The powerful prayer that was forgotten about for centuries—and its amazing comeback.

What do you do when it feels like your prayers are going into a deep, dark void and aren’t connecting you with the Divine?

Well, 700 years ago a Christian mystic had an answer, an alternative to traditional prayer that he believed offered a direct connection to God. The Roman Catholic church shunned the practice and for centuries it was largely forgotten—but in the past few decades, it has made an amazing comeback. (Though in some Catholic circles, it is considered dangerous.)

It’s now widely known as centering prayer, though it was originally referred to as contemplative prayer. While its origin may date back to early days of the church, religious scholars point to the 14th century as the seminal point of this spiritual invocation. It was then that an unknown Catholic mystic wrote a book called The Cloud of Unknowing that set the foundation for this practice. It…