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Dark Night of the Soul (Spanish: La noche oscura del alma) is a treatise written by Spanish poet and Roman Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross. It has become an expression used to describe a phase in a person's spiritual life, a metaphor for a certain loneliness and desolation. It is referenced by spiritual traditions throughout the world.

Go here for more, and also a link at the bottom to the original poems in translation: Dark Night of Soul on Wiki

There are many interpretations of what he was actually referring to. Some believe the darkest moment of the soul is when you loose your faith.

In vampire lit there much is written about the tortured soul of the thinking and feeling vampire. In Buffy, Angel loved having a soul so much he feared losing it when having sex with the slayer. Spike had no such qualms.

Seems to me that just being a vampire and gaining superpowers and immortality would be enough to convince me there was a God. And if I had belief, then I would have faith, and don't the two of those work together to produce "Soul?"

What do you think is the Dark Night of the Soul for vampires?

Assuming they believe they had one before transformation, why would they think they'd lost it afterwards?

Is not the belief that the soul is our own very essence of life? The thing after it is dead is still the energy that holds or essence in memories and life.

So if this holds true, than as a vampire in death would he not still have his soul and the thoughts of his life as before.

Fascinating post Bloodmother, need to find out more about this...

Well, there is a belief that vampires are a form of angel; they were not given free choice and a soul in human terms. A lot of them were jealous of this and therefore drink the blood of the human as that is supposed to be where their soul resides. On the same thread a vamps soul is a direct conduit to the gods, they walk the earth so that the gods can learn more of humanity, like transistors. It’s just one of many theories.

I like that last one, slasherbat: "On the same thread a vamps soul is a direct conduit to the gods, they walk the earth so that the gods can learn more of humanity. . . "

Vampires as lesser gods makes sense to me.

Did you read this in a book --- fiction?

In response to Cadrewolf it is believed that the person that becomes a vampire is then soulless to be immortal. Though I don't think so because if they gave up their soul to become immortal then they wouldn't be able to die no matter what e.g., silver, stake to the heart. But you would have to ask a vampire. That’s just my opinion

Would their new powers indicate to them that there is not a god, but that they are the gods of the earth? Perhaps the soul is the price they pay to be immortal and it is an eternity of a dark night.

In my own personal experience, the dark night of the soul was the breaking point. when things were so desolate, so hopeless that it came the time to make a choice.
Mine happened when i was 18. I was at complete breaking point. i had one candle lit in my room, i had drank half a bottle of wine and it was about 4 oclock in the morning. I could not take my eyes off the sharpened Athame (wiccan ritual dagger) that i had on my alter.

a couple of months earlier, i had walked in on my fiance having sex with my mothers best friend on my couch.. a week after that, i miscarried the baby i was carrying.
things werent good.

A dark night of the soul is not something i would ever wish on any person. That was the most terrifying night of my life.
Im glad i made the right decision.

in the words of hamlet,
"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep"

Guinevere

Without darkness could we perceive light?

Without "night," would "day" have any significance?

I believe that the extremes of total darkness and total light (darkest night and brightest day) inform all of the states that lie between these extremes.

And like an alcoholic, a person who wants or needs to make a spiritual transition must generally "hit bottom" as illustrated in the moving personal description from SanguinePrincess. In order to be reborn (transformed) we must first die (experience the dark night of the soul).

With respect to what happens to a human soul after he/she is turned into a vampire, I see no inconsistency between immortality and having a soul. In fact, I believe that the soul is immortal whether or not the body is tranformed into a vampire or any other form.

If vampires lack souls, then what happens to the human's soul when he/she is turned? Is it destroyed? Is it freed to go to the next incarnation? Or does it just hang around in some vampire purgatory hoping that it's former body eventually gets staked by a vampire slayer?

I would think that the soul would remain with the body and be enriched by the experience of being a vampire, then move on when the body is destroyed. Otherwise, being a vampire would seem to be an existential dead end and the whole concept of vampires would be a lot less interesting.

Maybe it's the act of shedding blood, taking lives, trying to come to terms with the fear of one day facing judgement of some kind.

Yet what to do ? Without taking the blood/lives the vampire must die.

I imagine that trying to overcome those fears and trying to find the courage to do what is right in order to once again be beloved of God would bring about the dark night of the soul.

I think you're right Sinora, but that's only part of the vampire/human quandary.

The most interesting questions for me, and I don't separate my vampires from humans --- the vamps represent something deep and perilous in human questioning about existence.

The most interesting questions have to do with the nature of evil, doubt, free will, soul. Most writers have dealt with the last one by imagining the vampire as a lost soul. But when one examines burial beliefs, the notion of secondary burial crosses culture and time. Many societies buried their dead for 1-3 years, then dug them up and reburied them. Why?

They had a notion that death proceeded in 3 phases: Breath stops and you're dead, but the soul is still with you as long as flesh remains on the bones (wandering spirits). But once the flesh either fell away or was cleaned from the bones then the person was really dead and no longer had a soul.

Vampires must feed their flesh and in this belief system, their souls are therefore intact, which would make their suffering (if they are so inclined) all the more deep, especially since there is no end to it.

Darkst Time Of the Soul

comes when the mind is immbalanced with the hurt and sad, inner is immbalance with hurt and sad wich took the peace and serenity away, those night the person is sleeping in slept conscious and slept mind state, but soul is awaken with evrything in the body is hurt and those time you can clearly hear the loud hhmmmming sound of grief and dissatisfaction from that hurt person. I have experienced this sound in sleep hhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmm hhhuummmmmmm with each breathe very loudly and in morning when I asked that person about any thing in night he was thinking or viewingin the sleep, He did say noting he woke up very 5.30 am around sleeping at 12 midnight. this means he slept very nicely coz his eyes were fresh it was only me who did listen his voice of inner hurt late night for at least 2 hours and worried. his face in that night was very serious just like any justice is not satisfiedwith the happenings.

Bloodmother > Yes, that's right, though for a long time burning was popular too.

Then there is the question of a walk in the sun for the vampires, a sin to end a life, but what if that means more lives are saved by the vampires suicide ?

As far as I recall I have'nt read of any vampires taking their own lives for that reason, mainly it's the tedium of eternity.