What is the dark night of the senses?

John of the Cross, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

John of the Cross answers

The contemplation God pours into a soul works two purgations, conformable to the two parts of a man, the sensual and the spiritual. The first night is of the senses, wherein the soul is purified and detached, the senses being made subject to the spirit. The second is the night of the spirit, which disposes the soul for union with God in love.¹

The night of sense is the common lot, the portion of beginners; the spiritual night belongs to very few, those who have made some progress.¹ Why it is called night I gave at the start of the Ascent: the journey to union is night from the point whence the soul departs, which is the privation of the desire of all pleasure in the things of this world, and this is night to every desire and sense of man.²

The soul does not enter it by its own strength. No one can empty his own heart of every desire so as to draw near to God; it is God who leads the soul into this night, and that is its happy lot.³ Why God leads it there is plain. Beginners walk in ways that are not noble, much according to their own liking and self-love; and God would raise them out of that miserable manner of loving, and deliver them from the low usage of the senses and of meditation, by which they have been seeking Him.¹

So the night is bitter and terrible to sense.¹ It quenches desire in all things whatsoever and takes away the lights of meditation, so that to the soul it seems as if all were lost.⁴ Yet it is the beginning of joy. As Abraham made a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned, so there is joy in heaven when God takes a soul out of its swaddling clothes, denies it the sweet milk of the breast and gives it bread with the crust to eat.

That bread is infused contemplation, and from this first benefit almost all the others flow.⁵ The soul that has passed through it is like one released from a rigorous imprisonment: its faculties are no longer held in the bonds of meditation, and it rises to a tranquil and loving contemplation, finding spiritual sweetness without the fatigue of discourse.⁶

How long it lasts no one can say with certainty, for the trials are measured by the divine will, in proportion to the imperfections to be purged and to the degree of love to which God means to raise the soul.⁷

Sources

The night of sense is common, and the lot of many: these are the beginners, of whom I shall first speak. The spiritual night is the portion of very few
The Dark Night of the Soul
The first, from the point from which the soul sets out, the privation of the desire of all pleasure in all the things of this world, by detachment therefrom. This is as night for every desire and sense of man.
The Ascent of Mount Carmel
no one is able in his own strength to empty his heart of all desires, so as to draw near unto God.
The Ascent of Mount Carmel
the dark night which quenches all desire in all things whatsoever, and deprives him of all his lights in meditation
The Dark Night of the Soul
As Abraham made a great feast on the day of Isaac's weaning, so there is joy in heaven when God takes a soul out of its swaddling clothes
The Dark Night of the Soul
In this state — as one released from a rigorous imprisonment — it occupies itself in divine things with much greater freedom and satisfaction
The Dark Night of the Soul
These trials are measured by the divine will, and are proportioned to the imperfections, many or few, to be purged away
The Dark Night of the Soul