For if those who mean to become contemplatives, spiritual and inward looking, reckon they ought to hear, smell, see, taste, or feel spiritual things in external visions or in the depth of their being, they are seriously misled, and are working against the natural order of things. For the natural order is that by the senses we should gain our knowledge of the outward, material world, but not thereby acquire our knowledge of things spiritual. (p. 145)
... because they are without grace, and are proud and spiritually inquisitive they strain their whole nervous system in untutored, animal ways, and ... they get (and deserve to get, because of their spiritual obtuseness and the physical irritation caused by the pretended work of the spirit - in fact, of course, it is animal) an unnatural glow within themselves, caused by the abuse of their bodies, or their sham spirituality. Or again, they experience a spurious warmth, engendered by the fiend, their spiritual enemy through their pride, and materialism, and spiritual dabbling.
These beguiling, false experiences and this false knowledge have as many different and surprising varieties as there are temperaments and states to be deceived. (pp. 113-114)
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