In Meister Eckhart Frank Tobin presents an overview of Eckhart's thought and language and of the relationship between the two.

The thought of Meister Eckhart — the Dominican theologian, the preacher, the master of language, the mystic — exudes a remarkable fascination on the modern mind, not the least due to its characteristic interplay of scholastic-academic and vernacular terminology. This volume presents the only book-length study in English of Meister Eckhart the philosopher within the tradition in which his thought is embedded and from which it draws its authority. It shows that even as Eckhart may be justly regarded as a medieval precursor of a modern philosophy of subjectivity, the novelty and continuity of his thought can only be understood in its relation to that of Albert the Great, Aristotle, Dionysius Pseudo-Areopagita, the Liber de causis and the Neoplatonic heritage, Theodoric of Freiberg and Thomas Aquinas as well as Eckhart of Gründig, Jakob of Metz and Johannes Picardi of Lichtenberg. At its center lies the return of the soul, through its detachment from everything corporeal, manifold and temporal, into its ground or spark — into that “something” in the soul where, according to Eckhart, “the ground of God is my ground and my ground is God's ground”. The present translation not only revises the German-language original to take account of recent debates in Eckhart-scholarship, it moreover makes accessible to the non-specialist all Latin and Middle High German material, much of it previously not available in any translation at all. Meister Eckhart: Dominikanischer Theologe, Prediger, Sprachgenie, Mystiker — sein Denken fasziniert den modernen Menschen nicht zuletzt wegen der einprägsamen Wechselwirkung von scholastisch-akademischer Terminologie und deutscher Mundart. Der vorliegende Band ist die einzige englischsprachige Monographie über Meister Eckhart als Philosophen, die ihn im Zusammenhang der ihn maîgeblich bedingenden philosophischen Tradition interpretiert. Auch wenn Eckhart zurecht als Vordenker der modernen Subjektivität gilt, kann man ihn nur im bezug auf Albert den Groîen, Aristoteles, Dionysius Pseudo-Areopagita, den Liber de causis und die neuplatonische Tradition, Dietrich von Freiberg und Thomas von Aquin sowie Eckhart von Gründig, Jakob von Metz und Johannes Picardi von Lichtenberg adäquat verstehen. Im Mittelpunkt dieser Studie steht die Rückkehr der Seele — durch ihre Abgeschiedenheit vom Körperlichen, vom Mannigfaltigen und vom Zeitlichen — in ihren Grund bzw. in den Funken der Seele, wo nach Eckhart “gotes grunt mîn grunt und mîn grunt gotes grunt” ist. Der vorliegende Band revidiert nicht nur die deutschsprachige Original-Studie im Hinblick auf Debatten in der neueren Eckhart-Forschung: Auch dem Nicht-Spezialisten werden sämtliche lateinische und mittelhochdeutsche Quellen durch die Übersetzung ins Englische zugänglich gemacht.

Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge is not only the most profound study of the core theological and philosophical themes of Christianity’s greatest mystic ever written. It is also the greatest exegesis of Christian non-dualism ever published. Of all Christian mystical teachings, those of the Dominican theologian Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–c. 1328) are increasingly recognized as the most compatible with the non-dualistic traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism. Based on the author’s three decades of formal study and spiritual practice, this book offers a clear path to understanding the breadth and depth of Eckhart’s unique achievement. C.F. Kelley argues that the fundamental principle that elevates Eckhart above all other Western mystics, and links him to Eastern spiritual approaches, is his insistence that we “think principally” in divinis—that is, from within the mind or orientation of the Godhead or “Divine Knowledge” itself. “What is here presented to the reader supersedes all former interpretations of Eckhart’s teaching. It refuses to ignore what he precisely and repeatedly says cannot be ignored, that is, his exposition of the doctrine of Divine Knowledge in terms of the highest and most essential of all possible considerations.” —C.F. Kelley, from the Preface

Life and times of the 14th century German spiritual leader 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.

From the world's foremost authority on Christian mysticism, the definitive story of Christianity's greatest mystic, Meister Eckhart, his insights into God, his relation to the tradition, and how he learned from the women religious of his day.

Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1327) was a Dominican philosopher and spiritual master whose thought is among the most daring and difficult in the history of western mysticism. This volume contains his technical Latin writings and more popular German sermons.

Meister Eckhart was a German Dominican priest whose writings form a huge part of the foundation of the Western mystical tradition. Though condemned by the Church and excommunicated at the end of his life, his influence on people from a range of spiritual traditions has remained strong. Includes 10 German woodcut illustrations and ornaments.