Should You Resist? John of the Cross and Modern Approaches to Inner Crisis

The “dark night of the soul” is often treated as a problem to fix. But John of the Cross saw it differently: as a necessary passage of transformation rather than something to escape.

In contemporary culture, there is an almost automatic reflex when it comes to suffering: if something is painful, it should be eliminated as quickly as possible. Problems are expected to be diagnosed, treated, and solved. This is especially true for inner crises—loss of meaning, spiritual emptiness, emotional dryness—where we tend to immediately search for familiar categories such as psychological distress, depression, burnout, or some form of dysfunction.

This approach certainly has its value. Many people suffer from genuine psychological conditions that require attention and care. But there are also experiences that do not easily fit into these frameworks. One of them is what Christian mysticism calls the “dark night of the soul.”

The term comes from the Spanish mystic John of the Cross, whose work The Dark Night of the Soul is one of the most influential texts in the history of spiritual literature. In it, he describes an inner condition that many would find alarming: a phase of profound darkness in which all previous spiritual certainties seem to disappear.

Yet what is striking is this: John of the Cross does not interpret this darkness as an error.

On the contrary, he even calls it a “happy night.”

The modern assumption: darkness is a problem to fix

From a contemporary perspective, this appears paradoxical. When a person suddenly feels that the inner supports of their life are collapsing—when prayer becomes empty, meditation stops “working,” religious feeling disappears, and even the idea of God feels distant or inaccessible—this is usually understood as a crisis that must be overcome as quickly as possible.

Picture: Terence Voller on Unsplash

Modern culture is strongly shaped by a logic of optimization and control. Problems should be identified and fixed. In psychological contexts as well, there is often the assumption that any state of inner darkness must necessarily indicate something that is broken and needs repair.

But this assumption is not universal.

Across many spiritual traditions, such states are not understood primarily as malfunctions, but as transitions—phases of inner transformation.

This is precisely how John of the Cross interprets the dark night.

The paradoxical language of mysticism

John opens his famous poem on the dark night with a surprising twist: the night is described not only as dark, but also as joyful.

At first, this seems contradictory. How can an experience marked by emptiness, disorientation, and perceived absence of God be called “happy”?

The answer lies in the perspective from which John writes.

He does not describe the dark night as meaningless suffering, but as a process of purification. During this phase, the soul is released from things to which it had been unconsciously attached.

And these attachments can even be spiritual in nature.

When consolation disappears

A central feature of the dark night is the loss of consolation.

People who previously experienced prayer or meditation as meaningful, warm, or uplifting suddenly find that these experiences vanish. What once felt alive or inspiring now appears empty or mechanical.

John describes this condition very clearly. The soul loses:

emotional certainties
spiritual feelings
religious consolation
the sense of direct divine presence

Even practices that once felt helpful may lose their effect. Prayer becomes dry, meditation becomes frustrating, and spiritual disciplines appear meaningless.

From an ordinary perspective, this can look like a collapse of faith.

But John interprets it differently.

The hidden dynamic of purification

According to John of the Cross, the soul is often more attached to the effects of spirituality than it realizes.

A person may believe they are seeking God, while in fact they are primarily seeking the feelings associated with religious practice: consolation in prayer, emotional warmth, spiritual enthusiasm, or inner certainty. These experiences can become a subtle form of inner security.

They are not false—but they can become a form of attachment.

The dark night removes these supports.

Not to destroy the person, but to free them from dependence on them.

In this sense, John describes the night as a process of inner purification. Everything the soul clings to—including spiritual experience itself—is called into question.

The soul is forced to go deeper.

The path through darkness

This process can be profoundly painful. The dark night is not a romantic metaphor, but a real experience of inner disorientation.

A person often feels separated from everything that once provided stability. Familiar certainties dissolve, and no new orientation is yet visible.

But in the mystical tradition, this state is not considered a final loss.

It is a transition.

The darkness arises precisely because an old form of understanding has been left behind, while a new one has not yet fully emerged.

One might say: the soul is suspended between two levels.

The conflict with modern problem-solving thinking

Here a clear difference emerges between mystical interpretation and modern thinking.

Contemporary societies tend to prioritize stability and functionality. When something does not work—emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually—the immediate impulse is to fix it.

But John of the Cross would likely suggest that not every crisis can or should be immediately resolved.

Some processes require time.

They must be endured.

This does not mean suffering should be romanticized, nor that every crisis has a spiritual meaning. But it does mean that not all darkness is a system error.

Sometimes it is part of development.

A different kind of freedom

The goal of the dark night, according to John, is a deeper form of freedom.

As long as the soul remains attached to certain experiences, emotions, or concepts, its access to a deeper reality remains limited. It repeatedly returns to what it already knows.

The night dismantles these habits.

By withdrawing consolation and certainty, it forces the soul to enter a mode of existence no longer supported by familiar structures.

In mystical language, this state is often called “unknowing.”

This does not mean ignorance, but a form of understanding beyond conceptual categories.

Mystical Paradox: Darkness as Hidden Light

Mystical traditions often use paradox to describe this experience.

They say, for example:

understanding arises in not-knowing
divine presence is experienced as absence
light initially appears as darkness

These formulations express the idea that the soul is entering a reality that exceeds its previous frameworks.

What once provided orientation—feelings, images, concepts—no longer suffices.

Thus, the darkness is not only loss, but also cognitive and existential overload.

The soul encounters something larger than its habitual categories.

Why John of the Cross calls the night “happy”

Against this background, it becomes clearer why John of the Cross calls the dark night “happy.”

It is not happy because it feels good. It is happy because it enables a deeper form of union with God.

In the night, the soul leaves its “house”—a metaphor John uses for the habitual self. This house represents the familiar structures of thinking, feeling, and believing.

The night allows the soul to leave this house and enter a path no longer governed by previous certainties.

For this reason, he calls it a happy night.

The challenge for our time

The idea that a period of darkness may be part of an inner developmental process feels unfamiliar in modern culture. We are accustomed to resolving crises as quickly as possible.

But perhaps this itself is a challenge.

Not every darkness is a failure. Not every crisis must be immediately repaired.

Some experiences belong to processes that cannot be accelerated.

Mystical tradition reminds us that transformation often passes through phases in which orientation is lost before new clarity emerges.

Final reflection

The dark night of the soul is not a romantic image or a simple metaphor. It describes a real experience that many people encounter at some point in their lives: a phase of inner darkness in which former certainties dissolve.

John of the Cross interprets this experience in a surprising way.

He does not see it as a breakdown of the path, but as part of the path itself.

Perhaps this perspective is still relevant today.

Not every darkness needs to be resisted.

Some darknesses are passages— thresholds that cannot be bypassed, only traversed.

The Soul's Night and Awakening