The Cloud of Unknowing

Uncommon card · No. 140122

The Cloud of Unknowing (Middle English: The Cloude of Unknowyng) is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is written as guide from a teacher to a student, with the message that God cannot be understood via reason or intellect, but only through love: “By love may He be gotten and holden, but never through thought.” To achieve this goal, the text recommends cultivation of two mental states: “The cloud of forgetting” (temporarily setting aside one’s knowledge and intellect), and “the cloud of unknowing” (God dwells beyond human understanding).

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