening:

1) Dark in this case always means obscure / hidden. The experience may feel bad or good.
2) We will not have one great dark night. John, Teresa, and Gerald have had many dark nights of the soul. So have you and there will be more to come.

If you know that you are on the path towards mystical union with God then this book is with worth a look. If you can understand that the answer it gives is that you cannot know the answer then you are ready to read it.

Good luck on the journey.

Dr. May's book provides an easy to understand introduction to the Dark Night of the Soul works of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. The book is infused with humor and practical ways to interpret dark night concepts. Readers who have 12-step experience will appreciate the references to compulsions and addictions.

"They knew the workings of the human unconscious four centuries before Sigmund Freud." Dr. May, a retired psychiatrist who is now a Senior Fellow in Contemplative Theology and Psychology, has carefully distilled his profound lifelong relationship with John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila in a little guide that's a brief yet subtle primer on both amazing saints. Notable especially in describing what the newly popular, corrupted phrase "dark night" is *not*, Dr. May is welcome company on the way to a mature, authentic spiritual life. Recommended -- for those who can say along with Dr. May that "the idea of God's having any needs at all, let alone needing us, may sound like an alien, even heretical idea, yet it is a realization that many contemplatives come to" and "if there were such a thing as a divine suggestion box, I'd suggest that God make things easier. Or if not easier, at least clearer."

I found this book to be worthwhile, but not exciting. I'd heard modern uses of the term, "dark night of the soul", by which people meant a crisis of faith, such as from depression or a serious physical illness, or some more external torment that might make anyone believe the devil has singled him out to hate. Dr. May shows how the original meaning used by St. John of the Cross is different from that. John's "dark" was "oscura" in Spanish, meaning obscure or dim, not "tinieblas", which he could have used to mean something sinister. May quotes many of John's works to show a spiritual worldview where a dim time of uncertainty and little control is useful to be ready for God to lead someone further, not to break someone into little pieces for a complete makeover.

May's discussion of both the history and literature of John and his "spiritual mother" Teresa of Avila is interesting and helps give some insight into the "God is everywhere" sort of experience they describe vs. the oppressions of being a Carmelite in 16th century Spain. May's discussion of theology is both abstract and dogmatic, which can be frustrating when as a reader one can think of exceptions to May's principles such as the need to sacrifice one's self-image, as it's false to see "God and me," May says, or that attachments are what keep people from the love of God. I don't think indifference is just about attachments. Of course, most religious literature is written as a prescription, and May is about average with respect to that, his prescription for a difficult time being mostly "hang in there".

Both the positives and negatives mentioned in previous reviews here are valid. May's prose is quite readable. I think I learned more having read that instead of just St. John's poetry and metaphors. Also as previous noted, May is not presenting John's Christianity. That occurred to me once while May was describing how God is unknowable. I suspect John instead would have recalled from the gospel of John that to know Jesus is to know the Father.