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978-0-86716-871-6
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A medieval masterpiece, now in audio! The
first work of its kind to be written in the English language, The Cloud of Unknowing is
a spiritual guide to contemplation from an anonymous English monk of the 14th century. It has inspired
spiritual teachers from St. John of the Cross in the 16th century to such contemporary teachers of
prayer as Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating.
The author explains that ordinary thoughts and earthly concepts must be buried beneath a “cloud
of forgetting” while our love must rise toward a God hidden in the “cloud of unknowing.” While
this medieval masterpiece has been translated many times, this edition is especially accessible to
the modern reader and listener. William Johnston provides a substantive and accessible introduction
detailing what is known about the history of this text and its relevance throughout the ages. Also
included here is the author’s other principal work, The Book of Privy Counseling—a
short and moving text on the way to enlightenment through a total loss of self and consciousness only
of the divine. Unabridged audiobook.
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The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling
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Edited by William Johnston, foreword by Huston Smith; read by Murray Bodo
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“‘God can be loved but he cannot be thought. He can be grasped by love but never by concepts.
So less thinking and more loving.’ This is William Johnston’s summary of the message of The
Cloud of Unknowing. Nobody knows who wrote the book, or exactly where he lived, or whether
he was a member of a religious order, or even, really, whether he was part of any church at all....The
mysterious conditions of its composition, however, focus the reader's attention squarely on the book's
message—an almost Zen rendering of Christianity, which has a great deal to teach our querulous,
doctrine-obsessed churches: ‘And so I urge you,’ the author writes, ‘go after experience
rather than knowledge. On account of pride, knowledge may often deceive you, but this gentle, loving
affection will not deceive you. Knowledge tends to breed conceit, but love builds. Knowledge is full
of labor, but love, full of rest.’” —Michael Joseph Gross
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