As I have noted in the long perfection series and on the Doctors of the Church series, there are many levels of prayer in the teaching of the Catholic Church.
When I was in England, I discovered that some nuns were using the word "contemplation" incorrectly.
I have so many posts on prayer and the necessary understandings of the level, that I encourage readers to follow the labels at the side, or tags.
I shall put some links at the bottom, but this post is a warning.
Please take these notes seriously, as so many people fall into false teaching about contemplation and end up out of the Church.
Read, again, this Vatican document on the evils of New Age practices.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html
Warning Points again:
1) One must stay within the orthodoxy of the Church in order to attain holiness. If one is not orthodox, and especially, if one is hetrodox, one has opened one's self up for deception in prayer. The Church and Her Teaching protect us.
2) False, man-made religions cannot teach us anything good about contemplation, but the saints do-see all my posts on John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Siena, for example.
3) One must be purified in the senses and in the spirit before reaching the state of contemplation. Contemplation, again, is not mediation on the Scriptures or the Life of Christ. See other posts for definitions.
But, if one is not purfied and thinking that "emptiness" is the goal of contemplation, that person may very well be opening the soul and mind to demonic activity. Purification first, contemplation after, in the Illuminative State.
4) Christ is the center and reason for prayer, not us, not our well-being, nor even a sense of peace. Christ is the center of all our activities, including prayer.
I shall write more about this later in the week. Here are a few older links. The first one deals with an aspect of sin and responsibility. I suggest following the Dark Night posts as well.
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2012/07/answering-e-mail-query-on-sin-and.html
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2013/09/moving-through-six-levels-of-prayer.html
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2013/09/clarifications-on-prayer-part-one-first.html
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2013/11/repeat-post-on-prayer.html
