Humility and Demons
For John of the Cross, a soul which expects to overcome the Devil's "strength" will be unable to do so without prayer. Yet to understand his "deceits," the soul needs humility -- for the Devil is the sworn enemy of humility. The Spanish mystic notes that the Devil's bait is pride -- especially the pride that arises from spiritual presumption.
Holy souls must be cautious about any kind of revelations, for the Devil usually meddles in them and "joins together so many apparent and appropriate facts, and implants them so firmly in the imagination, that it seems that every event will undoubtedly occur" (345). If the soul has no humility, it will not be torn from its opinion and believe the contrary. Teresa says that demons even use the image of Christ or His saints to foster false devotion. But the visions of the Devil do no harm if there is humility:
For my own part, I believe that His Majesty will not allow him, or give him the power, to deceive anyone with such appearances unless the person himself be to blame .... I mean that for humble souls no deception is possible. (Foundations, 41)
Faith and Demons
The foundation of the Christian religion is faith. Errors and lies will be spread by demons to try to undermine this foundation. For Teresa, the Devil -- altogether a liar -- can play many tricks, but "God will not permit him to deceive a soul which has no trust whatever in itself, and is strengthened in faith" (238).
John of the Cross is even more emphatic and advises that, for the Devil, the light of faith is worse than darkness.
When the soul is clothed in faith the Devil is ignorant of how to hinder it, neither is he successful in his efforts, for faith gives the soul strong protection against the Devil, who is the mightiest and most astute enemy. As a result, Saint Peter found no greater safeguard than faith in freeing herself from the Devil, when he advised "Cui resistite fortes in fidei"(1Peter 5:9). (Dark Night 376)
To foster the obscurity of pure faith, the spiritual director must be careful not to foster visions, locutions, prophecies, or other kinds of extraordinary phenomena. Although these phenomena are sometimes from God, they are more often from the Devil. For John of the Cross this danger was real. He understood that the Devil can present to the memory many false ideas under the guise of truth, making these ideas seem so certain that the soul thinks they cannot be false, but that what it feels is in accord with truth (Ascent 227).
The Devil and the State of Perfect Union with God
After spiritually purified souls reach the state of perfect union with God through love in the "seventh mansion", the diabolic temptations are over, and demons are afraid of them. "Nor did Aminadab appear", John says in the end of the Spiritual Canticle. Aminadab symbolizes the Devil, and in this state the soul is so favored, so strong and victorious that the Devil knows he has lost the battle. At this stage, the Devil flees in immense fear and does not venture to reappear. Teresa, also victorious, perceived that the Devil was terrified of her, but not she of the Devil: "[Devils] seem to be afraid of me. I have acquired an authority over them, bestowed upon me by the Lord of all, so that they are no more trouble to me; now they fly" (Life 242).
In this state, souls are transformed in God. They are divine by participation and possess Christ-like qualities. In them the Redeemer has defeated Satan and his kingdom of darkness. Teresa and John of the Cross struggled with demons, but in the end their victory -- and God's -- was complete.
Some Theological Reflections on Demons and the Mystics
Any valid doctrine concerning demons presupposes Faith, which presents to us the object of our belief -- in this case, demons. Just as we do not see God, we do not see demons. Any speculation on demons must be founded on sacred scripture, spiritual theology, and the experiences of saints.
1. Teresa and John of the Cross believe, through Faith, in the existence of demons. They could not doubt their existence. In addition, they experienced visions, locutions, apparitions, horrors, physical damage, temptations, and other manifestations of the demonic. Some saints are subjected to these unusual demonic interventions, as was the case of Ignatius of Loyola, and in modern times, the Cure d'Ars.
2. Demons are our adversaries, trying their utmost to hinder the journey of souls towards God. But demonic actions assume a special intensity, and are more subtle and stronger, when directed against advanced contemplative souls. These souls attract demons who desire to stop or at least slow down their progress towards God. The soul of a saint is the battle ground between good and evil, between God and demons. After the soul of a saint reaches the seventh mansion, however, diabolic activity comes to an end, and the demons are afraid of them.
3. Teresa and John of the Cross did not enjoy the benefit of our knowledge of psychology. But they were endowed with unusual discernment, and they knew that apparent demonic manifestations were often merely the result of mental illness or "melancholy." They also knew that demons use human weakness and adverse mental states as instruments for their temptations. Hence, it is not easy to discern when an apparent demonic temptation is merely psychological, and when it is both psychological and demonic.
Discernment is a prayerful process through which we try to discover God's desire for us in the circumstances of our lives. It is a way of listening to the voice of God in our experiences, in the scripture and in the church. Discernment is a means of sorting through the movements in our hearts and making the best choices among alternatives.
Because the Spanish mystics were aware of the difficulty often involved in detecting the demonic, they recommended prayer to overcome the Devil's "strength" as well as humility and recourse to God's light to discern the Devil's "deceits". And modern discernment of spirits cannot afford to ignore modern psychology, but an exclusively psychological approach to those who appear to be affected by demonic influence is incomplete, and should be complemented by prudent theological discernment. Saint Ignatius' rules for the discernment of spirits, for example, are a model of wisdom and experience. For advanced contemplative souls, the writings of Teresa and John of the Cross are very useful. In the Mountain, especially in book two, John of the Cross scrutinizes in detail the rules for the discernment of that which comes from God and that which comes from our own imagination or from the Devil. In some of the chapters of her Life and the Interior Castle, Teresa complements John of the Cross' analysis with her own acute observations (Mansion 6, ch. 7 and 8; cf. Mansion 4, ch. 2 and 3).
4. Some confessors were certain that Teresa was possessed and should be exorcised. They were, as Teresa called them, "half-learned men", who did her much harm. Theologians, like Pedro Ibanez, Domingo Banez, Alvarez de Toledo, and saints, like Peter of Alcantara and Francis of Borja, never deceived her.
Pedro Ibanez, a famous theologian, who commanded Teresa to write her Life, applied the rules of discernment of spirits to Teresa, and she passed the test in each of his eleven strict rules. Allison Peers had the good sense to include these rules, and how Ibanez applied them to Teresa in the third volume of his Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus (312-333). These rules are valid rules even in our times, for an authentic discernment of spirits presupposed the inspiration of the Spirit, as well as the help of a sound spiritual theology and a healthy psychology.
Naturally, any psychologist or theologian who a priori discards the existence of demons is not qualified to enlighten us on this problem, no matter how outstanding a scholar he or she may be. On the other hand, we must reject the work and writings of any modern theologian who ignores the benefits of psychology or finds demons in every neurosis.
As this article has attempted to demonstrate, a careful reading of Teresa and John of the Cross on demons may be profitable, particularly for Christians interested in contemplation and concerned with the discernment of spirits.
