Cloud of Unknowing, The

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Cloud of Unknowing, The. English mystical treatise of the 14th cent. The author, whose anonymity has remained inviolate, stands in the line of Dionysian influence. The author teaches that God cannot be known by human reason and that in contemplation the soul is conscious of a ‘cloud of unknowing’ between itself and God which can only be penetrated by ‘a sharp dart of love’.