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May 13 and 20
Vanderbilt History professor Joel Harrington will discuss his latest book, Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within. (See reviews below).
NOTE: Copies of Dangerous Mystic are available for the reduced price of $20.00. Contact joceline.lemaire@ctk.org to reserve a copy.
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. Many 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.
Excerpts from reviews of Dangerous Mystic:
“[A] wonderfully smart, readable biography of a 14th-century Dominican priest and mystic named Meister Eckhart. . . . [Harrington] is a scholar/storyteller who can tell a true tale that feels like a novel, without cheap tricks. . . . At times, Dangerous Mystic has a Name of the Rose excitement to it, a man against the grain during a time of ferment, a mind that sought to rise above it. Dangerous Mystic is likely to make Eckhart even more of a hero to more people. Good.”— Philadelphia Inquirer
"A rare combination of sweeping historical narrative, penetrating biography, and profound spiritual elucidation. Joel F. Harrington elegantly shows why Meister Eckhart is reclaimed as a touchstone of humane holiness in every era - especially ours. This is a book to read, to save, and to give.”
― James Carroll, author of THE CLOISTER
"Joel F. Harrington's Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within is a bold new reading of the life and thought of the great fourteenth-century German mystic who has remained both influential and controversial since his death. Harrington situates Eckhart in his historical and intellectual context in a way accessible to the general reader, as well as thought-provoking for Eckhart scholars. This is a book that will open up the great Dominican teacher and mystical preacher to a new generation. It deserves to be widely read."
― Bernard McGinn, Naomi Shenstone Donnelly Professor (Emeritus) of historical theology and history of Christianity at the University of Chicago and author of THE PRESENCE OF GOD