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The Cloud of Unknowing · 67 of 80
Chapter 62. How a man may wit when his ghostly work is beneath him or without him and when it is even with him or within him, and when it is above him and under his God
AND for this, that thou shalt be able better to wit how they shall be conceived ghostly, these words that be spoken bodily, therefore I think to declare to thee the ghostly bemeaning of some words that fall to ghostly working. So that thou mayest wit clearly without error when thy ghostly work is beneath thee and without thee, and when it is within thee and even with thee, and when it is above thee and under thy God.
All manner of bodily thing is without thy soul and beneath it in nature, yea! the sun and the moon and all the stars, although they be above thy body, nevertheless yet they be beneath thy soul.
All angels and all souls, although they be confirmed and adorned with grace and with virtues, for the which they be above thee in cleanness, nevertheless, yet they be but even with thee in nature.
Within in thyself in nature be the powers of thy soul: the which be these three principal, Memory, Reason, and Will; and secondary, Imagination and Sensuality.
Above thyself in nature is no manner of thing but only God.
Evermore where thou findest written thyself in ghostliness, then it is understood thy soul, and not thy body. And then all after that thing is on the which the powers of thy soul work, thereafter shall the worthiness and the condition of thy work be deemed; whether it be beneath thee, within thee, or above thee. p. 275
Asked of Guide
When the chapter says a ghostly work is 'beneath thee' or 'within thee,' what does that mean?
The chapter uses bodily categories to map spiritual activity: ‘beneath thee’ names anything outside the soul (the world, stars) and therefore describes workings that come from external senses or created things. ‘Within thee’ names the soul itself and its powers — Memory, Reason, Will (with Imagination and Sensuality secondary) — so a ghostly work within thee is conscious interior activity of those faculties.
The chapter then reserves ‘above thee’ for God alone, so works deemed ‘above thee’ point toward God’s presence rather than your faculties. This reading echoes John of the Cross in Dark Night where interior purification moves the soul from sensible supports inward toward God, though Anonymous uses a more rigid threefold map (beneath, within, above).
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