John of the Cross holds that God is desire and that union with God involves a meeting of human and divine desire, yet his negative theology programmatically negates desire on the spiritual journey. He describes the lack of satisfaction of desire as darkness and emptiness, which is the main manifestation of desire during spiritual transformation. The apparent opposition between human and divine desire is resolved through a gradual uncovering of what lies beneath the presenting experience of desire in the soul's constitution as a subject. Desire is transformed, but this transformation can be affirmed only at the level of the subject's transformation.
Mystical theology holds that human experience is central but not defining, because the experience is considered divine rather than merely human. After surveying current debates on mystical experience, the puzzling dual quality of the experience—fully human yet more than human—is explored through three historical figures: Augustine, Meister Eckhart, and Teresa of Avila. This dual, expansive character fosters growth into an enlarged capacity for seeing God as both immediately present and wholly other. The transformative process integrates key tensions between divine presence and absence, inner and outer knowing, spirit and body, and contemplative and active life. The perspective is reviewed with reference to the tradition of the 'spiritual senses'.