The Cloud of Unknowing - History and Influence

History and Influence

The Cloud of Unknowing draws on the mystical tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Christian Neoplatonism, which focuses on the via negativa road to discovering God as a pure entity, beyond any capacity of mental conception and so without any definitive image or form. This tradition has reputedly inspired generations of mystical searchers from John Scotus Erigena, through Book of Taliesin, Nicholas of Cusa and St. John of the Cross to Teilhard de Chardin (the latter two of whom may have been influenced by "The Cloud" itself). Prior to this, the theme of "Cloud" had been in the Confessions of St. Augustine (IX, 10) written in AD 398.

This work had already become known to English Catholics in middle 17th century, later ascetic and Benedictine mystic, Augustine Baker (1575–1641), wrote an exposition on its doctrine. Today a transcript of the work dated 1677 is at the Ampleforth College, apart from several at the British Library. English mystic Evelyn Underhill edited an important version of the work in 1922.