The three ways of the spiritual life

"This little book, presented in a form accessible to all spiritual souls, is in reality a synopsis of two larger works, which, however, it is not necessary to have read in order easily to understand what we have written here...Requests have reached us from several quarters for a brief outline of these two works, to set in clear relief the main principles of ascentical and mystical theology. We have not wished, however, simply to repeat what we had written elsewhere. Accordingly we intend to consider the whole subject from a point of view which is at once more simple and more subline, and to speak here of the three periods of the spiritual life, and in particular of the three conversions which constitute the beginning of each." [Foreword].