Doubt by the reflex effect on the mind of prayer, that in
due time I did succeed in making myself believe all I wished to
believe, and had my reward, since after many days or weeks of mental
misery there would come beautiful intervals of peace and of more than
peace, a new and surprising experience, a state of exaltation, when it
would seem to me that I was lifted or translated into a purely
spiritual atmosphere and was in communion and one with the unseen
world.
It was wonderful. At last and for ever my Dark Night of the Soul was
over; no more bitter broodings and mocking whispers and shrinking from
the awful phantom of death continually hovering near me; and, above
all, no more "difficulties" - the rocky barriers I had vainly beat and
bruised myself against. For I had been miraculously lifted over them
and set safely down on the other side, where it was all plain walking.
Unhappily, these blissful intervals would not last long. A
recollection of something I had heard or read would come back to
startle me out of the confident happy mood; reason would revive as
from a benumbed or hypnotized condition, and the mocking voice would
be heard telling me that I had been under a delusion.
