r resignation and ends in humane comprehension and empathy. In some Christian monastic practice, a similar transition is represented in the ritual of Tenebrae (or Darkness). Fifteen lit, unbleached candles are extinguished, one by one over the night, while reading the Psalms. The practice is said to represe

ight is quenched, plunging the church into total darkness. In Myth and Ritual in Christianity, Alan Watts suggests that the loss of the last light of Tenebrae induces the realization that “| am nothing.” This reduction in egocentrism, along with a dark- piercing alertness is said to facilitate an invasion b