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Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within
Life and times of the 14th century German theologian Meister Eckhart, whose theory of a personal path to the divine inspired thinkers from Jean Paul Sartre to Thomas Merton, and most recently, Eckhart Tolle
Meister Eckhart was a medieval Christian mystic whose wisdom powerfully appeals to seekers seven centuries after his death. In the modern era, Eckhart's writings have struck a chord with thinkers as diverse as Heidegger, Merton, Sartre, John Paul II, and the current Dalai Lama. He is the inspiration for the bestselling New Age author Eckhart Tolle's pen name, and his fourteenth-century quotes have become an online sensation. Today a variety of Christians, as well as many Zen Buddhists, Sufi Muslims, Jewish Cabbalists, and various spiritual seekers, all claim Eckhart as their own. Meister Eckhart preached a personal, internal path to God at a time when the Church could not have been more hierarchical and ritualistic. Then and now, Eckhart's revolutionary method of direct access to ultimate reality offers a profoundly subjective approach that is at once intuitive and pragmatic, philosophical yet non-rational, and, above all, universally accessible. This "dangerous mystic's" teachings challenge the very nature of religion, yet the man himself never directly challenged the Church.
Eckhart was one of the most learned theologians of his day, but he was also a man of the world who had worked as an administrator for his religious order and taught for years at the University of Paris. His personal path from conventional friar to professor to lay preacher culminated in a spiritual philosophy that combined the teachings of an array of pagan and Christian writers, as well as Muslim and Jewish philosophers. His revolutionary decision to take his approach to the common people garnered him many enthusiastic followers as well as powerful enemies. After Eckhart's death and papal censure, many religious women and clerical supporters, known as the Friends of God, kept his legacy alive through the centuries, albeit underground until the master's dramatic rediscovery by modern Protestants and Catholics.
Dangerous Mystic grounds Meister Eckhart in a world that is simultaneously familiar and alien. In the midst of this medieval society, a few decades before the Black Death, Eckhart boldly preached to captivated crowds a timeless method, a "wayless way," of directly experiencing the divine.
Meister Eckhart was a medieval Christian mystic whose wisdom powerfully appeals to seekers seven centuries after his death. In the modern era, Eckhart's writings have struck a chord with thinkers as diverse as Heidegger, Merton, Sartre, John Paul II, and the current Dalai Lama. He is the inspiration for the bestselling New Age author Eckhart Tolle's pen name, and his fourteenth-century quotes have become an online sensation. Today a variety of Christians, as well as many Zen Buddhists, Sufi Muslims, Jewish Cabbalists, and various spiritual seekers, all claim Eckhart as their own. Meister Eckhart preached a personal, internal path to God at a time when the Church could not have been more hierarchical and ritualistic. Then and now, Eckhart's revolutionary method of direct access to ultimate reality offers a profoundly subjective approach that is at once intuitive and pragmatic, philosophical yet non-rational, and, above all, universally accessible. This "dangerous mystic's" teachings challenge the very nature of religion, yet the man himself never directly challenged the Church.
Eckhart was one of the most learned theologians of his day, but he was also a man of the world who had worked as an administrator for his religious order and taught for years at the University of Paris. His personal path from conventional friar to professor to lay preacher culminated in a spiritual philosophy that combined the teachings of an array of pagan and Christian writers, as well as Muslim and Jewish philosophers. His revolutionary decision to take his approach to the common people garnered him many enthusiastic followers as well as powerful enemies. After Eckhart's death and papal censure, many religious women and clerical supporters, known as the Friends of God, kept his legacy alive through the centuries, albeit underground until the master's dramatic rediscovery by modern Protestants and Catholics.
Dangerous Mystic grounds Meister Eckhart in a world that is simultaneously familiar and alien. In the midst of this medieval society, a few decades before the Black Death, Eckhart boldly preached to captivated crowds a timeless method, a "wayless way," of directly experiencing the divine.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2018
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About the author
Joel F. Harrington
12 books42 followersJoel F. Harrington is a historian of Europe, specializing pre-modern Germany, with particular interest in social, religious, and legal topics.
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November 15, 2025
A New Study Of Meister Eckhart
For centuries after his death the teachings of the medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart (1260 -- 1328) fell into obscurity. Beginning in the mid-19th century, Eckhart's writings were rediscovered and made widely available. Today many people of widely varying backgrounds and religious dispositions draw inspiration from Eckhart. He has been celebrated in the music of John Adams, for example, and his been a source for popular spiritual works as well as for scholarly study and reflection. I have explored Eckhart at various times of my life for years and have learned from him.
Joel Harrington's recent book, "Dangerous Mystic:Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within" (2018) shows the author is a person who has thought deeply and learned from Eckhart. His book will be valuable both to scholars and to those readers newly approaching Eckhart. Neither a philosopher nor a theologian, Harrington is Centennial Professor of History at Vanderbilt University who has written about German history in the early modern era of the sixteenth century. In his study of Eckhart, Harrington puts his formidable skills as a historian to use.
Many fine books are available about Eckhart's thought and a still larger number are available about Medieval history. But there are few studies which have integrated the two and considered Eckhart within the context of his times. Harrington does so brilliantly and in the process helped me understand both Eckhart's teachings and his life.
The book consists of four parts each of which works to elucidate part of Eckhart's fundamental teaching of letting go. The first part, "Letting Go of the World" talks about the young Eckhart by discussing the world into which he was born. Harrington describes a culture moving towards a monetary, commercialized economy and the impact of this movement on religious belief. He describes the literature of courtly love and of spiritual search in the context of an increasingly commercial society and explores how this literature doubtlessly influenced the young nobleman and, more importantly, is reflected in Eckhart's writings and in his spiritual search. This part of the book takes Eckhart's biography through his early years as a Dominican friar at Erfurt, his home for most of his life.
The second part of the book "Letting Go of God" explores Eckhart's long period of study of scholastic philosophy in Paris where he ultimately earned the title of "Master" or "Meister" for his extensive learning (roughly equivalent to the modern-day PhD). Harrington gives background on the nature of scholastic life and of the scholastic approach to philosophy and religion. His approach places Eckhart squarely within and, indeed, a master of the scholastic philosophy of his day. Eckhart gradually became attracted to a Neoplatonic approach to philosophy rather than the Aristotelian approach more common in the schools. Eckhart questioned the ability of reason and logic to provide an approach to God and developed an approach relying more on intuition and personal experience. He conceived the project of writing his own "Summa" to rival and correct that of Aquinas. This project was never realized.
In the third part of the book "Letting Go of the Self" Harrington explores Eckart's life after leaving Paris and the academy for reasons which remain uncertain. Eckhart became a skilled administrator in the Dominican order and a preacher. He took his highly developed thought and presented it to the people, especially to religious women, rather than to fellow scholars and students. Importantly he spoke in German rather than in Latin. Harrington describes Eckhart's life as an administrator and he explores Eckhart's relationship to the movement of women's spirituality expressed by the community of beguines, including figures such as Marguerite Porete, who was burned at the stake for heresy. There is a great deal of mutual influence between Eckhart's teachings and the teachings of the beguines. In this part of the book, Harrington offers an exposition of Eckhart's basic and difficult teachings and of his frequently paradoxical style of writing. Eckhart was aware both of the limitations of human speech and of the necessity of speech for finite beings to approach understanding.
The final part of the book "Holding on to Religion" addresses both holding on and letting go. Harrington discusses the inquisition into Eckhart's thought which ultimately led to the papal condemnation of some of his writing after Eckhart's death. The condemnation was based on the alleged antinomian character of Eckhart's work, its possible radical individualism, and its alleged break from institutional Catholicism. Eckhart's reputation went into eclipse for centuries, and Harrington traces the course of the history of Eckhart's reception in the final sections of his book. With the revival of interest in Eckhart, the tension in understanding his work that began at the outset has revived: some of those who learn from Eckhart place him within the boundaries of orthodox Christian teaching while others see Eckhart as breaking away towards a new form of spirituality outside the bounds of any particular religion.
In placing Eckhart thoroughly within the context of his times and in his insightful discussions of Eckhart's teachings, Harrington's sympathies lie clearly with seeing Eckhart within the context of Christian teachings. Harrington is properly skeptical of relativistic, anything goes understandings of Eckhart. Still, Harrington recognizes that Eckhart's words and teachings in some ways break through traditional Christianity and have allowed those people influenced by Eastern religions, as well as those with a mystical bent in the Moslem and Jewish traditions, and those not professing any particular religion and in some cases not being religious at all to learn from Eckhart. Eckhart's teachings are, in their depth, broader than Christian; and yet in Harrington's account , also stress the value of adherence to a particular religious body, in Eckhart's case Christian. In an Epilogue explaining what Harrington sees as the sources of Eckhart's continued importance, Harrington concludes:
"Meister Eckhart's wayless way deliberately remained general and nonprescriptive, allowing for countless subjective variations. It would be ahistorical and presumptuous to predict his opinion of either religious exclusivism or perennialism. But based on his long life of service, we can conclude with conviction that nothing would have pleased the master more than to be considered still useful to his fellow seekers' journey to the God within."
Harrington's book has helped deepen my own understanding and appreciation of Meister Eckhart.
Robin Friedman
For centuries after his death the teachings of the medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart (1260 -- 1328) fell into obscurity. Beginning in the mid-19th century, Eckhart's writings were rediscovered and made widely available. Today many people of widely varying backgrounds and religious dispositions draw inspiration from Eckhart. He has been celebrated in the music of John Adams, for example, and his been a source for popular spiritual works as well as for scholarly study and reflection. I have explored Eckhart at various times of my life for years and have learned from him.
Joel Harrington's recent book, "Dangerous Mystic:Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within" (2018) shows the author is a person who has thought deeply and learned from Eckhart. His book will be valuable both to scholars and to those readers newly approaching Eckhart. Neither a philosopher nor a theologian, Harrington is Centennial Professor of History at Vanderbilt University who has written about German history in the early modern era of the sixteenth century. In his study of Eckhart, Harrington puts his formidable skills as a historian to use.
Many fine books are available about Eckhart's thought and a still larger number are available about Medieval history. But there are few studies which have integrated the two and considered Eckhart within the context of his times. Harrington does so brilliantly and in the process helped me understand both Eckhart's teachings and his life.
The book consists of four parts each of which works to elucidate part of Eckhart's fundamental teaching of letting go. The first part, "Letting Go of the World" talks about the young Eckhart by discussing the world into which he was born. Harrington describes a culture moving towards a monetary, commercialized economy and the impact of this movement on religious belief. He describes the literature of courtly love and of spiritual search in the context of an increasingly commercial society and explores how this literature doubtlessly influenced the young nobleman and, more importantly, is reflected in Eckhart's writings and in his spiritual search. This part of the book takes Eckhart's biography through his early years as a Dominican friar at Erfurt, his home for most of his life.
The second part of the book "Letting Go of God" explores Eckhart's long period of study of scholastic philosophy in Paris where he ultimately earned the title of "Master" or "Meister" for his extensive learning (roughly equivalent to the modern-day PhD). Harrington gives background on the nature of scholastic life and of the scholastic approach to philosophy and religion. His approach places Eckhart squarely within and, indeed, a master of the scholastic philosophy of his day. Eckhart gradually became attracted to a Neoplatonic approach to philosophy rather than the Aristotelian approach more common in the schools. Eckhart questioned the ability of reason and logic to provide an approach to God and developed an approach relying more on intuition and personal experience. He conceived the project of writing his own "Summa" to rival and correct that of Aquinas. This project was never realized.
In the third part of the book "Letting Go of the Self" Harrington explores Eckart's life after leaving Paris and the academy for reasons which remain uncertain. Eckhart became a skilled administrator in the Dominican order and a preacher. He took his highly developed thought and presented it to the people, especially to religious women, rather than to fellow scholars and students. Importantly he spoke in German rather than in Latin. Harrington describes Eckhart's life as an administrator and he explores Eckhart's relationship to the movement of women's spirituality expressed by the community of beguines, including figures such as Marguerite Porete, who was burned at the stake for heresy. There is a great deal of mutual influence between Eckhart's teachings and the teachings of the beguines. In this part of the book, Harrington offers an exposition of Eckhart's basic and difficult teachings and of his frequently paradoxical style of writing. Eckhart was aware both of the limitations of human speech and of the necessity of speech for finite beings to approach understanding.
The final part of the book "Holding on to Religion" addresses both holding on and letting go. Harrington discusses the inquisition into Eckhart's thought which ultimately led to the papal condemnation of some of his writing after Eckhart's death. The condemnation was based on the alleged antinomian character of Eckhart's work, its possible radical individualism, and its alleged break from institutional Catholicism. Eckhart's reputation went into eclipse for centuries, and Harrington traces the course of the history of Eckhart's reception in the final sections of his book. With the revival of interest in Eckhart, the tension in understanding his work that began at the outset has revived: some of those who learn from Eckhart place him within the boundaries of orthodox Christian teaching while others see Eckhart as breaking away towards a new form of spirituality outside the bounds of any particular religion.
In placing Eckhart thoroughly within the context of his times and in his insightful discussions of Eckhart's teachings, Harrington's sympathies lie clearly with seeing Eckhart within the context of Christian teachings. Harrington is properly skeptical of relativistic, anything goes understandings of Eckhart. Still, Harrington recognizes that Eckhart's words and teachings in some ways break through traditional Christianity and have allowed those people influenced by Eastern religions, as well as those with a mystical bent in the Moslem and Jewish traditions, and those not professing any particular religion and in some cases not being religious at all to learn from Eckhart. Eckhart's teachings are, in their depth, broader than Christian; and yet in Harrington's account , also stress the value of adherence to a particular religious body, in Eckhart's case Christian. In an Epilogue explaining what Harrington sees as the sources of Eckhart's continued importance, Harrington concludes:
"Meister Eckhart's wayless way deliberately remained general and nonprescriptive, allowing for countless subjective variations. It would be ahistorical and presumptuous to predict his opinion of either religious exclusivism or perennialism. But based on his long life of service, we can conclude with conviction that nothing would have pleased the master more than to be considered still useful to his fellow seekers' journey to the God within."
Harrington's book has helped deepen my own understanding and appreciation of Meister Eckhart.
Robin Friedman
July 17, 2018
A good, readable introduction to Meister Eckhart, the famed German mystic. I will admit that when I picked up this book, I was nervous that this was going to be an attempt to remove Meister Eckhart from his Christian context and attempt to paint as some sort of representative of a some universal religious truth, which has been the fate of many spiritual leaders, Christian or not, in our day and age. But I was presently surprised to find that instead of falling into that trap, Harrington instead stresses the importance of placing Meister Eckhart within his specific and religious context in order to gain the best picture of the man. All in all, I would recommend this book to everyone looking for a beginning primer into one of Christian's faiths most interesting thinkers.
April 30, 2018
Loved it. I knew nothing about Meister Eckhart but I've been on a history obsessive roll of late. Enough so that I am not avoiding the medieval period, my usual standard "Wake me when we get to the Renaissance" period.
That's why I selected "Dangerous Mystic" by Joel Harrington to read. It was more enjoyable than I had expected. Very detailed but at same time, very readable and engaging. Author did a great job at bringing Meister Eckhart to life in context to his times and then to our own.
Glad I took a chance on this book and I'll be looking at other books by Mr Harrington.
That's why I selected "Dangerous Mystic" by Joel Harrington to read. It was more enjoyable than I had expected. Very detailed but at same time, very readable and engaging. Author did a great job at bringing Meister Eckhart to life in context to his times and then to our own.
Glad I took a chance on this book and I'll be looking at other books by Mr Harrington.
December 28, 2025
Fascinating look at a divisive figure - really appreciated how the author situated Eckhart into his proper historical context. I imagine my future Fosse rereads will now be enriched after reading about one of his greatest influences.
March 30, 2020
This is a very nice biography of Meister Eckhart. It a great deal of information of what was going on in the church in this time frame as well as several people who were influenced by him. Such as Martin Luther, Thomas Merton, John Paul II and the current Dali Lama. How can you not love a man that said "The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me" or " you must love all men equally, respect and regard them equally, and whatever happens to another, whether good or bad, must be the same as if it happened to you" no bad for some time around 1320
August 23, 2021
2021 bk 265. Well researched, well planned out, well written and now, well read. After our pastor referred to Meister Eckert in a series of sermons, I was interested enough to search out a biography of him. This has led to a summer of reading. Even with a background in history, I did not know the history of Eckert's time and place, nor of the religious forces at work within the Catholic church at the time. I found this a fascinating read that stretched my vocabulary and frequently caused me to lay the book aside in order to think about either Eckert's writings or the times he was in. In fact, I will admit to realizing that I needed to read this in small chunks and so it took me most of the summer. Thanks to Harrington, I have a far better idea of the man, his thoughts, and the forces at play in the times in which he lived.
December 27, 2017
This is a Goodreads win review.I do not know what to make of this book. I have never heard of this Meister Eckhart or his teachings. From what I can tell he was a very learned man and lay preacher. He had a revolutionary method at that time of having people reach a personal internal path to God, which a lot of people liked and some people did not like and could not understand.
May 9, 2019
Excellent introduction to the life, times, and thought of Meister Eckhart, a truly fascinating and complex figure.
September 19, 2020
Outstanding book! As someone who has been drawn to the teachings of Meister Eckhart, this was a thorough, well-written, accessible read placing Eckhart in his historical context.
August 8, 2019
An interesting biography about someone I never knew existed! It's refreshing hearing some Christian philosophies from the 1200s sounding almost modern.
October 6, 2024
Eckhart grew up in the Middle Ages, (1260-1328) although at the time, it was modern times, just like in any age that one lives in. The present is always modern. Today he is considered a Christian mystic, accepted and quoted by Zen Buddhists, Sufi Muslims, Advaita Vedanta Hindus, Jewish Cabbalists, and other spiritual groups, even atheists. It was not always so.
The thing about mystics, and what draws us together from every religion, is a deep desire to know God as intimately as possible for a creature to know its Creator. That search is a dangerous search, because God is dangerous, and one can get self all mixed up and entangled with otherness that is not understandable. A little like the seven Sceva brothers who went to battle an evil spirit who thought that mentioning Jesus or Paul’s name would be enough (Acts 19:14-15). One has to be careful about going too far without enough information. Presumptuousness in the realm of God is fatal.
Of course, one would think that these searches would lead, eventually, to Jesus, because He said, “no one comes to the Father except through me.��� (Jn.14:6) What of those who seek to get to the Father without Jesus? Are they simply destroyed? Or does the Father redirect them back to Jesus? My hope is the latter.
The author defines mystic as, “an individual who has directly experienced the divine or ultimate reality.” That in itself is a dangerous definition since the divine has a name and what exactly is ultimate reality? It’s too simplistic a definition to capture the complexity and mystery of God. Eckhart, I think would agree. He spent his life searching to put into words that which cannot be defined in words, except to know the Word.
Eckhart became a Dominican and a revered scholar at the University of Paris, which was considered the center of scholasticism at the time. Unlike other scholastics who felt the common people were too ignorant to understand their high thoughts, Eckhart believed that deeper knowledge of God was for everyone and should not be “kept” just for those with university training.
And the common people loved him, while the scholastics and church officials slowly grew leery of his theology. Part of the problem was that most people, common and scholastic alike, didn’t understand him. He understood that and would often comment that people misunderstood him, even up to his death in 1328.
Popular as he was, emperors, bishops and the pope at the time, were not enamored with him, and after a papal investigation, which didn’t conclude until after his death, Pope John XXII censured Eckhart and in the official condemnation (In agro dominico), spoke of “evil weeds” and “devil’s seeds” which had taken root “among the good crop of Catholic truth.” The Pope went on to say that Eckhart, “ wished to know more than he should, and not in accordance with sobriety and the measure of faith, because he turned his ear from the truth and followed fables. The man was led astray by the father of lies…and he presented many things as dogma that were designed to cloud the true faith in the hearts of many, things which he put forth especially before the uneducated crowd in his sermons and that he admitted also in his writings.” Pretty damning.
He was kicked out of the church he loved and almost disappeared except for a few students who believed in him and continued to write about him and argue for his theology. Seven hundred years later, Eckhart has received much new airtime, although he remains a controversial figure. Many in the church worry that his “religionless spirituality” can easily mislead people and cause moral decline. His words take study, meditation, contemplation, and discernment to understand, and require patience to get to the essence of what he’s trying to say. And, he was known to exaggerate at times to make a point.
Let me share a few of these difficult concepts for you to ruminate on.
“I extol detachment above any love, because at best, love constrains me to love God, but detachment compels God to love me” Humanity’s love is so frail and puny that to love God with it is such a shadow of what it could be, but to detach from self, causes God to love us which is a pure and powerful love. It is so much better to be loved by God than to depend on my loving Him.
“Anyone who desires something from God is a merchant.” When we desire something from anyone, we always think in terms of exchange, of transaction. We do not know how to ask without planning to repay.
“Nothing is so cheap as heaven, when it is for sale and nothing is so glorious and precious a possession, when it has been earned. It is called cheap, because it is on sale to everybody for as much as he can afford. Therefore, a man should give all he has for heaven - his own will. As long as he keeps any part of his own will he has not paid for heaven.” We can send ahead but we cannot bring anything to heaven. We must leave our “self” behind. Only then can we go to heaven and be clothed with our true self.
“We are the cause of all our hindrances. Guard yourself against yourself, then you will have guarded well.” Eckhart believed firmly that the war was between God and our “self.”
“People should not worry so much about what they have to do; they should consider rather what they are. If people and their ways were good, their deeds would shine brightly….Do not think to place holiness in doing; we should place holiness in being, for it is not the works that sanctify us, but we who should sanctify the works.” It is out of the heart that evil comes, so if our heart is not good, neither will our fruit be good. Our being must be in Christ, and Christ must be in our being.
“If a man were in an ecstasy as Saint Paul was (2 Cor.12:2-4), and if he knew of a sick person who needed a bowl of soup from him, I would consider it far better if you were to leave that rapture out of love and help the needy person out of greater love.” Eckhart was a true Matthew 25 man.
“What is truth? The truth is such a noble thing that if God were able to turn away from truth, I would cling to truth and let God go; for God is truth, and all that is in time, and that God created, is not truth.” Anything that is not God, is not truth.
“Where is this hidden God? It is just as if a man were to hide himself and then to give himself away by clearing his throat. God has done the same. No man could ever have found God, but He has revealed His presence.” Self-explanatory.
“In eternity there is no before and after. Therefore, what God did a thousand years ago, and what he does in a thousand years, and does now, is all but a single act.” I love people who understand eternity.
Eventually, Eckhart embraced via negative, the way of defining God by what He is not. To define God is to limit Him. Language is limiting and so to use words to define God limits God to the definition of those words. “God has no distinctions: He is utter simplicity, pure unity. On the great chain of being, God is the one, both male and female, odd and even, the unity of the reality from which the created many emerged.”
Augustine lamented that “whatever we say of God is not true, and what we do not say of Him is true.” To which Eckhart added, “be silent and do not chatter about God, because by chattering about Him you are lying and committing a sin. Nor should you seek to understand anything about God, for God is above all understanding. One master says: ‘If I had a God I could understand, I would no longer consider Him God.”
And I think I’ll leave you with this: “anything we ascribe to God except pure being, encloses Him, limiting His absolute freedom and unity. He is as high above being as the highest Angel is above a midge. I would be as wrong to call God a being as I were to call the sun pale or black. God is neither this nor that….If you think of anything He might be, He is not that. He is Being above all being; He is beingless Being, or more simply, He is beyond all speech.” That is the challenge of a mystic. To describe the indescribable, without getting into trouble. I love it.
I think you’ll enjoy this book. Lose yourself in the wonder of God, and struggle with a created language that cannot possibly speak intelligently about the Creator of all things.
The thing about mystics, and what draws us together from every religion, is a deep desire to know God as intimately as possible for a creature to know its Creator. That search is a dangerous search, because God is dangerous, and one can get self all mixed up and entangled with otherness that is not understandable. A little like the seven Sceva brothers who went to battle an evil spirit who thought that mentioning Jesus or Paul’s name would be enough (Acts 19:14-15). One has to be careful about going too far without enough information. Presumptuousness in the realm of God is fatal.
Of course, one would think that these searches would lead, eventually, to Jesus, because He said, “no one comes to the Father except through me.��� (Jn.14:6) What of those who seek to get to the Father without Jesus? Are they simply destroyed? Or does the Father redirect them back to Jesus? My hope is the latter.
The author defines mystic as, “an individual who has directly experienced the divine or ultimate reality.” That in itself is a dangerous definition since the divine has a name and what exactly is ultimate reality? It’s too simplistic a definition to capture the complexity and mystery of God. Eckhart, I think would agree. He spent his life searching to put into words that which cannot be defined in words, except to know the Word.
Eckhart became a Dominican and a revered scholar at the University of Paris, which was considered the center of scholasticism at the time. Unlike other scholastics who felt the common people were too ignorant to understand their high thoughts, Eckhart believed that deeper knowledge of God was for everyone and should not be “kept” just for those with university training.
And the common people loved him, while the scholastics and church officials slowly grew leery of his theology. Part of the problem was that most people, common and scholastic alike, didn’t understand him. He understood that and would often comment that people misunderstood him, even up to his death in 1328.
Popular as he was, emperors, bishops and the pope at the time, were not enamored with him, and after a papal investigation, which didn’t conclude until after his death, Pope John XXII censured Eckhart and in the official condemnation (In agro dominico), spoke of “evil weeds” and “devil’s seeds” which had taken root “among the good crop of Catholic truth.” The Pope went on to say that Eckhart, “ wished to know more than he should, and not in accordance with sobriety and the measure of faith, because he turned his ear from the truth and followed fables. The man was led astray by the father of lies…and he presented many things as dogma that were designed to cloud the true faith in the hearts of many, things which he put forth especially before the uneducated crowd in his sermons and that he admitted also in his writings.” Pretty damning.
He was kicked out of the church he loved and almost disappeared except for a few students who believed in him and continued to write about him and argue for his theology. Seven hundred years later, Eckhart has received much new airtime, although he remains a controversial figure. Many in the church worry that his “religionless spirituality” can easily mislead people and cause moral decline. His words take study, meditation, contemplation, and discernment to understand, and require patience to get to the essence of what he’s trying to say. And, he was known to exaggerate at times to make a point.
Let me share a few of these difficult concepts for you to ruminate on.
“I extol detachment above any love, because at best, love constrains me to love God, but detachment compels God to love me” Humanity’s love is so frail and puny that to love God with it is such a shadow of what it could be, but to detach from self, causes God to love us which is a pure and powerful love. It is so much better to be loved by God than to depend on my loving Him.
“Anyone who desires something from God is a merchant.” When we desire something from anyone, we always think in terms of exchange, of transaction. We do not know how to ask without planning to repay.
“Nothing is so cheap as heaven, when it is for sale and nothing is so glorious and precious a possession, when it has been earned. It is called cheap, because it is on sale to everybody for as much as he can afford. Therefore, a man should give all he has for heaven - his own will. As long as he keeps any part of his own will he has not paid for heaven.” We can send ahead but we cannot bring anything to heaven. We must leave our “self” behind. Only then can we go to heaven and be clothed with our true self.
“We are the cause of all our hindrances. Guard yourself against yourself, then you will have guarded well.” Eckhart believed firmly that the war was between God and our “self.”
“People should not worry so much about what they have to do; they should consider rather what they are. If people and their ways were good, their deeds would shine brightly….Do not think to place holiness in doing; we should place holiness in being, for it is not the works that sanctify us, but we who should sanctify the works.” It is out of the heart that evil comes, so if our heart is not good, neither will our fruit be good. Our being must be in Christ, and Christ must be in our being.
“If a man were in an ecstasy as Saint Paul was (2 Cor.12:2-4), and if he knew of a sick person who needed a bowl of soup from him, I would consider it far better if you were to leave that rapture out of love and help the needy person out of greater love.” Eckhart was a true Matthew 25 man.
“What is truth? The truth is such a noble thing that if God were able to turn away from truth, I would cling to truth and let God go; for God is truth, and all that is in time, and that God created, is not truth.” Anything that is not God, is not truth.
“Where is this hidden God? It is just as if a man were to hide himself and then to give himself away by clearing his throat. God has done the same. No man could ever have found God, but He has revealed His presence.” Self-explanatory.
“In eternity there is no before and after. Therefore, what God did a thousand years ago, and what he does in a thousand years, and does now, is all but a single act.” I love people who understand eternity.
Eventually, Eckhart embraced via negative, the way of defining God by what He is not. To define God is to limit Him. Language is limiting and so to use words to define God limits God to the definition of those words. “God has no distinctions: He is utter simplicity, pure unity. On the great chain of being, God is the one, both male and female, odd and even, the unity of the reality from which the created many emerged.”
Augustine lamented that “whatever we say of God is not true, and what we do not say of Him is true.” To which Eckhart added, “be silent and do not chatter about God, because by chattering about Him you are lying and committing a sin. Nor should you seek to understand anything about God, for God is above all understanding. One master says: ‘If I had a God I could understand, I would no longer consider Him God.”
And I think I’ll leave you with this: “anything we ascribe to God except pure being, encloses Him, limiting His absolute freedom and unity. He is as high above being as the highest Angel is above a midge. I would be as wrong to call God a being as I were to call the sun pale or black. God is neither this nor that….If you think of anything He might be, He is not that. He is Being above all being; He is beingless Being, or more simply, He is beyond all speech.” That is the challenge of a mystic. To describe the indescribable, without getting into trouble. I love it.
I think you’ll enjoy this book. Lose yourself in the wonder of God, and struggle with a created language that cannot possibly speak intelligently about the Creator of all things.
February 21, 2025
A great treatment on Meister Eckhart's life does a great job placing his works in the context of his life in the late middle ages.
I was intrigued by this piece of historical art.
The only thing that is important to note that is the reason for 4 instead of 5 stars is that its quite obvious that the writer hasn't had a experience of union with God en because of that doesn't completely understand the nuances of the Meister's work.
For example, he often implies that Meister Eckhart does things for his status, etc... but those are drives of the ego that don't seem to have anything to do with the reasons Meister Eckhart operated. And that Eckhart came to his conclusion by reasoning, which doesn't seem probable to me.
Also, there is the important distinction that is missed. Meister Eckhart was a German and used the word : Göttlichkeit for absolute reality.
This has been translated as Godhead, which can give the appearance of gods-head.
A better modern translation would be Godness/ like beingness , implying a quality of being instead of a person.
Some more clarity on the subject by GPT:
While *Godhead* in modern English might seem to imply "God’s head," that’s actually not its historical meaning. The word *Godhead* comes from Old English *godhād*, where **"-hād"** (like in *childhood* or *priesthood*) means **"state" or "essence.""** So, *Godhead* originally meant **"God’s essence" or "divine nature"**, not a literal head of God.
This makes *Godhead* a fitting translation of Meister Eckhart’s *Gottheit*, which refers to the absolute, formless divine ground beyond all names and attributes.
In contrast:
- *Gott* (God) = the personal, active Creator.
*Gottheit* (Godhead) = the ineffable, transcendent divine source.
So, despite how *Godhead* sounds in modern English, it’s not a mistranslation—it accurately conveys Eckhart’s distinction between God as a being and God as pure being itself.
I was intrigued by this piece of historical art.
The only thing that is important to note that is the reason for 4 instead of 5 stars is that its quite obvious that the writer hasn't had a experience of union with God en because of that doesn't completely understand the nuances of the Meister's work.
For example, he often implies that Meister Eckhart does things for his status, etc... but those are drives of the ego that don't seem to have anything to do with the reasons Meister Eckhart operated. And that Eckhart came to his conclusion by reasoning, which doesn't seem probable to me.
Also, there is the important distinction that is missed. Meister Eckhart was a German and used the word : Göttlichkeit for absolute reality.
This has been translated as Godhead, which can give the appearance of gods-head.
A better modern translation would be Godness/ like beingness , implying a quality of being instead of a person.
Some more clarity on the subject by GPT:
While *Godhead* in modern English might seem to imply "God’s head," that’s actually not its historical meaning. The word *Godhead* comes from Old English *godhād*, where **"-hād"** (like in *childhood* or *priesthood*) means **"state" or "essence.""** So, *Godhead* originally meant **"God’s essence" or "divine nature"**, not a literal head of God.
This makes *Godhead* a fitting translation of Meister Eckhart’s *Gottheit*, which refers to the absolute, formless divine ground beyond all names and attributes.
In contrast:
- *Gott* (God) = the personal, active Creator.
*Gottheit* (Godhead) = the ineffable, transcendent divine source.
So, despite how *Godhead* sounds in modern English, it’s not a mistranslation—it accurately conveys Eckhart’s distinction between God as a being and God as pure being itself.
September 4, 2025
I was aware that Eckhart was an esteemed professor of theology at the University of Paris, but Harrington's book revealed how esteemed Eckhart was, holding the theology chair twice. In my own spiritual journey (within Christianity) I have found that intellectual understanding and knowledge can only take one so far. Many of my Christian friends are content to "know God" through what they understand of God, intellectually. For Eckhart, in spite of his towering intellect and knowledge of God by way of his intellect, he discovered that human understanding through the intellect has its limits. Eckhart braved the next step, which was to proceed where the Apostle Paul urges the Ephesian believers in chapter 3 of that epistle to proceed, to "be rooted deep in the love of Christ and founded securely on love, that you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints the experience of that love, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of it; that you may really come to know practically, through experience for yourselves the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge without experience." Eckhart not only took this trail, he blazed it for believers who have hit the wall of the inadequacy of knowing God through mere intellectual pursuit.
July 2, 2019
I really enjoyed Joel Harrington's efforts to place Meister Eckhart into the historical context of his life. I've read Eckhart's writings, but found this treatment of the man himself, the political and social climate, etc., very helpful in trying to understand Eckhart's theology - which in my opinion - we are all guessing at, since it wasn't clearly laid out by the Meister himself. Many take a few quotes, a sentence or two that support their world view and pat themselves on the back! I think that's why he's now nearly universally looked upon as a wise sage - you can interpret his purposefully veiled statements in many ways. It was also very beneficial to understand the theological speculations that came before and after Eckhart to place his views, as we have them, into the broader context of developing theologies. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to get to know Meister Eckhart and not just his sayings!
Brett Folkman, Doctor of Ministry
Brett Folkman, Doctor of Ministry
April 11, 2019
"Dangerous Mystic...." is a biography of the great Christian Mystic, Meister Eckhart. It chronicles his life as a child, his entry into the Domincan Order and the progression of his spiritual life. This is the most comprehensive history of Meister Eckhart's life that I have read. It gives an account not only of Meister Eckhart's life but the history of the time that contributed to Eckhart's philosophy; however, this book appears to be more geared to the historian than the casual reader but I would still highly recommend it.
September 17, 2018
Given that this biography was written by a history professor at Vanderbilt, I was afraid the prose might be dry and slow going. Not so. While Harrington does spend considerable time discussing the cultural/social/political/religious context in which Meister Eckhart lived (the late 13th - early 14th centuries), the writing is lively and engaging. Ironically, Harrington does a better job elucidating Eckhart's main philosophical ideas than many theologically trained writers I've read. Highly recommended!
September 21, 2020
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This is a fascinating, concise introduction to famed German Medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart, explaining Eckhart's philosophy and large influence on Western Christian mysticism. The writing is lively and engaging.
Paul, The Book Grocer
This is a fascinating, concise introduction to famed German Medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart, explaining Eckhart's philosophy and large influence on Western Christian mysticism. The writing is lively and engaging.
Paul, The Book Grocer
November 24, 2020
In so far as I understand what is written of Meister Eckhart in this book, I am compelled to strive for a similar relationship with God as the one he had. That is I hope to go further down that road or rather realize how much of the road is under my feet after dwelling on the truths contained within his writings. This book helped me realize a bit more about his contribution to this goal of realization.
June 8, 2023
There might be some self-selection going on in the GR ratings here; this is good, for sure, but it's hardly likely to appeal to anyone who isn't already excited about the topic. Harrington does a great job nonetheless, very effectively using general sociological observations when we don't have concrete evidence for Eckhart himself.
I nearly gave an extra star for a beautiful cover.
I nearly gave an extra star for a beautiful cover.
May 3, 2018
Harrington presents a biography of Medieval mystic, Eckhart, set in historical context. This is an easily readable scholarly work which shares some of Eckhart's teaching in addition to his life. The reader is left with a full idea of who Eckhart was and why he is influencing thinkers today.
January 14, 2024
I really enjoyed listening to this book. It was a part of history and place in history that I knew very little about. Harrington is a great popular history writer, and I liked hearing about this monk who was so influential yet not known to me.
April 8, 2018
This is a Giveaway book, paperback and is an advance uncorrected proof.
Book is both a biography and theology. Traces Meister Echhart's theology though out his life.
Book is both a biography and theology. Traces Meister Echhart's theology though out his life.
February 27, 2020
Sehr gut, und sehr schön. Über Meister Eckhart.
March 5, 2022
This is very well written and interesting for someone who had virtually no knowledge of Eckhart. I could follow all the way through.
March 24, 2024
Very readable and interesting analysis of Eckhart and the historical setting he lived in. Superb research.
December 30, 2024
An excellent read, well worth the time it takes to enjoy it. I recommend this book!
September 2, 2025
Very well done, informational, factual, but has a conversational quality that makes it easy to digest. Fascinating religious history.
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