The “Mystical Night” according to Saint Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, and Other Eastern and Western Mystics

Abstract

"Night" is a privileged term in the lexicon of the mystics and it has various meanings. There is an intimate communion among all mystical experiences. The article examines the different modalities of the "night" symbol in the texts of both the Spanish mystics of the Golden Age and those of the Sufis. Our objective is to evince the complexity and ambiguity of the night in relation to the Eros-Thanatos dualism.