The early ascetics, who made elaborate preparations for dealing with temptations, got as an inevitable result plenty of temptations with which to deal.

A sounder method is taught by the mystics.

"When thoughts of sin press on thee," says "The Cloud of Unknowing," "look over their shoulders seeking another thing, the which thing is God."[118] These laws of suggestion, taken together, all seem to point, one way.
They exhibit the human self as living, plastic, changeful; perpetually modified by the suggestions pouring in on it, the experiences and intuitions to which it reacts.

Every thought, prayer, enthusiasm, fear, is of importance to it.

Nothing leaves it as it was before.