Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Indeed ! ! !

Philosopher Marshall McLuhan (left) and Mystic / Philosopher / Theologian Meister Eckhart (right)

from The Medium is the Massage, pg. 147
by Marshall McLuhan

This past week, I developed a report on why Marshall McLuhan included Meister Eckhart in his book, The Medium is the Massage. For those who aren't familiar, Meister Eckhart was a medieval theologian, philosopher, and writer who famously wrote, "Only the hand that erases can write the true thing."

In my report, I showed how McLuhan's opinions about propaganda and the idea of the interconnected global village are derived from the spirituality of Meister Eckhart's philosophies about truth and goodness in God. I identified the meaning of Eckhart's quote as ousting evil and untruth from power not with violence or condemnation, but by replacing it with pure truth and goodness. I showed the similarity between this and McLuhan's "propaganda ends where dialogue begins" to prove that the two philosophers viewed the world around them as changing and developing towards a final, pure truth. Whether McLuhan is happy about the changing electric world or not, he recognizes that the growing mass interconnectivity of people and information is undoubtedly happening. Meister Eckhart would argue that this achievement of truth is a oneness with God; pure, perfect truth and goodness. Like I said, McLuhan's opinion on this unclear, but personally I wouldn't call this entity God, in a deistic, figural way, but I would call it God in a figurative way, representing the wholly formed truth of life.

I thought it was helpful to hear in depth about all of the people in The Medium is the Massage because, seeing them all together, it was clear that they were all included for the same reason. Each figure, in their time, recognized and responded to the changing world around them, like McLuhan. They are all symbols of their period's thinking and were all important to the development of the avant-garde, "game changing" life following them.

Here's a link to Professor Mernard McGinn of The University of Chicago Divinity School on Meister Eckhart's notions of oneness with God: http://youtu.be/eesLtg5ywrU?t=1m13s.