St Ignatius Loyola, in his
discourses on discernment, addresses the difficult
problem of the evil force meddling with the grace of
God, via introducing something evil into the immediate
aftermath of the experience of the divine (or of the
inspiration, or of anything good, coming from God), the
evil seed which subtly diverts a person from God, that
is a very sophisticated kind of a desolation. He makes
two important points:
1 – However well the evil
tried to imitate God’s action in the soul he cannot do
this perfectly; something inevitably will “stick out”
and can be identified;
2 – When one realises that he
is experiencing such a kind of desolation it is very
useful to track the train of the events (thoughts,
actions) back and find the oddity, the insertion of the
evil which he calls the “tail of a snake”. It is also
useful to tell someone else about what happened.
The “tail of a snake” in my
experience usually manifests itself as something felt as
“being not exactly right”, not exactly in the right
place, something alien to the whole situation, absurd.
It is impossible of course to make “the list of
oddities” (or even their constellations) and watch out
for them; what in one situation is normal in another is
outrageous; how something is said or done often
matters more than the words and actions themselves. An
example: the statement “I do not have a personal
relationship with Jesus” is perfectly OK in case of an
unbeliever (in fact it is a bit odd because a
non-believer is not expected to have such a
relationship) and in the case of a Christian – but a
practising Christian most likely would say those words
with regret, knowing that it is desirable and even
necessary to have one. The same words sound entirely
different coming from the mouth of a member of a
Christian contemplative Order the charism of which is to
strive after the most intimate union (that is, the
pinnacle of personal relationship) with Jesus Christ.
And, if a person says those words indifferently and adds
that it is all fine, for him and for others, to be
Christian and contemplative and to ignore Christ at the
same time it is an example of oddity, the “tail of the
snake” of Loyola.
This “something”, especially
if it is “too subtle” or “too odd to believe”, the
intellect tends to explain rationally. In the example
above, of a “contemplative”, a listener may be oppressed
by the very absurdity of his words or may think he does
not understand something, perhaps a contemplative means
something else – and, the higher the authority of the
contemplative the more likely is a listener to
rationalize his words and not to raise their voice in
protest. Besides, the words “contemplative” or
“contemplative order” tend to induce, in many, a sense
of awe; they hint at a spiritual elitism and a promise
to share it with the listener – of course as long as the
listener does not argue with the statements of the
contemplative.
This rationalistic approach
often does not explain anything but, by the very
familiarity of the act of explanation (any explanation,
in this case pseudo-explanation which works as a dummy)
to the psyche helps one to dismiss and eventually to
forget the oddities. Later, when a person finds himself
in a state of desolation, he recalls them and they begin
making sense – providing, that he will manage to
establish the connection between the two. One does not
necessarily have to actively walk a Christian path to
know this experientially. The process described above is
present in human relationships as well. An example: the
stories of the victims of rape who, looking back, are
cursing themselves for their dismissal of the warning
signs and gut feelings that “something was very wrong”.
