In yesterday's posting I wrote about the first of the 2 dark nights that St. John of the Cross wrote about in his book, The Dark Night of the Soul. Now I'll give a little spiritual direction about the second dark night, "the dark night of the spirit."
Let me preface this description of this kind of spiritual darkness by saying that very few people undergo this dynamic. So, relax, chances are that it is not you who will go through this experience. It is reserved for those whom the Lord chooses and is only given to those who are not only proficient at prayer, but are faithful to love of neighbor and to daily prayer, and are well on the way to sainthood. 
Mother Teresa went though this as is described the collection of her private writings recently published as Mother Theresa: Come Be My Light.
In the "dark night of the spirit" the person experiences the withdrawal of all internal and external support for believing in God. Gone are the consolations of faith, gone are the sureties that faith can give, gone are the delights of communion with God, and mysteriously gone are the usual persons who ordinarily are very supportive. The soul is left alone by God, like Jesus on the cross crying out, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" The project for the soul is to believe, anyway. It is an invitation to naked faith. It is an extremely difficult stage of spiritual growth and is frequently described by those who experience it as like doing your purgatory on earth.
A good book to read about this is Mystical Theology: The Science of Love by William Johnston, SJ.
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