That is what is so great about being still in mind as Roy teaches and I am sure Jesus practiced...the dark thoughts are not us at all and we do not share it’s guilt, unless we play with them and entertain them. The church has so little understanding now and it is sad. Jesus told his disciples to pray...pray literately means to examine oneself. When you examine anything, you look at it deeply, watching for what is to be seen. Being still is the lost art of silent prayer and it apparently took a Jew to rediscover it in these last days.
No, it is not mental technique. You say not to intellectualize faith, but always you reduce it to an intellectual exercise, one which I have been through and encountered great evil along the way. Shutting down the conscious mind drops God-given defenses to the intrusion of principalities and powers at the most vulnerable level of our hearts. It is a grave mistake to set aside the mind God gave us. It is how God made us, with both reason and spirit, working together, not separately. It is the reason God gave the churches to have a teaching ministry. What was the final command of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel? To make disciples through teaching observance of all that Christ taught. It may seem harder to tackle some of those thornier teaching issues, easier just to convince oneself at an emotional level that nirvana is within reach. But the opposite is true. Self deception is always harder in the end. Trust God. Learn the teaching of the word of God. Do the things you learn. God will show you what real freedom looks like.