Joel F. Harrington, Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart’s Path to the God Within. New York: Penguin, 2018, 384 pp., $30.00 Kindle edition $14.99
People have been pushing me toward this book for several years. I finally read it. I wish I hadn’t put if off so long.
We don’t actually have a ton of details about the life of Eckhart von Hocheim. He probably was born in 1260, or close to it. The family lived in the village of Tambach, in Thuringiain what today is central Germany. When he was around eighteen, in so many instances we only have approximates, Eckhart joined the Dominican order. Together with the Franciscans, the Dominicans are the two preaching orders of mendicants.
Eckhart was a scholar, known from early on for his brilliance. But also he a devoted friar, who over the years held several significant administrative and spiritual posts within his order. Eckhart was considered one of the great intellects of his time. He taught in several contexts, including at Cologne and for two terms as magister actu regens at the university in Paris.
Eckhardt wrote both in Latin and in German. He is probably best remembered for his vernacular sermons. In his sixties Meister Eckhart was accused of heresy, especially of pantheism. In the midst of his defense, he died, probably on the 28th of January, in 1328.
Today anyone interested in Christian mysticism, or world spirituality for that matter, has read or heard one or more quotes from his teachings.
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
“To be full of things is the be empty of God. To be empty of God is to be full of things.”
“The outward person is the swinging door; the inner person is the still hinge.”
And maybe most famously, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”
There are so many quotes attributed to him on the interwebs he really needs something comparable to Fake Buddha Quotes, to sort out wheat and chaff.
The master has become a compelling figure in the spiritual world. He died under suspicion for heresy, so there was a lull in interest. Later some saw him as a proto-Protestant. Then others found him to be a figure central to German identity. More in our times people see him as a forerunner of our current New Age spiritualities. And. In some ways he was all of these things.
And, really, Meister Eckart is so much more.
I’ve just finished Harrington’s biography, as noted Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart’s Path to the God Within. Harrington is a history professor at Vanderbilt, who has written other books bridging academic and popular, exploring aspects of German history. He is probably best known for the Faithful Executioner, a study of sixteenth century Nurenberg focusing on one personality and letting that open that world.
He does that again with Dangerous Mystic Harrington displays his ability to contextualize a whole world, allowing the individual, this case Eckhart, his uniqueness, but showing how much he was also a part of a time.
Harrington takes what is known about Eckhart and paints a portrait that includes a wonderful and accessible context for this medieval Catholic mystic.
I loved the book.
And I’ve come away loving Eckhart. I felt fully introduced to a brilliant human being, whose spirituality justly calls our attention. Harrington concludes his study with a review of how the friar has continued to influence various kinds of thinking, although mostly as it touches on the deeper aspect so our human hearts, and what it is we can find on our spiritual quests.
While a scholastic of the first water, deeply familiar with both Aristotelianism and Augustinianism, it was Eckhart’s path through Neo-Platonism, and the spirituality that flows through the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite that we find a challenging invitation into the Western expression of nondual spirituality.
Eckhart’s radical apophatic path invites all of us who want to find the depths of our lives. And it is amazing the range of people he has touched.
I think anyone interested in the currents of the nondual, who is interested in Zen or Advaita, will find a fellow traveler in Eckhart. And maybe most importantly, the old master will challenge, and invite.
If you care about world spirituality, the deep currents of the mystical life, it is important to know something of Eckhart.
Joel F Harrington’s Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart’s Path to the God Within does the trick. The unsigned Kirkus review tells us this book is “Extremely well-researched and fluidly written, Harrington’s work will serve as a meaningful resource for students of mysticism and of late Medieval Christianity.”
Barbara Mahany writing for the Chicago Tribune, underscores how “seven centuries after his death, Eckhart has been embraced across a vast religious spectrum — a spiritual luminary to Christians, Sufi Muslims, Zen Buddhists, Advaita Hindus, Jewish kabbalists and even avowed atheists, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. Undoubtedly, he belongs on a short roster of essential theologians and thinkers whose work demands to be understood without distortion, and in depth.” She adds how this biography brings “a writerly elegance and elucidation that situates the medieval thinker squarely in this modern-day moment.”
Finally, my old friend Carl McColman, writing at Anamchara, tells us that “By giving his readers a glimpse into Eckhart’s world, the book offers a nuanced and vivid portrait of the man — and of the ideas, both philosophical and theological, that inspired his work as a writer, teacher, and preacher. Perhaps best of all, the author is not shy about Eckhart’s reputation — both during his lifetime and since — as a mystic or spiritual master in the Christian world.”
Meister Eckhart is a spiritual teacher for all of us. And an a worthy introduction.
Did I say I recommend this book? Yes. Enthusiastically…
The image is a detail from a fresco at the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella.