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Gnosticism & Christian Mysticism

The Cloud of Unknowing

by Anonymous

An anonymous Middle English guide to contemplative prayer written in the late fourteenth century. The author instructs a young disciple to set aside images and concepts beneath a cloud of forgetting and to reach toward God through a simple, loving intent that pierces the cloud of unknowing. A classic of apophatic mysticism, it is widely read in modern translations and is important for understanding the medieval English contemplative tradition and its practical approach to prayer.

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