This page has three parts: Independent Biblical Identification, Cross-Entry Synthesis, and Observation Notes.
07-1906-09-02 Biblical Resonance Analysis
Volume 7 — September 2, 1906 “Luisa wants to do the accounts with Jesus. Jesus wants her to have no thought about herself.”
STAGE ONE — INDEPENDENT BIBLICAL IDENTIFICATION
Luisa’s Self-Examination — A Surprising Absence of Self-Knowledge
“I myself don’t know how I am; I make no reflection over myself… All my attention, instead, is on wanting You, on loving You, and on not offending You. As for the rest, I take nothing into account.”
Galatians 2:20 — “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.” The displacement of the “I” by Christ: Luisa’s inability to give an account of herself is the experiential form of this Pauline declaration. Where Christ lives, the “I” no longer occupies the center of self-consciousness. “I make no reflection over myself” because there is no longer a self at the center to reflect upon. Direct doctrinal parallel
2 Corinthians 3:18 — “But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.” Transformation occurring while the soul is wholly occupied with beholding the Lord — the transformation happens to the soul who is looking outward at God, not inward at herself. Luisa is being transformed while all her attention is on wanting, loving, and not offending. Direct doctrinal parallel
Isaiah 30:21 — “and when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” The interior voice that redirects Luisa when she begins to turn toward self-reflection — “Do you want to waste time? Think of doing your things with God” — is this guiding word that corrects at the precise moment of misdirection. Direct doctrinal parallel
The Little Child on the Father’s Knees — The Father-Child Imagery
“I keep you always on my knees, and so tightly as to give you no time to think about yourself. I hold you like a father holds his little child on his knees: he gives him now a kiss, now a caress; now he feeds him with his own hands.”
Psalm 131:1–2 — “A Song of Ascents. By David. LORD, my heart isn’t arrogant, nor my eyes lofty; nor do I concern myself with great matters, or things too wonderful for me. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” The weaned child — not nursing (demanding food) but already fed, resting in the mother’s presence without any need-agenda — is the Psalm’s own image for the soul’s advanced contemplative state. The weaned child does not occupy itself with itself; its entire being is rest and presence. This is Christ’s father-child imagery rendered in its Old Testament form. Direct doctrinal parallel
Matthew 18:2–3 — “Jesus called a little child to himself, and set him in the middle of them and said, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you turn and become as little children, you will in no way enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” The child as the paradigm of the kingdom’s greatest: not the self-sufficient grown-up who manages their own spiritual housekeeping but the one who receives everything from the Father’s hands. Direct doctrinal parallel
Deuteronomy 1:31 — “and in the wilderness where you have seen how that the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place.” The divine Father carrying the child — anticipating all needs, bearing the child when the child cannot bear itself. The child does not manage the journey; the Father manages it. Direct doctrinal parallel
Isaiah 46:3–4 — “Listen to me, house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, that have been carried from their birth, that have been carried from the womb. Even to old age I am he, and even to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear. Yes, I will carry, and will deliver.” The divine carrying as the constitutive relationship — not a temporary assistance but the permanent structure of the relationship between God and the one he has made. “I anticipate you in everything” is the Luisian form of “I will carry.” Direct doctrinal parallel
Isaiah 66:12–13 — “For the LORD says, “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream, and you will nurse. You will be carried on her side, and will be dandled on her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. You will be comforted in Jerusalem.” The maternal divine comfort applied to the child: the kisses, caresses, and rocking-to-sleep of the entry correspond to the intimacy of maternal comfort that Isaiah 66 names for God’s own relationship to the soul. Affective/meditative
Luke 15:20 — “He arose and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion, and ran, fell on his neck, and kissed him.” The father’s initiative: running, embracing, kissing — the father who does not wait for the child to fully arrive but anticipates the reunion. Christ’s “I anticipate you in everything” carries this same father-initiative structure: the need is met before it reaches full consciousness. Affective/meditative
Not Letting You Feel Yourself — The Grace of Self-Unconsciousness
“I keep you on my knees like a little daughter, and so intimately united with Me as to not let you feel yourself. I think and take care of all of you… you yourself do not perceive your needs.”
Colossians 3:3–4 — “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.” The life hidden with Christ — no longer visible as a distinct, self-perceiving life, subsumed into the life of Christ. The soul who “does not feel herself” is the one whose life is hidden: she is there, but she is not perceivable as a separate datum. Direct doctrinal parallel
Galatians 2:20 (paraphrase) — (as above) The “no longer I who live” is the doctrinal content of “not letting you feel yourself.” The “I” has been so thoroughly displaced by Christ that even the soul cannot locate herself by self-reflection. Direct doctrinal parallel
Song of Songs 2:6 — “His left hand is under my head. His right hand embraces me.” The embrace so complete that the beloved is entirely held — her own sense of herself dissolved in the closeness. The soul on the Father’s knees, held so tightly she cannot feel herself, is this image at its extreme. Affective/meditative
The Father Anticipates Everything — Prevenient Grace at Its Deepest
“I anticipate you in everything, in such a way that you yourself do not perceive your needs.”
Matthew 6:31–33 — “Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.” The Father who knows and provides before the asking: the entry takes this beyond the ordinary level of providential care — Christ anticipates needs even before Luisa perceives them, so that she does not even experience the need, only its satisfaction. Direct doctrinal parallel
Romans 8:26 — “In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered.” The Spirit interceding at the point where the soul cannot even articulate her need: the Father anticipates at a depth that precedes the soul’s own self-knowledge. “You do not perceive your needs” because the Father has already addressed them at the level below perception. Direct doctrinal parallel
Psalm 23:1 — “A Psalm by David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall lack nothing.” The soul who “shall not want” does not experience want — the shepherd has anticipated. The entry’s “you do not perceive your needs” is the interior form of what Psalm 23 declares positionally: I shall not want because the shepherd provides before the wanting reaches consciousness. Direct doctrinal parallel
The Grown-Up Children vs. the Little Child — Two Valid But Different Relations
“The other grown-up children take care of reordering the house, of cleaning themselves by themselves, and of all the other affairs.”
Romans 8:14–17 — “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom” The different modes of sonship: the grown-up children who manage themselves are not in a lesser relationship but a different one. The little child is not at a lower stage but at a qualitatively distinct mode of union — the Spirit of adoption at its most interior. Direct doctrinal parallel
1 Corinthians 13:11 — “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.” The entry inverts the developmental logic of this passage: in the mystical ascent, the return to childlike dependence is the advanced state, not the preliminary. The grown-up children who manage themselves are at a prior stage to the soul who has passed through self-management into childlike total dependence. Direct doctrinal parallel (inverted typology)
Self-Forgetfulness as Escape from Defects — The Grace of Protection
“By holding you intimately tight to Me, it is a grace that I give you, because you escape many, many defects, while if you had the thought of yourself – oh, into how many defects you would fall!”
Philippians 4:7 — “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.” The divine peace as the guard against the defects that self-reflection generates: the soul held by the Father is guarded by the peace that surpasses understanding — which is precisely the peace that exceeds the soul’s own self-knowledge. Direct doctrinal parallel
1 Corinthians 10:12 — “Therefore let him who thinks he stands be careful that he doesn’t fall.” Self-consciousness about one’s spiritual state carries the danger of pride and the defects that follow from it; self-forgetfulness in God removes the very platform on which those defects would arise. Direct doctrinal parallel
John 14:6 — “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” The Father as “the life of the little one” (as the entry says) has its scriptural identification here: Christ is the life, and the soul whose life is entirely in Christ has no remaining life from which defects could arise independently. Direct doctrinal parallel
STAGE TWO — COMPARISON WITH HOGAN’S COMMENTARY
CORRESPONDENCES
- Matthew 18:1–3 — Hogan cites this explicitly before the father-child section: “I want to give you a Matthew 18, verses 1 to 3, at the heading of the next paragraph.” Stage One independently identified Matthew 18:2–3 as the governing Gospel ground for the little-child imagery.
- Psalm 131 — Hogan cites explicitly: “A weaned child on its mother’s lap is Psalm 131.” Stage One independently identified Psalm 131:1–2 as the primary Psalm parallel.
- John 14:6 — Hogan cites: “John 14:6, I am the way, the truth and the life” for “the father is the life of the little one.” Stage One independently identified John 14:6.
DEVIATIONS
No significant deviations at the shared passages; Hogan’s Matthew 18 and Psalm 131 are used in the same register as Stage One.
ADDITIONS — MINE
- Galatians 2:20 — “no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”; the doctrinal ground of the soul’s self-invisibility to herself
- 2 Corinthians 3:18 — transformation occurring while beholding, not while self-examining
- Isaiah 30:21 — interior word redirecting when the soul turns aside
- Deuteronomy 1:31 — the LORD carrying his son through the wilderness; father who bears the child
- Isaiah 46:3–4 — carried from the womb; “I will carry and will save”; the permanent carrying relation
- Isaiah 66:12–13 — as one whom his mother comforts; maternal divine intimacy
- Luke 15:20 — father running and kissing; anticipatory father initiative
- Colossians 3:3–4 — life hidden with Christ in God; the soul not perceivable as a separate datum
- Song of Songs 2:6 — left hand under my head; the embrace so complete the self dissolves
- Matthew 6:31–33 — Father who knows and provides; anticipation before the asking
- Romans 8:26 — Spirit interceding at the level below articulation; prevenience at its deepest
- Psalm 23:1 — I shall not want; the shepherd who anticipates the wanting
- Romans 8:14–17 — different modes of sonship; grown-up children vs. little child
- 1 Corinthians 13:11 — inverted: in mystical ascent, the return to childhood is the advanced state
- Philippians 4:7 — peace of God guarding hearts and minds; the grace of protection in self-forgetfulness
- 1 Corinthians 10:12 — the one who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall; self-consciousness as a danger-platform
ADDITIONS — HERS
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Divine will vs. beginner’s spirituality: Hogan articulates a key distinction: examination of conscience is appropriate for beginners “still fighting sin,” but those living in divine will have passed to a different mode where self-examination is both unnecessary and counterproductive. “Divine will spirituality is not a beginner’s spirituality.” The implicit scriptural ground is 1 Corinthians 13:11 (giving up childlike ways — inverted) and Romans 8:14–17 (the Spirit of adoption vs. the spirit of slavery / fear). This pastoral distinction is Hogan’s most significant independent theological contribution to this entry.
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Scrupulosity as excessive self-focus: Hogan identifies scrupulosity explicitly as “too much reflection on me” — self-centered rather than God-centered. The soul’s peace in the entry is contrasted with the scrupulosity of the saints (including Therese of Lisieux). The implicit scriptural ground is Philippians 4:7 (peace surpassing understanding) and Romans 8:15 (Spirit of adoption producing not fear but “Abba, Father”).
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Forward bridge — higher-volume crisis: Hogan notes: “In later volumes, when Luisa gets herself into a momentary crisis, she says, ‘but I can feel myself, this is terrible.‘” The soul’s self-consciousness re-emerging momentarily in higher volumes is experienced as a crisis precisely because September 2 has established its absence as the normal state. This is a prospective annotation pointing to specific higher-volume content.
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“Nothingness” pastoral development: Hogan develops the theological significance of self-forgetfulness as “getting into your nothingness so that he can act in a sovereign way.” This is the mystical-theological anthropology underlying the entry — the soul’s reduction to nothingness as the precondition of divine sovereignty in the soul’s life.
VIP / SPECIAL DESIGNATIONS
VIP #40. Hogan designates this entry explicitly as VIP. The elevated content: Christ’s extended father-child imagery with the revelation that the soul’s self-forgetfulness is not a spiritual deficiency but the highest form of union — the grace of “not letting you feel yourself,” which is the experiential form of Galatians 2:20’s “no longer I who live.”
STAGE TWO SYNTHESIS
The entry is among the most psychologically and mystically dense in Volume 7. Its doctrinal center is the theology of self-forgetfulness as the advanced form of union: not the introductory stage of self-examination and scrupulosity but the consummated stage of total dependence and divine anticipation. The governing biblical imagination is Psalm 131 (the weaned child on the mother’s lap — Hogan’s explicit citation) and Galatians 2:20 (no longer I who live — Stage One’s primary Pauline identification), with Colossians 3:3–4 (life hidden with Christ) providing the ontological ground and Deuteronomy 1:31 / Isaiah 46:3–4 the carrying-Father imagery. Matthew 18:2–3, cited by both Stage One and Hogan, anchors the child-paradigm. The three Hogan-cited passages (Matthew 18:1–3; Psalm 131; John 14:6) are each independently confirmed by Stage One, suggesting the convergence is robust. Hogan’s pastoral distinction between beginner-spirituality (self-examination, examination of conscience) and divine-will-spirituality (total self-forgetfulness in God) is the entry’s most important theological contextual contribution.
Cross-Entry Synthesis
Volume 7 — September 2, 1906 “Luisa wants to do the accounts with Jesus. Jesus wants her to have no thought about herself.”
VIP #40 — Hogan designation
The Surprising Absence — Self-Ignorance as the Symptom of Union
The entry opens with Luisa’s discomfort. Preparing for death on a day of retreat, she attempts to “do the accounts” — to examine her spiritual state — and discovers she cannot. She does not know if she is cold, warm, or dry; she has no material for examination; an interior voice actively redirects her from self-reflection: “Do you want to waste time? Think of doing your things with God.” What she reports with a tone of apology turns out to be precisely the condition Christ will confirm and name as grace.
The contrast Luisa draws is theologically sharp: the saints she has read all reflect on themselves, measure their spiritual temperature, examine their confessions, and are “shy, agitated and scrupulous.” She is none of these things. Her attention is entirely on “wanting You, on loving You, and on not offending You.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 frames the dynamic: “beholding the glory of the Lord, being transformed into the same image.” Transformation happens to the soul who is looking outward at God, not inward at herself. The self-examination tradition tracks the soul’s progress by introspection; the transformative tradition effects the progress through contemplative attention. Luisa has passed from the first to the second — which is why she has nothing to report about herself.
Isaiah 30:21 provides the scriptural form of the interior redirecting voice: “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” The moment Luisa turns toward self-reflection, the guiding word corrects. The correction is not a prohibition but a stage-marker: she has moved beyond the territory where self-examination is appropriate, and the Spirit does not permit regression.
The Father-Child Imagery — The Most Extended in the Corpus
Christ’s response unfolds in the most extended father-child imagery in Volume 7, and arguably in the corpus to this point. “I hold you like a father holds his little child on his knees: he gives him now a kiss, now a caress; now he feeds him with his own hands; and if inadvertently the little child gets dirty, the father himself takes care of cleaning him.” The scriptural ground is Psalm 131:1–2 — Hogan’s explicit citation and Stage One’s primary Psalm identification:
“I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
The weaned child is the key: not the nursing child who demands food at intervals, but the child already weaned — fed and content, needing nothing immediately, present to the parent simply because of the relationship. The weaned child does not have a needs-agenda. Its entire being is rest and presence. Psalm 131’s first verse establishes the disposition: “my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” The self-examination, the spiritual temperature-taking, the examination of whether one confessed well or badly — these are “things too great” for the weaned child to manage. She rests on the parent’s lap and lets the parent manage them.
Deuteronomy 1:31 (“the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son”) and Isaiah 46:3–4 (“I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save”) establish that the carrying is not temporary assistance but the constitutive structure of the relationship. The father does not set the child down when the road gets easy; the carrying is permanent, the child’s portion is always to be carried. Matthew 18:2–3’s dominical declaration — “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” — is both Stage One’s and Hogan’s confirmation that this childhood is not developmental infancy but the kingdom’s highest form.
1 Corinthians 13:11’s normal developmental logic — “when I became a man, I gave up childlike ways” — is here inverted. In the mystical ascent, the advanced state is the return to childhood, not its abandonment. The “grown-up children” who “take care of reordering the house, of cleaning themselves by themselves” are in a valid but prior stage — they have graduated to self-management, which is genuine progress; but Luisa has passed through self-management into the childlike total dependence that is beyond it.
Not Letting You Feel Yourself — The Grace Named
“I keep you on my knees like a little daughter, and so intimately united with Me as to not let you feel yourself.” This is the entry’s most distinctive doctrinal formulation, and the content Hogan flags for higher-volume resonance. The intimacy is so complete that Luisa cannot locate herself by self-reflection. She is there — she is not annihilated — but she is not perceivable as a distinct datum. Colossians 3:3–4 is the governing Pauline ground: “Your life is hidden with Christ in God.” The hidden life is not absent but invisible — invisible even to the soul herself, subsumed in the life of Christ.
Galatians 2:20 provides the complementary declaration: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” The displacement of the “I” by Christ is the doctrinal content of “not letting you feel yourself.” Luisa’s inability to give a spiritual account of herself is not ignorance or negligence but the accurate report of one whose “I” has been so thoroughly re-centered in Christ that the original “I” no longer occupies the foreground of consciousness. Hogan notes that in higher volumes, when Luisa momentarily recovers self-consciousness, she says “but I can feel myself, this is terrible” — because September 2 has established self-forgetfulness as the normative state, and its interruption is experienced as loss.
The Father Anticipates — Prevenient Grace at Its Deepest Register
“I anticipate you in everything, in such a way that you yourself do not perceive your needs.” This is PGD-1 (Prevenient Grace Discernment) at its deepest register in the corpus. The anticipation is not merely prior to the asking — it is prior to the perceiving. The soul does not experience need, only its satisfaction; the Father has addressed the need at a level below the soul’s own perceptual floor.
Matthew 6:31–33’s “your heavenly Father knows that you need them all” is the general promise; September 2 discloses its mystical form: for the soul on the Father’s knees, the knowing precedes even the soul’s own experience of want. Romans 8:26 approaches this from the pneumatological side: “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” The Father’s anticipation and the Spirit’s intercession operate below the threshold of the soul’s self-knowledge — which is why the soul on the Father’s knees does not need to examine herself. The examination has already been conducted at a depth she cannot reach; the cleaning, feeding, and clothing have already been done.
Psalm 23:1 — “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want” — is the classic summary: the soul “shall not want” not because her wants are being satisfied as they arise, but because the shepherd has structured her situation so that want itself does not fully form. This is the experiential correlate of the father-child image: the child on the father’s knees is in “I shall not want” as a continuous present state.
Self-Forgetfulness as the Protection Against Defects
“By holding you intimately tight to Me, it is a grace that I give you, because you escape many, many defects, while if you had the thought of yourself — oh, into how many defects you would fall!” The mechanism is precise: self-consciousness is the platform on which defects arise — pride, anxiety, scrupulosity, comparison, and the various self-referential distortions that come with sustained introspection. The soul held so tightly she cannot feel herself has no such platform. She escapes the defects not by resisting them but by being unavailable to them.
Philippians 4:7 names this guard: “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The peace that surpasses understanding precisely cannot be accessed by understanding; the self-examination that is “beyond” Luisa would only disrupt the guarding peace. 1 Corinthians 10:12 — “let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” — identifies the danger of self-referential confidence: the very act of monitoring one’s standing creates the conditions for the fall. The soul who does not think about whether she stands escapes this particular dynamic entirely.
Synthesis — VIP #40
The dominant biblical imagination is the convergence of Psalm 131 (the weaned child — Hogan’s citation and Stage One’s primary Psalm identification), Galatians 2:20 (no longer I who live — Stage One’s primary Pauline identification), and Colossians 3:3–4 (life hidden with Christ). Matthew 18:2–3, cited by both Stage One and Hogan, anchors the child-paradigm in the dominical tradition.
The three findings of most theological significance:
First, the theology of self-forgetfulness as the advanced mystical state — not remedial absence of self-knowledge but the consummated state of union in which the “I” has been so thoroughly re-centered in Christ that it is no longer perceivable from the inside. This is the September 2 contribution to the corpus: not that Luisa is deficient in self-knowledge, but that self-knowledge at this stage of union would be regression. The grown-up children who manage themselves are in a prior stage; the little child who cannot feel herself is beyond them.
Second, PGD-1 at its deepest register. The Father’s anticipation is not merely prior to asking but prior to perceiving. The soul does not experience need — she experiences only the satisfaction of needs she never consciously registered. This is the terminal form of PGD-1’s initiative principle: grace operating below the threshold of the soul’s own perception.
Third, Hogan’s forward bridge to higher-volume content. The crisis in later volumes where Luisa says “I can feel myself, this is terrible” is the negative confirmation of September 2’s theology: the self-forgetfulness is the normative state, and its interruption is experienced as loss. This confirms that “not letting you feel yourself” is not a temporary gift but the intended permanent condition of the soul in divine will — which elevates September 2 to an architectural entry in the formation arc.
Observation Notes
See this note in volume context →
07-1906-09-02
VIP #40: Hogan designates September 2 as VIP. Elevated content: Christ’s extended father-child imagery disclosing the grace of self-forgetfulness — “I keep you on my knees… so intimately united with Me as to not let you feel yourself” — as the consummated form of union in divine will, not a deficiency. VIP count through Batch 19: #40.
DPS-1 — consummated form: September 2 is DPS-1’s most developed statement to this point: the peace-going-deeper doctrine now reaches its terminal form as the grace of “not feeling oneself.” The explicit contrast with scrupulosity and self-examination — “neither fears, nor scruples, nor agitations” — and Hogan’s framing of scrupulosity as “too much reflection on me” confirm DPS-1’s direction. Psalm 131 (weaned child) and Galatians 2:20 (no longer I who live) are the governing anchors. Both cited independently by Stage One; Psalm 131 also cited by Hogan.
PGD-1 — deepest register in the corpus: “I anticipate you in everything, in such a way that you yourself do not perceive your needs.” PGD-1’s prevenient-grace principle reaches a new depth: the Father’s anticipation is prior not only to asking but to perceiving. The soul does not experience need; she experiences only its satisfaction. Matthew 6:31–33 and Romans 8:26 as governing anchors.
Forward bridge — higher-volume “I can feel myself” crisis: Hogan notes: “In later volumes, when Luisa gets herself into a momentary crisis, she says, ‘but I can feel myself, this is terrible.‘” The recovery of self-consciousness in higher volumes is experienced as loss, confirming September 2’s self-forgetfulness as the normative state of the soul in divine will. Watching for this specific crisis in higher volumes.