The Complete Cloud of Unknowing : With the Letter of Privy of Counselling

Central to the Christian mystical tradition is the inspired work of the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. Rich with insights and perceptions of the obscurity and "unknowability" of God, this work reveals God as being on an entirely different plane of existence from human beings-so different that time-bound human language is inadequate to describe God exhaustively or accurately. Intellect and emotion both fail in seeking God, who can only be encountered by rejecting all common earthly means in a "cloud of forgetting" and the discovery of Godself in the dark "cloud of unknowing" that can be pierced only with a "lance of longing love." Now, we finally have a translation that captures all of this beauty and complexity, without minimizing the nuances, all of which are explained with extensive introductions and accompanying notes.