What is diagnosed in clinical psychology as endogenous depression (major depressive disorder) is known in the spiritual tradition as the “dark night of the soul.” This is especially important for people who suffer from deep depressive states without any apparent external cause. In fact, this knowledge itself is the best support for coping with this type of depression.
The reason is that, in such cases, natural processes of growth, change, and inner maturation are involved. The only thing we can truly do in relation to them is to understand them. With understanding comes acceptance. And acceptance leads to inner wholeness and to the integration of the shadow – the goal of spiritual transformation.
Roberto Assagioli: the dark night of the soul is a spiritual crisis, not a mental illness
The dark night of the soul is the final – fifth – of the psychological crises described by Roberto Assagioli in his article “Nervous Diseases in the Course of Spiritual Development.” This must be properly understood, so that it is treated as a spiritual crisis rather than a mental illness. In the terms of the psychotherapy he founded, this means that this type of depression should be approached not through personal psychosynthesis, but through spiritual psychosynthesis.
“When the process of transformation reaches its culmination, its decisive final stage is often accompanied by intense suffering and inner darkness. Christian mystics call this state ‘the dark night of the soul.’ Externally, it resembles the illness that psychiatrists call depressive psychosis or melancholia.
Its symptoms are: a state of profound dejection, reaching despair; a clearly expressed sense of personal unworthiness; acute self-condemnation – feeling utterly hopeless and damned; an oppressive sense of paralysis of the mind, loss of willpower and self-control, resistance and inhibition toward any activity. Some of these symptoms may appear in milder form in the preceding stages, without reaching the level of the ‘dark night of the soul.’ This peculiar and fruitful experience, whatever one may think of it, does not generate a pathological process. It has spiritual causes and a profound spiritual meaning.”
–Roberto Assagioli, “Nervous Diseases in the Course of Spiritual Development”
Inner dryness
In other words, the dark night of the soul is an advanced stage of spiritual development, which is why it is said that “it is darkest before the dawn.” It is a period of “inner dryness,” as Saint John of the Cross calls it, in which a person feels lonely, abandoned, desperate, disconnected, and confused. The state closely resembles the spiritual fatigue I wrote about in a previous article. There is exhaustion from the path already walked, yet there are no signs that its end is near. On the contrary. At the beginning, one walked the Path with enthusiasm and inspiration, but the further one goes, the more these fade.
“The feeling that we have fallen into an abyss can last seconds, days, weeks, years. Our loved ones and friends do not understand what we are going through, and however they try to help, they cannot silence our despair. The spiritual path we are following has become dull and seems to lead nowhere. For someone accustomed to living in conscious communion with the Infinite, this dark night is like a tormenting drought without a trace of divine help. The weight of the outer world presses upon the soul and suffocates the heart. Perhaps, in the end, God does not exist and enlightenment is a fiction. Within, we perceive nothing but aimlessness and a sense of complete loneliness. The agonizing emotions of the ego convince us that we will not survive this state, that we will die – and that this would be good.”
–Michael Beckwith, Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul’s Potential
This is why the dark night of the soul is experienced as a time of profound loneliness and despair. Until then, a person has been moving forward, practicing various spiritual disciplines with dedication, engaging in reflection, reading spiritual books – and suddenly comes a moment when things not only fail to get better but even become worse. Precisely at this moment of confusion, it is important to know about the existence of the dark night of the soul, because the likelihood that we are passing through it is high.
What appears to the earthly ego as regression, however, is described in spiritual literature as an act of supreme blessing. It is a gift that carries the potential for the deepest spiritual purification and transformation. The word that constantly recurs in the writings of Saint John of the Cross (to whom we owe the concept of the “dark night of the soul” and its most extensive description) is dryness.
“The very bones are dried by this thirst, and the natural powers fail; their warmth and strength pass away because of the intensity of the loving thirst, for the soul feels that this thirst is life-giving.”
–Saint John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul, Book I
In my experience, this dryness manifests as a state in which the outer world no longer nourishes you with energy, while at the same time you have no access to your inner source of nourishment. You stand between two worlds – the inner and the outer – without being connected to either. There is no going back to the usual sources of pleasure, and the path forward (and inward) seems no less impossible. The feeling is one of being very close to death.
“Suspended in the space between two worlds – that of our former existence and that of the next level of awareness – we wonder whether the spiritual rewards will compensate for the exhausting effort of moving forward. When we surrender deeply to the spiritual life, we face the discovery that whatever we think we know, in truth we know very little. It is as if we fall asleep thinking we know something, and in the morning we say: ‘Well… I know nothing.’”
–Michael Beckwith
It is crucial to recognize whether one is dealing with ordinary depression or with the dark night of the soul, because the former is treated with the usual means of psychotherapy, whereas the latter is simply endured with patience. In both cases, something in our life needs to change – but the change in the first case lies within the reach of the ego’s will, while in the second case the change is precisely the opposite: the capitulation of the ego’s will.
Powerlessness: Surrendering the Ego’s Will to a Higher Will
Another word for this kind of change is transformation. It is a period of profound powerlessness, because the person is used to doing something in order to change things, but has reached a point where they no longer know what else to do. Or, more precisely, they no longer want to do anything at all.
“The dark night of the soul is very different from ordinary sadness, depression, or agonizing anxiety. It is the profound experience that mystical traditions speak of as a spiritual catalyst, threatening to shatter the ego and the sense of separation from the Whole. When we fall into its darkness, we want to know only one thing—how to get through the night.”
–Michael Beckwith
This is so because, according to the same author:
*“The dark night of the soul happens to people who take their evolution and awakening seriously. One must be qualified in consciousness for such an experience, because it is not some spiritually romantic notion or a spiritual soap opera for which a libretto can be written. I speak from personal experience when I say that the dark night ends your life as you have known it, including those parts you would very much like to keep and never change.
When you take Spirit seriously, Spirit takes you seriously, and the result is a requalification of consciousness.”*
–M. Beckwith
It seems that the purpose of this “requalification” is the shift of the ego-will toward a deeper center of the personality. In spiritual traditions this is called surrender to God’s will, and in Jung’s analytical psychology it is described as a relocation of the center of the ego from the empirical personality to the archetype from which it derives – the Self.
Saint John writes that during the dark night of the soul a transition takes place from reflection to contemplation, and Michael Beckwith describes it like this:
“We may have read hundreds of spiritual books, sat at the feet of many spiritual teachers, and visited all the famous holy places, yet inwardly we may not have realized very much; or we may have engaged in intellectual metaphysical conversations with the feeling that we are exemplars of spiritual knowledge. Fortunately, we may have reached the wise moment when we are humble enough to admit that we still know very little. This is so-called ‘positive not-knowing,’ because it points to an inner attitude of openness and sensitivity, to a conscious acceptance that there is still a path toward self-realization—and that, in fact, the journey is endless.”
It becomes clear that powerlessness and despair, the sense of helplessness and being without a path, are among the most fundamental characteristics of the “dark night of the soul.”
“All the mystics, sages, and awakened teachers whose lives I have read about have gone through their dark night of the soul. In fact, after receiving its gifts, they prayed for it to come again! The book The Dark Night of the Soul, written in the sixteenth century by the Carmelite monk Saint John of the Cross, is an invaluable guide and a classic of mystical literature. In one of the stanzas he writes: ‘In a dark night, inflamed with love’s longings—oh, happy chance!’ And also: ‘Enduring the darkness is preparation for the great light.’”
–M. Beckwith
The dark night of the soul as nigredo for the alchemists
The meaning of this kind of experience appears deeply paradoxical and hard to grasp. And yet a coherent explanation can be found in the idea of duality as the true essence of human life on Earth—in seeing light and darkness as two sides of the same reality. In this sense, the dark night of the soul is pregnant with the light of a new identity being born.
In alchemy, the dark night of the soul is called nigredo. Jung writes of this stage:
“The darkness has its correspondence in the alchemical nigredo, which sets in after the coniunctio, when the feminine has taken the masculine into itself. From the nigredo the stone emerges—the symbol of the immortal wholeness of the Self.”
The duality of human life tests the seeker of Light by bringing them into contact with the complete opposite of what they have been striving toward. Here is further clarification from Beckwith:
“For Spirit, light and darkness are the same—there is no division, no difference. One of my favorite sources of support during a dark night is the verses of Psalm 139: ‘If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn and settle at the farthest sea—even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to You; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to You. For You formed my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.’”
(Psalm 139:8–14)
Knowledge helps
This article has become long, but I know that—though not many—there are people who go through this state. I know from personal experience how agonizing it can be, and that is why I share it now with full intention. Because knowledge helps. This is why Saint John of the Cross wrote two books on The Dark Night of the Soul, and why Michael Beckwith wrote Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul’s Potential, from which the quotations above are taken.
Knowledge is also what Roberto Assagioli recommends as the primary means of help in dealing with this condition:
“In the period of the ‘dark night of the soul’ help becomes even more difficult because the person seems to be in a dense fog; he is immersed in his suffering and the light of the spirit does not reach his consciousness. The only thing that can be done is to repeat to him continuously that his condition is temporary, not permanent, because the thought that it is permanent throws the patient into deep despair. We also recommend persistently suggesting to him that these torments, however severe they may be, have spiritual value and contain within themselves the seed of such high happiness that a time will come when he will bless them. In this way we will help the patient endure the suffering with surrender and humility.”
–Roberto Assagioli
The spiritual value of the dark night of the soul is transformation on the deepest possible level. In place of the dryness Saint John describes, the juices of love later begin to flow; in place of powerlessness, forces of a different order arrive; in place of confusion, a clarity emerges that is different from the clarity produced by the mind’s reasoning.
“If we resist or try to shorten this process of transformation, we will prevent ourselves from reaping its fruits in their fullness. But if we open to it and immerse ourselves fully, getting to know all its aspects, we will pierce the illusions of the ego and perceive the true direction in which the night leads us with love and wisdom. By willingly surrendering to it, without placing time limits on it, we invite deep transformation.”
–M. Beckwith
Two Phases of the Dark Night
That last sentence is especially important to me, because this period can last a very long time. According to Wikipedia, the dark night experienced by Saint John of the Cross lasted as long as 45 years, and Mother Teresa remained in such a period almost until the end of her life in 1997 (beginning in 1948). In these cases, it is likely that we are not speaking of the dark night of the soul, but of the dark night of the Spirit—the distinction Saint John makes in his two books. And the second dark night of the Spirit is even more painful than the first (see the parallels between these two stages and the stages of Rebirth and Initiation that follows it).
Patience toward the inner processes of maturation, however, is equally important for both “dark nights.” And what helps us remain patient is an attitude of relaxation and acceptance, in which we say to ourselves:
“I no longer fight the unpleasant circumstances, feelings, and experiences for which I cannot see an immediate way out. Instead, I listen to their message and accept their gifts. When everything looks dark, I continue to walk with trust and confidence, because I know I am in a process of growth and the Spirit within me is guiding and illuminating my path.”
— M. Beckwith
The main challenge of the period of the dark night of the soul is not to give in to despair. That is why it is crucial not to lose hope—the hope that comes from the knowledge that “it is darkest before dawn,” and that sooner or later, morning will come.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
