Understand in about 6 minutes
A medieval English monk writes to a younger contemplative, teaching that God cannot be reached by thinking but only by a naked, longing love that beats against a cloud of unknowing while pressing all other thoughts down under a cloud of forgetting.
Mind Map
Core Message
The book's governing claim is that the human mind cannot reach God by knowing. Of every created thing a person can think, but of God himself no one can think. He can be loved but not thought, so the contemplative leaves behind what the intellect can grasp and chooses instead the One it cannot.
When a person first turns the whole will toward God, what is found is not clarity but darkness, a cloud of unknowing that stands between the soul and God. The counsel is not to break through it with cleverness but to wait inside it, crying after the God one loves with a meek stirring of love.
Below the soul the writer sets a second cloud, a cloud of forgetting, under which all creatures and even good thoughts of God's kindness must be buried during this work. Memories, images, and reasonings are not evil, but in this particular prayer they come between the soul and God and so must be set aside.
Rather than long meditations, the writer offers a naked intent directed at God alone, lapped and folded in a single word of one syllable such as GOD or LOVE. That word becomes shield and spear: with it the soul beats on the cloud above and smites down distracting thoughts below.
Summary
The Cloud of Unknowing is a letter of spiritual direction written by an unnamed fourteenth-century English monk to a younger person who has felt called to the prayer of contemplation. The opening chapters describe four degrees of Christian life, Common, Special, Singular, and Perfect, and present the book as guidance for someone whom God has drawn from the ordinary life toward the solitary and contemplative one.
The central instruction is a way of prayer that lays aside thinking. The writer tells the reader to lift up the heart to God with a meek stirring of love and to mean God himself, not any of his gifts. At the first attempt the reader finds only darkness, a cloud of unknowing that stands between the soul and God. The advice is not to flee this darkness but to remain in it, crying after the God one loves.
Alongside the cloud above the soul, the writer sets a cloud of forgetting beneath it. All creatures, all their works, and even good and holy thoughts about God's kindness and Passion are to be pressed down under this cloud of forgetting during the work. The reason is not that such thoughts are wrong, but that in this contemplation any thought, however holy, comes between the soul and God and must be let go.
The book is clear that this is the work of love, not of intellect. Of God himself no one can think, the writer says, for he may well be loved but not thought; by love he may be gotten and held, but by thought never. So the contemplative is told to smite upon the thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love and not to turn back for anything that happens. To hold this intent, the reader is given a single short word, such as GOD or LOVE, to fasten to the heart as both shield and spear.
Across its many short chapters the treatise answers doubts and corrects misuses. It warns against straining the body or imagination upward, against young and presumptuous beginners who take its words too literally, and against trusting strange sensations. It insists that contemplation rests on humility and on a true feeling of oneself, that the active and contemplative lives need each other, and that even the worst sinner, once amended and called, can come to God soonest through this loving work. A short prayer of one syllable, it says, pierces heaven.
Key Concepts
A darkness that stands between the soul and God once the will turns fully toward him. It is not a failure of prayer but the normal condition of contemplation, since God lies beyond what the understanding can reach.
It reframes the felt absence of clear knowledge as the very place where God is sought, so the contemplative learns to stay in the dark rather than demand light.
A deliberate setting aside of all creatures and all thoughts, even good thoughts of God, placed beneath the soul during this work. The aim is to let nothing live in the mind but a naked intent toward God.
It gives the prayer a concrete discipline: not emptying the mind of meaning, but refusing to let any lesser object stand between the soul and God in this moment.
The core distinction of the book. The knowing power of the soul can reach created things but never God; only the loving power can lay hold of him, for he may be loved but not thought.
It locates the path to God in the will and affection rather than in study or speculation, which makes contemplation possible for the unlearned as well as the learned.
Mental Models
Picture the soul between an upper cloud of unknowing, between it and God, and a lower cloud of forgetting, between it and all created things. The work is to press downward against the lower cloud and reach upward into the higher.
It turns an abstract spiritual aim into a clear orientation: forget what is below, long for what is above, and accept the darkness in between.
The reader is told to beat on the cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love, a single sustained reaching of the will toward God rather than an argument or a stream of words.
It gives prayer a simple, repeatable motion when thoughts fail: aim the whole desire at God and keep aiming, regardless of what feelings or distractions arise.
Fold the whole intent into a single word of one syllable, such as GOD or LOVE, and fasten it to the heart. Use it to answer every intruding thought and to strike against the cloud above.
It offers a practical anchor for attention, replacing complicated meditation with one short word that both shields the soul and presses it toward God.
Selected Quotes
He may well be loved, but not thought.
Love is such a power, that it maketh all thing common.
beat evermore on this cloud of unknowing that is betwixt thee and thy God with a sharp dart of longing love,
Source
HTML text: https://archive.org/download/abookofcontemplationunderhill/abookofcontemplationunderhill_djvu.txt
This 1912 edition is in the public domain. The scan was digitized by Google from a library copy and is hosted by the Internet Archive.
The treatise is a 14th-century English work; this edition was edited from British Museum MS. Harl. 674 by Evelyn Underhill and published in London by John M. Watkins in 1912.