THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA A Study of The Cloud of Unknowing from the Perspective of the Psychology of Consciousness A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Theology and Religious Studies Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy © Copyright All Rights Reserved By Celeste DiPietra Sanchez Washington, D.C. 2010 A Study of The Cloud of Unknowing from the Perspective of the Psychology of Consciousness Celeste DiPietra Sanchez, Ph.D. Director: Raymond Studzinski, Ph.D. This dissertation analyzes the teachings on contemplative prayer of the anonymous fourteenth century author of The Cloud of Unknowing by utilizing recent studies on the psychology of conscious awareness and states of consciousness. The specific source for the psychological side of the comparison is the work of three psychologists, Arthur Deikman, Robert Ornstein and Charles Tart, authors who have written extensively on mystical traditions in relation to the phenomenon of human consciousness. The medieval author’s grasp of the working of the human psyche is remarkably consistent with modern psychological theories of our day. Because of this complementarity psychological theories generally serve as particularly useful lenses through which the teachings of The Cloud can be accessed by modern sensibilities. When analyzed through the specific lens of the scientific study of the nature of human consciousness, new insights emerge. The author’s strong apophaticism and unrelenting insistence upon “unknowing” is particularly elucidated when brought into conversation with these psychological studies of the nature of human consciousness. This study proceeds as follows. Following a brief introductory chapter chapters 2, 3 and 4 will be presented in three parts. In part 1 and 2 of each chapter presents material representative of the teachings of The Cloud author followed by related topics from the perspective of our psychology authors. Part 3 of each chapter turns to the task of analysis and integration of the two parties’ perspectives, utilizing the criteria for analysis consistent with the constructive-relational model for interdisciplinary study set forth by William R. Rogers. This dissertation by Celeste DiPietra Sanchez fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in Religious Studies approved by Raymond Studzinski, Ph.D. as Director, and by James Wiseman, S.T.D., and William Dinges, Ph.D. as Readers. __________________________________ Raymond Studzinski, Ph.D., Director __________________________________ James Wiseman, S.T.D., Reader __________________________________ William Dinges, Ph.D., Reader ii CONTENTS Introduction………………………………………………………………...……...1 1. The Cloud in Context………………………………………….........................15 Date and Place……………………………………………………………16 Context: Church and England…………………………….......................19 The Corpus……………………………………………………………….24 Authorship Studies and Anonymity……………………….......................31 Sources…………………………………………………………….……..34 Pseudo-Dionysius………………………………………………..34 Other Sources and Literary Influences…………………………..40 2. What is the Existential Human Condition?.......................................................44 Part 1: The Cloud………………………………………………………..45 The Fall and the Faculties of the Mind………………………......45 Scattering of the Mind and Affections…………………….…….49 God’s Incomprehensibility to the Intellect and the Two Knowing Powers……………………………………………53 A Human Affinity for God…………………………..…..56 The Author’s Characterization of Intellect And Love………………………………………………...57 The Illuminative Power of Love………………………....62 Part 2: Psychology……………………………………………….…...…65 Formation of Consciousness…………………….…………….…65 iii Habituation……………………….…………….…...…...70 Experience our Categories…………………………....….71 Modes of Consciousness…………………………………..……..74 Part 3: Integration and Analysis………………………………...…….....83 The Human Condition…………………………………………....83 Faculties of the Mind……………………………………….....…84 . Knowing by Intellect vs. Knowing by Love……………...…..….87 Love as a Faculty of Knowing…………………………...…..…..89 3. What is the Solution to the Existential Human Condition?...............................92 Part 1: The Cloud……………………………………………...…..….…92 Divine Union in Itself………………………………...……….…93 Divine Union and the Effects of the Fall…………..……….……97 Divine Union by its Fruits…………………………..…………...99 Part 2: Psychology………………………………………………..……102 Deikman and Mystic Consciousness……………………..…….103 Conscious Evolution…………………………………….……...107 Tart and State Specific Sciences……………………………..…111 Part 3: Integration and Analysis…………………………….……….…116 Mystic Consciousness……………………………………….….116 Conscious Evolution…………………………………………....119 Tart and State Specific Sciences…………………………….….121 4. How do We Arrive at the Solution?.................................................................124 iv Part 1: The Cloud ……………………………………………...............124 Prayer Method……………………………………………….…125 Unknowing as a Method………………………………..…...….128 Introduction to the Two Clouds: Cloud of Unknowing and Cloud of Forgetting…………………...128 Unknowing of God……………………………………..131 Unknowing of Self and the Lump of Sin………….……134 Forgetting One’s Own Being……………………….…..135 Special Tips………………………………………………….….139 Part 2: Psychology………………………………………………….….142 Tart and Altered States of Consciousness……………………....142 Construction of Stable Consciousness……………….…144 Attention/Awareness…………………………….……..144 Psychological Structures………………………….…….146 Interaction between Attention/Awareness and Psychological Structures……………………….…..147 Inducing an Altered State of Consciousness……………………150 The Observing Self……………………………………………..152 Part 3: Integration and Analysis………………………………………..158 Why this Method?........................................................................158 Object Self vs. Observing Self………………………………….162 5. Conclusion………………………………………………...…………………168 v Bibliography………………………………………………………………...….176 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to my advisor, Dr. Raymond Studzinski, whose guidance, kindness and encouragement have eased my long and occasionally arduous journey. I also want to thank the readers of this work, Dr. James Wiseman for his meticulous proofreading, and Dr. William Dinges for graciously agreeing to serve as the third reader. A very special thank you is extended to Dr. Emile Amt, Professor of History at Hood College, Frederick Maryland, at whose suggestion I embarked upon this path. Above all, to my husband, whose unfailing support has sustained me through many a dark night, I am forever grateful. vii INTRODUCTION This study will analyze the teachings on contemplative prayer of the anonymous fourteenth-century author of The Cloud of Unknowing by utilizing recent studies on the psychology of conscious awareness and states of consciousness. The specific source for the psychological side of the comparison is the work of three psychologists, Arthur Deikman,1 Robert Ornstein2 and Charles Tart,3 authors who have written extensively on 1 Arthur Deikman, a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco and practicing psychotherapist, has written extensively on the topic of mysticism and consciousness and the relationship between mystical experience and psychotherapy. Included among his publications are the following titles bearing greatest relevance to this study: ―A Functional Approach to Mysticism,‖ Journal of Consciousness Studies 7 (2000): 75-91; ―Service as a Way of Knowing,‖ in Transpersonal Knowing: Exploring the Horizon of Consciousness, ed. Tobin Hart, Peter L. Nelson and Kaisa Puhakka (New York: SUNY Press, 2000): 303-18; ―‗I‘=Awareness,‖ Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (1999): 350-6; ―Intention, Self, and Spiritual Experience: A Functional Model of Consciousness,‖ in Toward a Science of Consciousness: The First Tucson Discussions and Debates, ed. Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak and Alwyn C. Scott (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 695-706; The Observing Self: Mysticism and Psychotherapy (Boston: Beacon, 1982); ―Sufism and Psychiatry,‖ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 165 (1977): 318-29; ―Bimodal Consciousness and the Mystic Experience,‖ in Symposium on Consciousness, ed. Philip R. Lee et al. (New York: Viking, 1974), 67-88; ―De-Automatization and the Mystic Experience,‖ Psychiatry 29 (1966): 324-38; and ―Experimental Meditation,‖ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders 136 (1963): 329-43. 2 Robert Ornstein received a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1968. He is one of the early researchers in right brain/left brain specialization theory in the 1970‘s. He has published works on related topics, including, the study of the mind and health; psychology of meditation, as well as those most relevant to this study on human consciousness. His work is interdisciplinary, particularly integrating psychology with mystical traditions, an initiative the author characterizes as a synthesis of two approaches to knowledge. Relevant publications include The Evolution of Consciousness: Of Darwin, Freud and Cranial Fire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991); The Psychology of Consciousness (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1972); and with Claudio Naranjo, On the Psychology of Meditation (New York: Viking, 1973). 3 Charles Tart is currently a Core Faculty member of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto and Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, where he was on the faculty for 28 years. He received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of North