Meister Eckhart - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• In Jacob's Ladder, Louis, the main character's friend, quotes Eckhart: "You know what he said? The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn 'em all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. ... If you're frightened of dying and holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the Earth".

In the book The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson, Eckhart is mentioned in a story Marianne Engel recounts to the (unnamed) protagonist about her days in the Engelthal Monastery:

'...Meister Eckhart would not even admit that God was good....Eckhart's position was that anything that was good can become better, and whatever may become better may become best. God cannot be referred to as "good", "better", or best because He is above all things. If a man says that God is wise, the man is lying because anything that is wise can become wiser. Anything that a man might say about God is incorrect, even calling Him by the name of God. God is "superessential nothingness" and "transcendent Being"..."beyond all words and beyond all understanding. The best a man can do is remain silent, because anytime he prates on about God, he is committing the sin of lying. The true master knows that if he had a God he could understand, He would never hold Him to be God.' (pp.140-41)

Eckhart is also referenced in J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey. In a letter to Zooey, Buddy says, "I can't help thinking you'd make a damn site better-adjusted actor if Seymour and I hadn't thrown in the Upanishads and the Diamond Sutra and Eckhart and all our other old loves with the rest of your recommended reading when you were small."

The third movement of John Adams' Harmonielehre symphony (1985) is titled 'Meister Eckhardt and Quackie', which imagines the mystic floating through space with his baby daughter on his back whispering secrets of grace in his ear.