I am interested in gathering more information about the spirituality types called "apophatic" and "kataphatic" Can you give me some definitions that you use and suggested reading.

The via negativa (Latin) or apophatic (Greek "negating") path refers to the hidden aspect of God's nature and corresponds to the believer's experiences such as desert, fasting, and silence. It stands in contrast to the positive way (via positiva or kataphatic path), in which God is experienced through the creation, light and sound, colors and senses, words and images.

The negative or apophatic path emphasizes knowledge of God through unknowing -- by way of subtraction. To use a metaphor from Meister Eckhart: God is "no thing" to be added onto one's life. The danger of words and concepts for God is that we may soon begin to focus on these human constructs that describe "God" rather than on the living God. We may be tempted, for our own selfish ends, to domesticate the Divine, who is beyond all human symbols or imagery. ...

Pseudo-Dionysius [a late fifth century monk] speaks about both paths in his Mystical Theology. While Protestant reformers did not use this precise terminology, Luther spoke of the Deus absconditus the hidden God, the dark side of God's love -- as well as God revealed in light and the Resurrection. In the twentieth century, apophatic-kataphatic terminology has been made more understandable through such writings as Charles Williams's The Descent of the Dove and Evelyn Underhill's The Essentials of Mysticism.

In Christian practice, the two paths in many ways correspond to the believer's experience of the cross (darkness, emptying, Greek kenosis) and Resurrection (light, fullness, Greek pleroma). In this way "the dark night of the soul" and purgation speak of living by faith and not by sight. Apophatic practices include silence, retreat, and contemplative prayer.

Fasting from food or material things can be a way of following the via negativa by identifying with the God who has been edged out of the world yet who is present in the marginalized and rejected (Matt. 25:31-42). Outward experiences of loss may serve to "empty" the believer of previously held images of God, setting in motion an inward purgation process and an openness to new perceptions.

Some disciples are called to an ascetic way of contemplation, others to a more active way of service. All are called to appreciate both the negative way of God's mystery beyond all human thought and God's palpable intimacy in and through positive gifts of creation.

-- Kent Ira Groff
"Negative Way"
The Upper Room Dictionary of Christian Spirituality

From The Upper Room Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, edited by Keith Beasley-Topliffe. Copyright © 2003 by Upper Room Books. Used with permission. All Rights Reserved.

Julian of Norwich, a late fourteenth-century mystic and spiritual writer, chose to live a solitary life in a cell attached to the Church of Saint Julian in Norwich, England. Because Julian was known for her wisdom, seekers approached the window of her cell to ask her questions about Christian faith and practice.

Learn more about Julian by reading Encounter with God's Love: Selected Writings of Julian of Norwich from Upper Room Books.