Turning to The Cloud of Unknowing

Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Center for Action and Contemplation

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to Season 5 of Turning to the Mystics. In this episode, Kirsten Oates and James Finley are turning to the anonymous mystical text, The Cloud of Unknowing. Throughout this season, we will work with the text and explore the foundations of contemplation practice. Resources: Turning to the Mystics is a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more about Jim, visit jamesfinley.org  The transcript for this episode can be found here. The book being used for this season can be found here. Connect with us: Have a question you'd like Jim or Kirsten to answer about The Cloud of Unknowing? Email us: [email protected] This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would love to support the ongoing work of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the continued work of our podcasts, you can donate at cac.org/podcastsupport Thank you!

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation
0:04.1	to learn more, visit caac.org.
0:08.3	Greetings. I'm Jim Finley.
0:11.0	And I'm Kirsten Oates.
0:12.9	Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.
0:22.8	Welcome everyone to season five of Turning to the Mystics.
0:28.0	I'm here with Jim and in today's session we're going to introduce our season five mystic.
0:35.8	So Jim, who will we be guided by this season?
0:40.0	In this season, you and all the previous seasons, we always start out by referring to who the
0:46.5	mystic was historically to understand who the mystic is spiritually. But we can't do this
0:52.2	because we don't know who the mystic is because he's anonymous.
0:57.2	And so really his spirit lives in his work, the cloud of unknowing. So his teaching and his
1:02.6	presence are embodied there. So the cloud of unknowing then is the title of his book written
1:08.9	in 14th century England. And the next season after this one will be Julianne of Norwich,
1:16.1	contemporary of his, also in middle English. So that's what we're doing here. We're
1:21.4	turning to this book the cloud of unknowing for the spiritual guidance that it offers us.
1:27.8	And Jim, would you say that the author of this cloud and then Julianne, who you're planning to do
1:33.6	two of the main English mystics? There are others. There's some others. But these are the
1:39.6	two main ones I think the people most know. I should say this too also is I think most of us today,
1:46.5	many of us are familiar with the teachings in the cloud because of how it's been popularized
1:52.9	by Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington and also Father William Manage with three trappist
1:59.2	premonks. And also with Cynthia Bridgel and her teachings also and there are others. So I think
	...

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