Jim Hoffman

Eckhart Tolle’s Hall of Mirrors

World Religions

“Heymans brings his readers into a dialogue, not only with Eckhart Tolle, but with many other philosophers concerned with issues of personal identity, agency, and self-awareness. In addition to drawing upon insights from Edith Stein, George Herbert Meade, Thomas Aquinas, Martha Nussbaum, Alasdair MacIntyre, and David Abrams, Heymans critiques Tolle’s “essence of all religions” through the lens of the ancient contrast between Plato and Aristotle. While Tolle aligns with the Platonic pursuit of timeless abstraction and detachment from the transient material world, Heymans argues for an Aristotelian engagement with the particulars of narrative-based physical experience, the creative and emotionally charged exploration that he sees as the truly human project.”