The dread phenomenon of the dark night of the soul makes its appearance in a mystic's life only a few times at most, sometimes only once. The devotions lose their fervour, the emotions become cold, and worship seems a futile exercise. There is no longer any pleasure to be got from the inner life, and experiences of mystical satisfaction are either rare or absent altogether. Meditation becomes dry, barren, and ineffective; often the very taste for it departs. Aspiration seems dead. Where there was once spiritual light in the mind and spiritual heat in the heart, there is now only darkness and ashes. A torpor of sheer fatalism settles over the will. Life becomes marked by emptiness, aimlessness, lack of inspiration, and drifts with the tide of events.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 3 : The Dark Night of The Soul > # 15
