The Dark Night Psychological Experience And Spiritual Reality

Download or read book The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality written by Marc Foley, OCD and published by ICS Publications. This book was released on 2019-07-26 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night can be daunting; living the dark experience of purification it describes can be much more so. The description of the dark nights (yes, there is more than one!) which St. John presents seems so stark and painful that one might be tempted to just close the book and stop reading. On top of that, both the process St. John describes and the language he uses can be confusing and intimidating. The language of 16th-century scholasticism is not easily understood by 21st-century readers living in a completely different culture and context. Perhaps even more challenging is that fact that our modern lives, filled with the non-stop clutter of social media and technology, as well as comfort and ease, do not prepare most of us well to honestly look into our own depths to see who we are and who we are intended to become as fully alive human beings. Fortunately we now have this helpful book to guide us to that full life which St. John invites us to in The Dark Night. Father Marc Foley here combines his own theological and psychological background, as well as his experience as a spiritual guide, to help modern readers understand the experiences, challenges, and graced events of the purifying nights of sense and spirit. In addition to exploring certain key terms that John uses in Spanish and their meaning in the saint’s time and today, Father Marc includes pertinent selections from a wide range of writers, ancient to modern, that illustrate the themes he covers. Each chapter concludes with insightful questions for personal reflection or group discussion. The book has a comprehensive and fully linked index. WHAT THEY'RE SAYING... The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality by Father Marc Foley, OCD, isn’t just an excellent commentary on The Dark Night by St. John of the Cross, it’s a practical spiritual guide for anyone—even if you never intend to read the work upon which it expounds. The book offers some of the best descriptions I’ve read about stages of prayer and progress in the spiritual life, offering straightforward examples that allow the reader to view his or her life in a clearer way. In fact, Foley’s explanations of the imperfections of beginners are so vivid, I felt like the Samaritan woman who said, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done.” Foley made me realize, for example, how much time I’ve spent working on “spiritual projects” when God was calling me to spend more time in prayer or serving my family. I particularly appreciate the book’s use of stories from literature and the author’s personal life. Whether it’s examples from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or others, Foley’s use of stories makes the book a quick and enjoyable read. I wish this book had been around when I was younger, as it would have helped me avoid many misconceptions about my own spiritual life. Not that I would have understood all aspects of the book, but Foley provides an excellent framework to guide our progress toward union with our Creator. Some of the concepts are immediately useful while others, I suspect, will unfold in my life over time. I especially recommend The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality to beginners and those discerning a call to Carmel. While the book is engaging, it is also challenging. Foley writes, “Just as self-knowledge is painful, so too is change. And the change native to the dark night is excruciatingly painful because it involves modifying or eradicating deeply ingrained habits that have taken root within us over a lifetime.” The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality is a great aid for the journey, and a book I will read more than once. One last thought: The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality is a good companion to Foley’s earlier book, The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Reflections, which explains St. John of the Cross’ work of the same name, using similar techniques and examples. Reading the books back to back would help reinforce some of the concepts, and at just more than 200 pages each, is easily accomplished. —Tim Bete, OCDS, is a member of the Our Mother of Good Counsel Community in Dayton, Ohio, and a published author of three books.

Download or read book The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality written by Marc Foley, OCD and published by ICS Publications. This book was released on 2019-05-19 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night can be daunting; living the dark experience of purification it describes can be much more so. The description of the dark nights (yes, there is more than one!) which St. John presents seems so stark and painful that one might be tempted to just close the book and stop reading. On top of that, both the process St. John describes and the language he uses can be confusing and intimidating. The language of 16th-century scholasticism is not easily understood by 21st-century readers living in a completely different culture and context. Perhaps even more challenging is that fact that our modern lives, filled with the non-stop clutter of social media and technology, as well as comfort and ease, do not prepare most of us well to honestly look into our own depths to see who we are and who we are intended to become as fully alive human beings. Fortunately we now have this helpful book to guide us to that full life which St. John invites us to in The Dark Night. Father Marc Foley here combines his own theological and psychological background, as well as his experience as a spiritual guide, to help modern readers understand the experiences, challenges, and graced events of the purifying nights of sense and spirit. In addition to exploring certain key terms that John uses in Spanish and their meaning in the saint’s time and today, Father Marc includes pertinent selections from a wide range of writers, ancient to modern, that illustrate the themes he covers. Each chapter concludes with insightful questions for personal reflection or group discussion. The book has a comprehensive index.

Download or read book Dark Nights of the Soul written by Thomas Moore and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-06-16 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every human life is made up of the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the vital and the deadening. How you think about this rhythm of moods makes all the difference. Our lives are filled with emotional tunnels: the loss of a loved one or end of a relationship, aging and illness, career disappointments or just an ongoing sense of dissatisfaction with life. Society tends to view these “dark nights” in clinical terms as obstacles to be overcome as quickly as possible. But Moore shows how honoring these periods of fragility as periods of incubation and positive opportunities to delve the soul’s deepest needs can provide healing and a new understanding of life’s meaning. Dark Nights of the Soul presents these metaphoric dark nights not as the enemy, but as times of transition, occasions to restore yourself, and transforming rites of passage, revealing an uplifting and inspiring new outlook on such topics as: • The healing power of melancholy • The sexual dark night and the mysteries of matrimony • Finding solace during illness and in aging • Anxiety, anger, and temporary Insanities • Linking creativity, spirituality, and emotional struggles • Finding meaning and beauty in the darkness

Download or read book The Dark Night of the Soul written by Gerald G. May and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-03-31 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback: a distinguished psychiatrist, spiritual counsellor and bestselling author shows how the dark sides of the spiritual life are a vital ingredient in deep, authentic, healthy spirituality. Gerald G. May, MD, one of the great spiritual teachers and writers of our time, argues that the dark 'shadow' side of the true spiritual life has been trivialised and neglected to our serious detriment. Superficial and naively upbeat spirituality does not heal and enrich the soul. Nor does the other tendency to relegate deep spiritual growth to only mystics and saints. Only the honest, sometimes difficult encounters with what Christian spirituality has called and described in helpful detail as 'the dark night of the soul' can lead to true spiritual wholeness. May emphasises that the dark night is not necessarily a time of suffering and near despair, but a time of deep transition, a search for new orientation when things are clouded and full of mystery. The dark gives depth, dimension and fullness to the spiritual life.

Download or read book The Context of Holiness: Psychological and Spiritual Reflections on the Life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux written by Marc Foley and published by ICS Publications. This book was released on 2020-03-27 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores both the psychological and spiritual dimensions of the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The basic premise of this book is that the spiritual life is not an encapsulated sphere, cloistered from the realities of our human existence. Rather it is our response to God within the physical, psychological, social and emotional dimensions of life. St. Thérèse did not grow in holiness apart from the human condition. Like all of us, she was emotionally scarred by the fragileness of life. She was deeply wounded by the death of her mother at the age of four, bedridden as the result of a neurotic episode when she was ten, struggled with debilitating scruples most of her life, and suffered an agonizing dark night of faith. St. Thérèse was no plaster statue saint. Her life was a real life. As it unfolds before us on the pages of Story of a Soul, we see a pilgrim soul who made her way home to God through many raging storms and dark nights. The specific nature of Thérèse's trials may differ from our own, but psychological and emotional suffering are our common lot. For example, we may not have know the pain of our mother dying when we were four, but most of us have know the pain of the loss of a loved one. The sufferings that we share with Thérèse are universal - physical pain, anxiety, anger, sadness, depression, loneliness, doubts of faith, to name a few. These sufferings make doing the will of God difficult, but they are the context of our choices. They are the context of holiness.

Download or read book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha written by Daniel Ingram and published by Aeon Books. This book was released on 2020-01-20 with total page 715 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The very idea that the teachings can be mastered will arouse controversy within Buddhist circles. Even so, Ingram insists that enlightenment is an attainable goal, once our fanciful notions of it are stripped away, and we have learned to use meditation as a method for examining reality rather than an opportunity to wallow in self-absorbed mind-noise. Ingram sets out concisely the difference between concentration-based and insight (vipassana) meditation; he provides example practices; and most importantly he presents detailed maps of the states of mind we are likely to encounter, and the stages we must negotiate as we move through clearly-defined cycles of insight. Its easy to feel overawed, at first, by Ingram's assurance and ease in the higher levels of consciousness, but consistently he writes as a down-to-earth and compassionate guide, and to the practitioner willing to commit themselves this is a glittering gift of a book.In this new edition of the bestselling book, the author rearranges, revises and expands upon the original material, as well as adding new sections that bring further clarity to his ideas.

Download or read book Dark Night, Early Dawn written by Christopher M. Bache and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2000-05-26 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining philosophical reflections with deep self-exploration to delve into the ancient mystery of death and rebirth, this book emphasizes collective rather than individual transformation. Drawing upon twenty years of experience working with nonordinary states, the author argues that when the deep psyche is hyper-simulated using Stanislaw Grof's powerful therapeutic methods, the healing that results sometimes extends beyond the individual to the collective unconscious of humanity itself.