Posted on 19 July 2010, 20:21

When I was asked to write about Meister Eckhart, I hesitated, because all I really wanted to do was meet the great man, and what chance of that? But then something happened.

As a part-time therapist, I’m often struck by how little I know about someone until I meet them. I may have information about them, but until I’ve listened to them reflect on their lives, the chemistry isn’t there and I know almost nothing. So what to do with Eckhart, a 13th century abbot who shockingly put detachment above love in his list of virtues?

The answer came in a moment. I’ve always loved dialogue. I used to write satirical comedy for programmes such as Spitting Image and Weekending. And then, as a therapist I know the power of dialogue to create something which didn’t exist before; the power of two souls meeting. So the idea was born: why not speak with Eckhart?

What happened next? To find out, read the full article When Simon met Eckhart here.

Off topic, but if you are one of the principals of White Crow Books, could I suggest that we really need modern editions of Andrew Lang’s and Maurice Maeterlinck’s writings on postmortem survival? What I have seen of them is both poetic and profound.

They are likely to be out of copyright.

If you have or can get hard copies, I might be willing to transcribe them into electronic format. Optical character scanning on old books doesn’t work very well.