The Cloud of Unknowing: Introductory Commentary and Translation by Ira Progoff ...

New York, New York: The Julian Press, Inc. 1957.

"A new translation of a classic guide to spiritual experience revealing the dynamics of the inner life from a particular historical and religious point of view.

"This a book of contemplation called The Cloud of Unknowing in which a soul is united with God."

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTARY

"More than any other, the present period of history should have a humble and open-minded attitude toward all possible sources of knowledge.

"Modern man has lived to see the most productive discoveries drawn from previously rejected materials.

"Under the hand of science, fungi and molds have been found to be sources of healing substances.

"Again and again in a variety of ways we are reminded of the saying of Jesus that the stone which has been cast aside will become the cornerstone.

"I begin with comments like these because I am about to ask the modern scientific individual to regard seriously, in order to learn from, a class of literature that has long been rejected.

"This type of literature, I must warn in advance, has even been labeled with that nasty epithet of the rationalist era, mystic -- as though man's reason has any greater goal than to penetrate the clouded mysteries of human existence.

"The particular text that is presented in this volume in a new translation -- a translation, that is to say, from archaic English to modern English -- is derived from a medieval manuscript written in fourteenth century England.

"Those who know of The Cloud of Unknowing and treasure it are to be found, however, within all shades of Christian opinion from the Quaker to the Catholic."