What is Dark Night of the Soul?
The dark night of the soul is a phase of intense spiritual crisis characterized by profound emptiness, loss of meaning, and the painful dissolution of familiar identity structures. Originally defined by 16th-century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross as “a phase of passive purification in the mystical development of the individual’s spirit,” the term now describes both the classical mystical experience and contemporary spiritual crises where seekers feel abandoned by the divine, disconnected from their former sense of self, and plunged into disorienting darkness.
Unlike clinical depression or ordinary grief, the dark night is fundamentally a spiritual phenomenon—a transformative crucible in which the ego’s attachments, consolations, and concepts of the divine are systematically stripped away. The soul must undergo “a new and deeper experience of annihilation, or a crucible in which all the human elements that go to make it up are melted together.” This process, while agonizing, serves a sacred purpose: preparing consciousness for mystical union or authentic spiritual awakening.
Origins & Lineage
The phrase originated with Spanish mystic John of the Cross (1541–1597 AD), born Juan de Yepes Álvarez in Fontiveros, Old Castile. Saint John of the Cross was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered, along with Saint Teresa of Ávila, as a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. The poem “Dark Night of the Soul” was likely written between 1577 and 1579, composed during his nine-month imprisonment in a Carmelite monastery in Toledo in 1577.
John wrote both a mystical poem titled “Noche Oscura del Alma” and an extensive theological commentary explaining its stages. While The Ascent of Mount Carmel focuses on the active preparations for union with God, The Dark Night of the Soul explains how God passively prepares the soul through two distinct purgations: the night of sense and the night of the spirit. John was canonized in 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII.
The concept has historical antecedents in earlier Christian mystical traditions, though John provided the most systematic theological framework. Historical examples include Mother Teresa, whose dark night “endured from 1948 almost until her death in 1997,” and St. Paul of the Cross in the 18th century, whose dark night “endured 45 years.”
How It’s Experienced
John of the Cross described two primary stages: the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the spirit. The Dark Night of the Senses is the first stage, where “you may experience a sense of spiritual emptiness, feeling disconnected from life, God, higher power and yourself.” Spiritual practices that once brought comfort become dry and meaningless. Prayer feels hollow, meditation produces only restlessness, and the seeker experiences what mystics call “aridity.”
The second and more intense stage is “the purification of the spirit, which is the less common of the two.” “The soul is conscious of a profound emptiness in itself, a cruel destitution of the three kinds of goods, natural, temporal, and spiritual, which are ordained for its comfort.” This stage involves profound questioning of one’s entire spiritual framework, confrontation with existential despair, and the death of the ego’s cherished self-concepts.
John taught that “this dark night of contemplation should first of all annihilate and undo it in its meannesses, bringing it into darkness, aridity, affliction and emptiness; for the light which is to be given to it is a Divine light of the highest kind…the understanding should first of all be purged and annihilated as to its natural light.”
Contemporary seekers describe symptoms including profound loss of purpose, disconnection from previously meaningful spiritual practices, feelings of abandonment by the divine, existential confusion, and deep loneliness. The experience can be triggered by spiritual awakening, life upheavals, intensive meditation practice, trauma, or arise spontaneously without obvious cause.
Dark Night of the Soul Today
In contemporary spiritual circles, the dark night of the soul has become a recognized framework for understanding spiritual crisis. It is discussed in meditation retreats—particularly extended silent retreats where intensive practice can precipitate such experiences. Spiritual directors trained in contemplative traditions, particularly those versed in Carmelite spirituality or Christian contemplative prayer, offer guidance through these passages.
The concept has been explored by modern teachers including Thomas Merton, who wrote extensively on contemplative crisis, and Caroline Myss, who addresses the dark night in her teachings on spiritual awakening. The term appears in contemporary Buddhism’s discussion of the “dukkha ñanas” (stages of insight marked by suffering), though these traditions use different frameworks.
Spiritual emergence networks and transpersonal psychology recognize what they call “spiritual emergency”—acute crises of transformation that parallel the classical dark night. Practitioners of kundalini yoga, intensive vipassana meditation, and holotropic breathwork sometimes encounter dark night phenomena as consciousness restructures under the pressure of practice.
Common Misconceptions
While “the phrase is often used informally to describe an extremely difficult and painful period in one’s life, for example, after the death of a loved one; the break-up of a marriage; or the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness,” these informal usages “differ significantly from the original meaning and context of the phrase.”
The dark night is not clinical depression, though it may co-occur with or be mistaken for it. Depression typically has biochemical and psychological roots; the dark night is fundamentally a spiritual crisis with a transformative telos. St. John warned against conflating ordinary hardships with the dark night, with spiritual directors cautioned that “one of the most common mistakes spiritual directors and confessors tend to make is the easy diagnosis of ordinary sufferings as ‘dark nights.’”
The dark night is not a punishment or spiritual failure—John insisted it is a gift, a sign that God is purifying the soul for deeper union. It is not permanent; “the darkest nights are followed by the most radiant dawns and the soul, perfect at last, enters into complete, constant and inseparable communion with the Spirit.”
It is not simply painful emotion that needs fixing. The dark night cannot be bypassed through positive thinking, affirmations, or technique. It requires surrender, not management.
How to Begin Understanding It
For those seeking to understand the dark night—whether experiencing it or studying it—begin with primary texts. Read John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul and The Ascent of Mount Carmel, available in translations by Kieran Kavanaugh and Mirabai Starr. These texts provide the theological foundation and phenomenological map.
Seek guidance from spiritual directors trained in contemplative traditions, particularly those certified through programs in Ignatian spirituality, Carmelite spirituality, or contemplative psychotherapy. Organizations like Spiritual Directors International and the Contemplative Outreach network can provide referrals.
Engage practices that support passage through crisis: silent meditation retreats (with experienced teachers), contemplative prayer, journaling, and nature immersion. Support from those who have traversed their own dark nights proves invaluable. Therapeutic support from clinicians trained in transpersonal psychology or spiritual emergence can help distinguish spiritual crisis from pathology requiring clinical intervention.
Read contemporary interpreters: Thomas Merton’s writings on contemplation, Gerald May’s The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth, and Eckhart Tolle’s discussions of ego dissolution in The Power of Now offer modern perspectives on the classical phenomenon.