The Spiritual Journey: Mountain Tops, Dark Nights, and Dangerous Deceptions - Bill Atwood - Bog

This book provides an understanding and practical application of the Spiritual Journey as presented by St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. The author uses his personal experience and insights provided by his spiritual director, who described the spiritual journey as a "spiral whereby we pass through the same spiritual regions several times at different levels while we move closer in union with Christ." He carefully explains elements of the spiritual journey that Christians will recognize in their own pilgrimage. The book examines landmarks in stages described as the pre-purgative way, the purgative way, the illuminative way, and the unitive way, providing explanations for many of the questions that baffle, and often defeat, Christians as they struggle to understand events in their lives that seemingly make no sense but that God is using to conform them to the image of Christ.