Two movements, not two moods
Ignatius describes in the Spiritual Exercises what he observed in himself. Reading tales of chivalry left him excited – and afterwards empty. Reading the lives of the saints left him excited too – and afterwards something remained. The difference lay not in the moment but in the aftermath.
Out of that came the rules for the discernment of spirits (SE 313–336). Their core is one question: where is this moving me?
Consolation (SE 316) is every interior movement in which the soul is inflamed with love of its Creator; tears of sorrow or of love belong to it, and every increase of faith, hope and love – everything that leads to quiet and peace in God.
Desolation (SE 317) is the counter-movement: darkness of soul, turmoil, an inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness, listlessness, the sense of being separated from God.
Neither says anything about your worth. Both are weather, not climate.
The rules that carry in daily life
Make no change (SE 318)
The most famous rule and the most useful. In desolation, hold to what you decided in better times. No resigning, no ending, no giving up.
The reason is sober: in desolation the bad spirit leads, and what it counsels nevertheless sounds reasonable. "It is not going to work anyway" feels in the dark like an insight. It is not one.
Act against it (SE 319)
If you change nothing, you may still do something – namely more, not less. More prayer, longer meditation, some work of penance. Exactly the opposite of what desolation advises.
It passes (SE 321)
Whoever is in desolation should remember that consolation will return – and whoever is in consolation should note how it feels, so as to have provisions for the next darkness (SE 323).
The bad spirit shuns being spoken out (SE 326)
Ignatius compares it to someone who needs secrecy. Once what troubles you is told to a spiritual director or confessor, it loses its power. That is not piety, that is experience.
The good spirit comes gently (SE 335)
In people who are seriously moving towards God, the good spirit acts like a drop of water entering a sponge – gently, lightly, without noise. The bad spirit acts sharply, with clatter, like a drop of water on stone. In people moving away from God it is the other way round.
How this is practised
It is practised in the Daily Examen. In the review of the day, the question is not only what happened, but how it was inside: where did I grow wide? Where narrow? Where did the narrowness come from?
At first you see little. After two or three weeks you notice that certain situations always trigger the same movement. After some months you know your own patterns – and that is the point at which discernment stops being a theory and becomes a tool.
What it is for
Ignatius builds his way of decision-making, the Election (SE 169–189), on these rules. The second of his three times of election consists in exactly this: reading, from the alternation of consolation and desolation over weeks, where things are going.
Whoever has never observed how he is inside has no material for that time. Which is why the Examen comes first and the decision later.
A limit to take seriously
Desolation in the Ignatian sense comes and goes. It has occasions, it has an end, and the rules apply.
What remains for weeks – listlessness, sleeplessness, the sense that nothing works any more, thoughts of not wanting to live – is not what is meant here, and spiritual advice will not improve it. That belongs in medical and therapeutic hands. In the UK and Ireland the Samaritans can be reached free at 116 123; in the US and Canada the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. If you are elsewhere, your local emergency number or a doctor is the right first call.
One does not exclude the other. But one does not replace the other either.