of the mystical journey, followed by those of illumination and then union. The passive purgation of the spirit takes place between illumination and full union, when the presence of God has already been felt but is not stable. At the beginning of the commentary Dark Night, John wrote: "In this first verse, the soul tells the mode and manner in which it departs, as to its affection, from itself and from all things, dying through a true mortification to all of them and to itself, to arrive at a sweet and delicious life with God." The dark night of the soul is a stage of final and complete purification, and is marked by confusion, helplessness, stagnation of the will, and a sense of the withdrawal of God's presence. It is the period of final "unselfing" and the surrender to the hidden purposes of the divine will. The final stage is union with the object of love, the one Reality, God. Here the self has been permanently established on a transcendental level and liberated for a new purpose. Contemporary understanding The term "dark night (of the soul)" is used as referring to spiritual dryness, the absence of experiencing the presence of God, but also more generally "to describe an extremely difficult and painful period in one's life". This spiritual dryness may endure for a long time. The "dark night" of St. Paul of the Cross in the 18th century endured 45 years, from which he ultimately recovered. The dark night of Mother Teresa, whose own name in religion she selected in honor of Thérèse of Lisieux, "may be the most extensive such case on record", having endured from 1948 almost until her death in 1997, with only brief interludes of relief, according to her letters. Other authors have made similar references: Inayat Khan states, "There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were." Joseph Campbell states "The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed." Roberto Assagioli states: Before the full and final victory, however, the soul has to undergo another test: it must pass through the "dark night" which is a new and deeper experience of annihilation, or a crucible in which all the