Spiritual crisis and the dark night of the soul

The dark night of the soul — named by John of the Cross but recognized across traditions — is not the absence of faith but its deepening: the moment when the consolations of religion fall away and the practitioner is left without maps, without feeling, without the God they thought they knew. Sufi poetry, Buddhist accounts of the meditator hitting the wall, the Book of Job, the Psalms of lament, the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh on despair — all witness to this territory as part of the path, not a deviation from it. The crisis does not mean the tradition has failed — it often means the tradition is finally working.