The Dark Night of the Soul

  "The Dark Night of the Soul" is the name given to that experience of spiritual desolation that  all students of the Occult  pass through at one time or another. It is sometimes charcterised  by feelings thatyour occult  studies or practises are not taken you anywhere, that the initial success  that one is sometimes  granted after a few  months ofoccult working, has suddenly dried up. There comes a desire to give upon everything,  to abandon exercises and meditation,  as nothing seems  to be  working.
        Though the beginner may view the onset of such an experience with alarm , the "Dark Night" is  not something bad or destructive. In one sense  it may be seen as  a trial, a test by  which the Gods examine  our resolve to continue with occult work, and if you are not completely  whole-hearted about your magical studies, it is during this  period (at its beginning) that you  will give up. The Dark Night of the  Soul should be welcomed,  once recognised for what  it is   as
  a person  might welcome an  operation that  will secure health and well 
  being. When entering  the Dark  Night  one is  overcome  by a  sense  of spiritual dryness and  depression. The notion, in some  quarters, that  all  such experiences  should be  avoided, for  a peaceful  existence,  shows up the  superficiality of  so much of  contemporary living.  The  Dark Night is a  way of bringing the Soul  to stillness, so that  deep  psychic transformation  may take place.  All distractions must  be set  aside, and it is no good attempting  to fight or channel the bursts of  raw energy  that from time to time may course through your being. This  inner  compulsion to set everything aside results in the outer depres-  sion, when nothing seems to excite. The only thing to do is obey your
  inner voice and become still,  waiting for the inner transformation, (which the "Dark Night" heralds-  ), to  take place. You may  not be aware for  a very long  time of the results of that inner change, but  when the desire to work comes again and the depression lifts, the Dark Night has (for a moment) passed. No one  can help  during this  time, and  in many  cases there  is hardly anyone  to turn for advice. One must disregard the well-meaning advice  of family and friends to "snap out of it" this is no  ordinary depres-  sion, but a deep spiritual experience which only those who have passed  through themselves (in other words to a magical retreat) but for many,  as the routines  of everyday life  prohibits this, all  you can do  is  cultivate an inner  solitude, a  stillness and silence  of heart,  and  wait,  for the Transformation to  work itself out. There are  many  such  "Dark Nights"  that the  occult  seeker must  pass through  during the mysterious process  of mitigation. They are all  trials but  experience teaches one to cope more efficiently.

...author unknown