I don’t think Sweet has changed his spots really. Look at his choice
of words “energizing” and stuff like that. I am sure he is still for
contemplative spirituality. And that is dangerous even if you use all
the right words and preach the Gospel correctly. In Eastern Orthodox
monasticism where the Jesus Prayer is used, and also among those “in
the world” ditto there are sharp warnings about “prelest” (plani in
Greek) which is spiritual deception. This term covers everything from
a private “fancy” a personal perhaps secretly held delusion of some
sort, to major self deception, to demonic influence deception to outright
possession. One monk was persuaded to stop praying and just read books
by an “angel” who said he’d do his prayers for him. It took a while to
get him out of this. Another was tricked into worshipping a demon who
pretended to be Jesus. I think that was the incident that resulted in
possession, which wasn’t ended until his friends dragged him into a
church and threw him at the foot of the altar. These of course are extreme
situations. A monk reported to a priest that he used visualization in his
prayers, and was getting all sorts of visions and experiences. The priest
was horrified, especially on learning that a lot of monks on Mt. Athos
where I think this monk came from were doing the same. The priest advised
him to do his prayers without visualization, and the visions and experiences
stopped.

Visualization is a major part of Roman Catholic “spirituality” and an
excellent article on this notes that most if not all of the visionary
experiences of RC saints have all the earmarks of prelest.

Most importantly, is the error of contemplative prayer and lectio divina.
These are credited to the Desert Fathers, but in fact this is wrong, and
most people don’t even know this. What the early monks called contemplative
prayer was like what David called meditation in the Psalms, not emptying
the mind to have a blank slate, but emptying it of everything except the Bible passages you are contemplating or meditating on. Lectio divina (a
Latin term I don’t know what the Greek term is) was not about getting into
a mood, “soaking” in the Scripture bit maybe using it for a chant and then
you’re off to regular life. It was about reading the Scripture in order to
put it into practice.

The modern versions date to Roman Catholic monastics, who overreacted to the rationalism of scholasticism, which is not proper rationality, but the ancestor to the cult of reason among secularists and atheists of the “enlightenment.” Instead of moderating it, they went whole hog in the
other direction. Roman Catholicism as we know it is a product of the Middle Ages of western Europe (mostly), and the once Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome had been drifting for a few centuries into various practices at odds with
the undivided Church. this plus the filioque bore fruit in the Great Schism of AD 1054. While I do not think RC lost all grace as many Orthodox think, it definitely was quenching The Holy Spirit as St. PAul warns not to do.

The major prelest like developments were after this. Including the notion of the Immaculate Conception (as distinct from living an immaculate life), papal infallibility, and of course papal supremacy. Rome had primacy meaning first among equals, a primacy of honor, but (maybe Latin had a different
connotation for the word?) Rome tended to treat this as supremacy more and more. Rome’s primacy in the church came not from petrine considerations, but from political considerations. Rome was the first city of the empire, so they thought it should be first city (not of origin but of honor) in the Church.