ABSTRACT
This chapter examines attention by drawing together strands from mystical theology, particularly Meister Eckhart, and continental philosophy, that of Martin Heidegger. The argument explores some difficulties of conceiving attention as a faculty of human agency. Educational contexts illustrate well the ways in which attention is both conceived and misconceived, as well as providing a strong practical motivation for needing to consider the extent to which attention can be managed and controlled, and the anthropological suppositions present in such considerations. The argument relies upon mystical theology insofar as it draws on negative strategies for undoing some of the conventional ways of framing attention. Behold: this may be the educator's essential word. The gathering of attention is perhaps the essence of education and what Heidegger's pedagogy is really all about. Heidegger's pedagogy is characterised as a kind of gathering of attention that acts in a participative way.
