The 14th-century work of Christian mysticism, “The Cloud of Unknowing,” represents the first expression in English of that great mystic tradition of the Christian Neoplatonists that combined the spiritual wisdom of the ancient world with Christianity. The anonymous author, a cloistered monk, is not priggish, nor is it his goal to inculcate an excessively holy attitude on his readers. What, then, is the purpose?
Two works will be introduced under this theme of the “two ends of knowledge.” The first, a 14th century text known as The Cloud of Unknowing, will be discussed and analyzed in this installment. The second, the better-known 6th century text, Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy, will be the topic of my next essay. These texts have struck me as fitting together nicely in their themes, but also contrasting one another significantly in how they present the role of knowledge in Christianity. This topic that each work treats—Christianity and knowledge—renders chronological sequence unnecessary, moreover. So, let’s begin with the later, and probably lesser-known, book.
We seldom come across a piece of literature that has remained anonymous over the years. Even more rarely do we read works by anonymous authors. Perhaps that is why the 14th century work of Christian mysticism, The Cloud of Unknowing, has remained relatively unknown. There is no name tied to the text by which to remember it, after all. There are conjectures, of course, over who might have authored the book, but without any definitive conclusions. Not that this uncertainty matters: As a guide on prayer and contemplation the work’s authorship becomes less relevant, one might even say completely unnecessary. Its anonymity is more of an advantage than it is a setback, since we as readers come in without any expectations of the author given the absence of any literary history. Before engaging with the text, however, I want to introduce the work with some brief history.
The English Anglo-Catholic writer on mysticism and known pacifist, Evelyn Underhill, always took an interest in this text and even wrote an introduction to the work in which she notes how “English lovers of mysticism” should take more interest in The Cloud of Unknowing because “it represents the first expression in our own tongue of that great mystic tradition of the Christian Neoplatonists” that combined “the spiritual wisdom of the ancient world” with Christianity.[1] Underhill tells us that nothing is known about the author of the work except that he was a “cloistered monk devoted to the contemplative life.”[2] This fact should not influence our impression of the text or its author, however: That he was a cloistered monk might make us think of the text as overly pious, but Underhill remarks that the monk still demonstrates “lighter passages” that betray the author’s humorous nature. This writer is not priggish, then; nor is it his goal to inculcate an excessively holy attitude on his readers. What, then, is the purpose?
Consider the title. The emphasis on “unknowing” indicates an attitude that requires letting go of our knowledge, or at least setting it aside for the purposes of contemplation. Contemplation, after all, is more than mere thinking. Underhill contrasts the “strange sensations, the confusion and bewilderment of the beginner in the early stages of contemplation” with “the unfortunate state of those theoretical mystics” who are prideful in their contemplation and more focused on study.[3] Her point might be easy to miss: Contemplation is never a simple task, especially at first, but even professional, theoretical mystics still undertake contemplation with the wrong intentions. As a result, we might say that The Cloud of Unknowing is both an introduction to contemplation for those who have never partaken in the exercise, and also a corrective text that aims to remind “experts” of the true aims of contemplation. In one sense, this book does not impose scholarly weight to the project of contemplation. Underhill reminds us that the author of this text does possess the requisite knowledge for his position. He is a skilled theologian who quotes St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and uses scholastic language, all of which establish his knowledge beyond doubt.[4] That said, these influences come forth naturally and unforced; they are not meant to add scholarly weight to his writings and they are not meant to serve as an added motivation for the reader. The author is clear on his belief that contemplation is not only natural, but strictly a relationship between the individual and God. Understood in this way, “unknowing” becomes a momentary form of removal from the world and from other relationships to focus on the bigger (and higher) picture.
Another concept of the title is important to articulate. It was mentioned at the beginning of this essay that The Cloud of Unknowing discusses a theme, among others, of Christianity and knowledge. The title might seem contradictory, then: How does unknowing result in some form of knowledge? The answer is partly found in the process of unknowing, but this process is not the same as Socratic ignorance. Many readers of The Cloud of Unknowing read the concept of unknowing through the tradition of Dionysian via negativa, or apophasis; that is, describing and aiming to understand the nature of God through negative statements. This approach is certainly correct, but “unknowing” plays a bigger role beyond apophatic theology. As the author writes in Chapter 3: Contemplation begins with a “darkness” that resembles “a cloud of unknowing,” in which the individual does not know what this darkness is except through his will to approach God. The author peculiarly describes this darkness as a place where the individual can have a personal relationship with God. Darkness, in other words, is synonymous with unknowing: One needs that darkness in order to unknow, and knowledge arises therein.
We can gather, therefore, that darkness does not possess the negative connotation with which we might instinctively attribute it. Instead, darkness provides a form of seclusion and silence. As the author writes,
For when I say darkness, I mean a lacking of knowing: as all that thing that thou knowest not, or else that thou hast forgotten, it is dark to thee; for thou seest it not with thy ghostly eye. And for this reason it is not called a cloud of the air, but a cloud of unknowing, that is betwixt thee and thy God.[5]
This passage is important in order to understand the rest of The Cloud of Unknowing. It provides us with a reference for the author’s own concept of knowledge. The monk tells us that the form of knowing he has in mind is more similar to a “lacking of knowing” because in both cases we must be in the dark. This darkness is a metaphor that reinforces the fact that this form of knowledge transcends primary sensory experience. It cannot be seen, we are told. For this reason, unknowing requires establishing a comfort with “darkness,” with being deprived of sensory experience. Apart from this comfort, we are also told that the act of unknowing—which is a deliberate avoidance or ignoring of one’s knowledge—is similar to the genuine ignorance or forgetting. We might wonder about the need for such radical unknowing, as it sounds similar to Descartes’s hyperbolic doubt. Yet, this form of unknowing is not skepticism aimed at obtaining some form of “empirical” evidence about knowledge. In other words, the author is not telling us to forget as an exercise that, hypothetically, should lead towards knowledge. He is telling us that we know we are in that necessary darkness for contemplation—the cloud of unknowing—when we experience that same feeling of ignorance or forgetting. In the Cartesian case, the process is meant to be hypothetical with an aim of knowledge acquisition. In the mystic case, the process requires a partaking in something that is already natural, already innate, which is accessing this space where we know nothing and are therefore open to anything. The former is still empirical (i.e. aimed at deriving knowledge), the latter is introspective in a higher sense. Such is the distinctiveness about mysticism.
The undeniable mystic nature of The Cloud of Unknowing warrants more explanation about what it means for a book to be a work of mysticism. Doing so will also help us better understand this difference between hyperbolic doubt for the sake of empirical knowledge and forgetting for the sake of unknowing. For clarification on this point, we can again look to Evelyn Underhill, who was a scholar on the topic, after all. In the introduction to her book titled Mysticism, Underhill describes it the following way:
The most highly developed branches of the human family have in common one peculiar characteristic. They tend to produce—sporadically it is true, and often in the teeth of adverse external circumstances—a curious and definite type of personality; a type which refuses to be satisfied with that which other men call experience, and is inclined, in the words of its enemies, to “deny the world in order that it may find reality.” We meet these persons in the east and the west; in the ancient, mediaeval, and modern worlds. Their one passion appears to be the prosecution of a certain spiritual and intangible quest: the finding of a “way out” or a “way back” to some desirable state in which alone they can satisfy their craving for absolute truth.[6]
Notice Underhill’s remark about experience. Experience relays information; yet, “sporadically” and as the result of “adverse external circumstances,” all societies produce a personality for whom experience is not enough. The stories and testaments of others is not enough. As a result, this personality is inclined to “find reality” for itself. This task is indicative of the prevalence of contemplation for thinkers of all cultural traditions (Underhill is clear that this phenomenon is not Western only). Part of this mystic undertaking becomes an extension of the individual’s mind.
How does the author of The Cloud of Unknowing describe mysticism, however? While he does directly describe mysticism, his language implies the tradition clearly. What motivates a person to seek this type of connection to God begins with what the author calls a “sharp and clear beholding of thy natural wit, printed in thy reason within thy soul.”[7] This desire, moreover, is not one to be feared or doubted, since it is “a beam of the likeness of God.”[8] Two elements are worth pointing out in this description. The first is that while mystic contemplation requires an unknowing—a dispense of reason—the desire to do so originates in reason and in the soul. This point cannot be stressed enough, for the author is telling us that contemplation is not only salutary, but a part of our nature—a point which Boethius articulates, albeit in a different way, which we will see in the next essay installment. The second point builds on the first: The reason why contemplation originates in reason and in the soul is because both our reason and souls are elements that form part and are smaller mirrors of God’s existence. A key takeaway from these two points is the centrality of God in knowledge. This fact can—and indeed, has been—forgotten throughout history. For this reason, mystic contemplation provides a viable alternative, since it reminds us of the limits of knowledge by requesting an acceptance of ignorance for contemplation, which is a prevalent theme throughout The Cloud of Unknowing. As the author writes, “love may reach to God in this life, but not knowing.”[9] The meaning of this phrase instills the message of contemplation: contemplation leads to exercising our love for God, it does not necessarily result in greater knowledge.
Another question that might arise from the above conclusion with regards to contemplation is: Why should that be enough? If contemplation is an exercise that leads towards love of God (some say unity with God), why should this exercise suffice our curious minds and busy lives? Is contemplation worth it, in other words? Our monk certainly believes so. To explain why, we might look at his distinction between the “active life” and the “contemplative life.” The active life refers to physical labor or any form of physical activity, while the contemplative life is all about the mind. The active life and contemplative life each have two forms, he tells us: One higher and one lower. The lower part of the active life consists of “bodily works of mercy and of charity.”[10] The “higher” part of active live coincides with the lower part of contemplative life, which consists of “goodly ghostly meditations…”[11] And, finally, the higher part of contemplation consists in what the author calls the cloud of unknowing: “a loving, stirring and a blind beholding unto the naked being of God Himself only.” The author continues:
In the lower part of active life a man is without himself and beneath himself. In the higher part of active life and the lower part of contemplative life, a man is within himself and even with himself. But in the higher part of contemplative life, a man is above himself and under his God.[12]
This is all well and good. But we have not yet answered why this exercise is necessary, even worthwhile. The answer, however, lies in the author’s discussion of the contemplative life. In order to become this “loving” of God, contemplation requires what can be described as nothing other than imagination and wonder, those two qualities that have always withstood the test of time and continue to testify on behalf of man’s connection to something greater. Both of these faculties belong to the mind, though they are largely inspired by our physical world. The significance of imagination and wonder, however, is that they keep us looking (and hoping) beyond this world. As our monk tells us:
And all the whiles that the soul dwelleth in this deadly body, evermore is the sharpness of our understanding in beholding of all ghostly things, but most specially of God, mingled with some manner of fantasy; for the which our work should be unclean. And unless more wonder were, it should lead us into much error.
The passage is not simple to understand from just one read. Several things stand out and are worth mentioning. The first is the monk’s emphasis on our imminent death by reminding us of our “deadly body.” However, there is a warning embedded in the phrases that follow. The existence of the soul in this deadly body produces a desire for contemplation that may, perhaps, get “mingled with some manner of fantasy,” but this result, we are told, would leave the process of contemplation “unclean” and would lead to “error”; that is, unless we fill this process with more wonder. Our ability to understand the beholding of “all ghostly things” requires overcoming, then, a difference between fantasy and wonder.
It is easy to jump from one to the other. By marking this distinction between fantasy and wonder, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing is telling us how keenly aware he is of this tendency to confusing the two. To be fair, articulating the difference between fantasy and wonder requires some thought. Indeed, these two words are often viewed as synonyms, which is why people who poke fun at religion tend to describe it as a form of fantasy and not one of wonder. Fantasy, however, implies a type of folly on behalf of the person who wishes to practice contemplation. This folly is the result of believing in something that, according to the critic, does not exist. It is an escape, as we often hear.
The problem with fantasy, however, is that it implies and accepts this fact: That what one escapes to is not real. Fantasy, moreover, implies closed knowledge. One escapes into this fantasy because one knows what is to be found there. This, of course, is not contemplation, much less religious faith. Wonder, a requisite for faith, is necessarily open-ended. Wonder can hardly be a source of escape since it is largely inspired and derived from our own world and ourselves. Partaking in wonder on this earth, then, is partaking in something innate and imminent. It cannot be an escape, since the person practicing contemplation does not know to what he is escaping; only that contemplation leads one elsewhere, beyond this world. This last bit is what doesn’t sit well for the critic, hence the label of fantasy. That said, when we view it an escape to something that is already a part of us, it appears less like fantasy.
Viewing contemplation in such a way requires, of course, a leap of faith. This form of meditation appears to us more and more as silly in today’s world, increasingly devoid of wonder. The striking fact, however, is that in the Middle Ages and before, in all parts of the world and across all the different cultures and religions, contemplation was a part of daily life. In other words, people perhaps did not contemplate daily, but it was viewed as a salutary exercise to do often. As Underhill tells us, this habit increases during times of adversity, from which contemplation provides a meaningful respite. The Cloud of Unknowing is meant to be a preparation for this exercise and is a worthwhile read if only for this well-meaning goal.
See the second essay in this series here.
Works Cited:
The Cloud of Unknowing (Second Edition) with an Introduction by Evelyn Underhill https://www.catholicspiritualdirection.org/cloudunknowing.pdf
Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1912.
[1] The Cloud of Unknowing, p. 2.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 4.
[4] Ibid., 3.
[5] Ibid., 26.
[6] Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1912), 3.
[7] Ibid., 31.
[8] ibid.
[9] Ibid., 38.
[10] Ibid., 32.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid., 32.
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