The Ascent of Mount CarmelChapter VI. Of the second kind of apprehensions: the imaginary and supernatural

Though, while treating of the first kind of natural apprehensions, I also sufficiently explained the imaginary, which are also natural, it was necessary to make this division, because of the attachment of the memory to other forms and notions of supernatural things: such are visions and revelations, locutions and impressions, which come upon us in a supernatural way. When these things have happened to the soul, the image, form, or figure of them remains impressed upon it, in the memory or the fancy; and sometimes that impression is exceedingly vivid. It is necessary to caution men on this subject: that the memory may not be perplexed by these images, and that they may not prove a hindrance to union with God in pure and perfect hope.

2. I say, then, that in order to attain that blessing, the soul must never reflect upon those objects, which have been clearly and distinctly present to it in a supernatural way, So as to preserve the forms, notions, and figures of them. We must always keep this principle before our eyes; the more the soul attends to any clear and distinct apprehension, natural or supernatural, the less will be its capacity and disposition for entering into the abyss of faith, wherein all things else are absorbed. For, as I said before,¹ no supernatural forms or knowledge, of which the memory takes cognisance, are God: they bear no proportion to Him, neither can they serve as proximate means of union with Him. The soul, if it is to draw near unto God, must empty itself of everything that is not God; and the memory, therefore, must also get rid of all forms and knowledge, in order to be united to Him in the way of perfect and mystical hope.

3. This must be done; for all possession contradicts hope, which, as the Apostle writes, is of things not in possession: ‘Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.’² Consequently, the more the memory divests itself, the greater its hope; and the greater its hope, the greater its union with God. For with respect to God, the more the soul hopes, the more it obtains, and it then hopes most when it is most divested; and when it shall be perfectly divested, it will then have the possession of God, such as is possible on earth in the divine union. But there are many souls, who will not deprive themselves of that sweetness and delight, which the memory finds in these things, and who, consequently, never attain to this supreme possession and perfect sweetness; for he ‘that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be a disciple’ of Christ.