With some of his younger followers, St. Ignatius Loyola founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus.
Whatever else may be said about Ignatian spirituality in the Spiritual Exercises, it involves an inward turn of consciousness for the Jesuits and other persons who make a 30-day retreat following the Spiritual Exercises.
Perhaps an inward turn of consciousness is characteristic of all the Western practices of spiritual exercises that Pierre Hadot discusses in his book Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, edited and with an "Introduction" by Arnold I. Davidson (pages 1-45); translated by Michael Chase (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1995; French second edition, 1987).
In any event, the inward turn of consciousness in making a 30-day retreat following the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola also involves paying close attention to interior movements in one's psyche. This process involves discernment of spirits. The discernment of spirits involves learning how to recognize and name movements of consolation and desolation within one's psyche. For specific standardized section numbers for discernment of spirits, consolation, and desolation, see Puhl's "Index" (pages 203, 201, and 202, respectively).
But the practice of discernment of spirits would be a waste of time if the persons making a 30-day retreat following the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola were not experiencing both consolation and desolation in their psyches. By definition, consolation is not desolation, and vice versa. Consequently, the presupposition is that the persons making a 30-day retreat will experience both consolation and desolation during the retreat.
However, the Ignatian practice of discernment of spirits is also supposed to be a practice to engage in when you are not making a 30-day retreat - or a shorter retreat. But the Ignatian practice of discernment of spirits presupposes that you are likely to experience both consolation and desolation in the ordinary course of your life.
Ignatieff appears to be trying to discern the spirit of consolation in the psyches of the persons he discusses. That's all fine and good.
Now, the Victorian Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) has articulated the depths of his experiences of desolation in his poems that literary critics refer to as the "terrible sonnets" - not because they are terrible poetry, but because they are about terrible interior experiences of desolation.
For a discussion of Hopkins' sonnets of desolation, see that American Jesuit Walter J. Ong's book Hopkins, the Self, and God (University of Toronto Press, 1986, pages 62 and 145-159), the published version of Ong's 1981 Alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.
Now, the personal subjective experience of consolation in your psyche involves the personal subjective experience in your psyche of what Martin Buber refers to as the Eternal Thou.
For further discussion of Buber's thought, see Rabbi Dennis S. Ross' new 2021 book A Year with Martin Buber: Wisdom on the Weekly Torah Portion (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press).
But also see my 1,400-word review essay "Rabbi Dennis S. Ross' 2021 Book A Year with Martin Buber, and Walter J. Ong's Thought" that is available online through the University of Minnesota's digital conservancy:
https://hdl.handle.net/11299/225595
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