Observations placeholder

Quoted in E O’Brien – Varieties of Mystical Experience 1964

The first step in contemplation is for the soul to retreat within itself and there completely to recollect itself.

The second step in contemplation is for the soul to see what it is when it is so collected.

The third step is for the soul to raise itself beyond itself and to strive to see two things; its Creator, and His own nature.

But the soul can never attain to this until it has learned to subdue every image, corporeal, earthly and celestial, to reject whatever may come to it through sight or hearing or touch or taste or any other bodily sensation, and to tread it down, so that the soul may see what in itself is outside of its body. . .

After this, when you have in this way looked at your Creator and His creatures, put every corporeal image outside your heart, and let your naked intention fly up above all human reasoning and there you shall find such great sweetness and such great secrets that without special grace there is no one who can think of it except only him who has experienced it.