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The spiritual man incurs the risk of five kinds of
evil if he pays heed to, and reflects upon, these
forms and ideas which are impressed upon him by the
things which pass through his mind in a supernatural
way.2. The first is that he is frequently
deceived, and mistakes one thing for another. The
second is that he is like to fall, and is exposed to
the danger of falling, into some form of presumption
or vanity. The third is that the devil has many
occasions of deceiving him by means of the
apprehensions aforementioned. The fourth is that he
is hindered as to union in hope with God. The fifth
is that, for the most part, he has a low judgment of
God.
3. As to the first evil, it is clear that, if the
spiritual man pays heed to these forms and notions,
and reflects upon them, he must frequently be
deceived in his judgment of them; for, as no man can
have a complete understanding of the things that pass
through his imagination naturally, nor a perfect and
certain judgment about them, he will be much less
able still to have this with respect to supernatural
things, which are above our capacity to understand,
and occur but rarely.
Wherefore he will often think that what comes but
from his fancy pertains to God; and often, too, that
what is of God is of the devil, and what is of the
devil is of God. And very often there will remain
with him deap-seated impressions of forms and ideas
concerning the good and evil of others, or of
himself, together with other figures which have been
presented to him: these he will consider to be most
certain and true, when in fact they will not be so,
but very great falsehoods. And others will be true,
and he will judge them to be false, although this
error I consider safer, as it is apt to arise from
humility.
4. And, even if he be not deceived as to their
truth, he may well be deceived as to their quantity
or quality, thinking that little things are great,
and great things, little. And with respect to their
quality, he may consider what is in his imagination
to be this or that, when it is something quite
different; he may put, as Isaias says, darkness for
light, and light for darkness, or bitter for sweet,
and sweet for bitter.[506]
And finally, even though he be correct as to one
thing, it will be a marvel if he goes not astray with
respect to the next; for, although he may not desire
to apply his judgment to the judging of them, yet, if
he apply it in paying heed to them, this will be
sufficient to make some evil to cling to him as a
result of it, at least passively; if not evil of this
kind, then of one of the four other kinds of which we
shall shortly speak.
5. It behoves the spiritual man, therefore, lest
he fall into this evil of being deceived in his
judgment, not to desire to apply his judgment in
order to know the nature of his own condition or
feelings, or the nature of such and such a vision,
idea or feeling; neither should he desire to know it
or to pay heed to it. This he should only desire in
order to speak of it to his spiritual father, and to
be taught by him how to void his memory of these
apprehensions.
For, whatever may be their intrinsic nature, they
cannot help him to love God as much as the smallest
act of living faith and hope performed in the
emptiness and renunciation of all things. |