The Cooling of the Passions
The ascetical classic on the Seven Fevers
The Cooling of the Passions is the great ascetical classic of Frostianity, attributed to Mother Aldis of the Silent Drift and the tradition of the Stillers. It maps the spiritual life as the cooling of the Seven Fevers — the warmths of the soul (pride, avarice, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy, sloth) — from their first kindling to their stilling, and the growth in their place of the Crystalline Virtues.
Teaching
Its counsel is gradual and gentle: the passions are cooled “not by violence, which only makes more heat, but by stillness,” through the hours of prayer, the prayer of stillness, fasting, and the slow habit of keeping. It is the standard guide of monastic formation and of devout laity, and the source of much Frostian spiritual vocabulary (“cooling,” “quieting,” “stilling”). Its refrain: “Be still, and the Cold will do the keeping.”