Product Description

In 1962, at age seventeen, Karen Armstrong entered a convent, eager to meet God. After seven brutally unhappy years as a nun, she left her order to pursue English literature at Oxford. But convent life had profoundly altered her, and coping with the outside world and her expiring faith proved to be excruciating. Her deep solitude and a terrifying illness–diagnosed only years later as epilepsy–marked her forever as an outsider. In her own mind she was a complete failure: as a nun, as an academic, and as a normal woman capable of intimacy. Her future seemed very much in question until she stumbled into comparative theology. What she found, in learning, thinking, and writing about other religions, was the ecstasy and transcendence she had never felt as a nun. Gripping, revelatory, and inspirational, The Spiral Staircase is an extraordinary account of an astonishing spiritual journey.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41011 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-22
• Released on: 2005-02-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.com Review
Karen Armstrong speaks to the troubling years following her decision to leave the life of a Roman Catholic nun and join the secular world in 1969. What makes this memoir especially fascinating is that Armstrong already wrote about this era once---only it was a disastrous book. It was too soon for her to understand how these dark, struggling years influenced her spiritual development, and she was too immature to protect herself from being be bullied by the publishing world. As a result, she agreed to portray herself only in as "positive and lively a light as possible"---a mandate that gave her permission to deny the truth of her pain and falsify her inner experience. The inspiration for this new approach comes from T. S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday, a series of six poems that speak to the process of spiritual recovery. Eliot metaphorically climbs a spiral staircase in these poems---turning again and again to what he does not want to see as he slowly makes progress toward the light. In revisiting her spiral climb out of her dark night of the soul, Armstrong gives readers a stunningly poignant account about the nature of spiritual growth. Upon leaving the convent, Armstrong grapples with the grief of her abandoned path and the uncertainty of her place in the world. On top of this angst, Armstrong spent years suffering from undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy, causing her to have frequent blackout lapses in memory and disturbing hallucinations---crippling symptoms that her psychiatrist adamantly attributed to Armstrong's denial of her femininity and sexuality. The details of this narrative may be specific to Armstrong's life, but the meanin! g she makes of her spiral ascent makes this a universally relevant story. All readers can glean inspiration from her insights into the nature of surrender and the possibilities of finding solace in the absence of hope. Armstrong shows us why spiritual wisdom is often a seasoned gift---no matter how much we strive for understanding, we can't force profound insights to occur simply because our publisher is waiting for them. With her elegant, humble and brave voice, she inspires readers to willingly turn our attention toward our false identities and vigilantly defended beliefs in order to better see the truth and vulnerability of our existence. Herein lies the staircase we can climb to enlightenment. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly
In 1962, British writer Armstrong (The Battle for God, etc.) entered a Roman Catholic convent, smitten by the desire to "find God." She was 17 years old at the time—too young, she recognizes now, to have made such a momentous decision. Armstrong’s 1981 memoir Through the Narrow Gate described her frustrating, lonely experience of cloistered life and her decision, at 24, to renounce her vows. In its sequel, Beginning the World (1983), she tried to explain her readjustment to the secular world—and failed. "It is the worst book I have ever written," she declares in the preface to this new volume: "it was far too soon to write about those years"; "it was not a truthful account"; "I was told to present myself in as positive and lively a light as possible." The true story, which she relates in this second sequel, was far more conflicted and intellectually vibrant. Her departure from the convent, she writes, actually made her quite sad; she was "constantly wracked by a very great regret" and suffering on top of it with the symptoms of undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy. How she emerged from such darkness to make a career as a writer whose books honor spiritual concerns while maintaining intellectual freedom and rigor—this is Armstrong’s real concern, and the one that will be of most interest to the fans of her many acclaimed works.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–This fascinating narrative is the story of Armstrong's personal spiritual quest, which led her at age 17 to join a convent. However, she found that her own skeptical nature and the physical constraints of convent life crippled her intellectually and spiritually. An undiagnosed form of epilepsy, which caused delusions and disorientation, further complicated her adjustment and was dismissed by the nuns as teenage melodrama. After seven years, Armstrong left the convent. The account of her difficult reentry into the "world" is heart wrenching, from her failure to pass her academic exams to the loss of her teaching post to the discomfort of television appearances. Slowly, with the help of a doctor who was able to diagnose and treat her epilepsy and good friends who supported her choices, the author began an academic journey that resulted not only in intellectual fulfillment, but spiritual commitment as well. Along the way, as Armstrong questions her own Catholicism, she delves deeply into other religions and achieves a greater appreciation not only of Christianity but also of Judaism and Islam. Introspective readers who have felt themselves to be outsiders and those who have questioned the values they have been taught will empathize with the author's struggle. Students interested in comparative religion will learn a great deal from her clear, objective descriptions, and her quest to find meaning in religion will inspire lively discussion.–Jackie Gropman, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

An Important Autobiography
I recently read Karen Armstrong's "Jerusalem" and had a strong urge to learn more about her, which itself was an unusual reaction for me on finishing a work of general non-fiction. I therefore was thrilled to find that she had already written an autobiography, "Through the Narrow Gate," which ends with her decision to leave the convent. When I finished "Through the Narrow Gate," I wanted to know more. So I was beyond thrilled when I went online the day I finished that book and discovered that "The Sprial Staircase" was scheduled for release in another two weeks or so. I am not a dispassionate reviewer of this book; I felt as if she had written this book just for me. Something in my life has been leading me to Karen Armstrong's life and work, and the more I research the more it seems that I am not alone.

This book is easily the most important religious autobiography I know of since Thomas Merton's "Seven Storey Mountain," and I suspect that the analogy between the titles is deliberate. I think Armstrong knows now that her life story and work are taking on some just-dawning importance in the story of the "modern" world, East and West. It would not surprise me if this book ultimately takes a place alongside Augustine's "Confessions."

Many readers will find that "The Spiral Staircase" helps set them free -- free to find their own path, free to practice a religious tradition, free to be self-emptying and compassonate -- and not to be enslaved by ideas, beliefs, or certainty. Armstrong's story is a guide to living our humanity, which is all we can aspire to anyhow, by embracing our own suffering and the suffering and humanity of all people. The feeling I have on closing this book for the first of what will be many times is: "Let's stop the nonsense and get on with it." If you are fortunate enough to find "The Spiral Staircase" along your path, then I encourage you, with apologies to Augustine: "Take it up and read it."

She makes you believe a religious life is worth the effort
Karen Armstrong's first memoir, Through the Narrow Gate, ended not long after she acted upon her decision to leave the convent where, after seven years, she had become a skeptical nun. The Spiral Staircase pick up her intellectual and religious questing and brings her devoted readers up to date on the result of her explorations into the nature of God and his/her/? place in our world and lives.
Armstrong garnered many degrees and awards as she pursued a solitary, scholarly life. While she still harbors bitter feelings about how she was treated (and NOT treated, for her epilepsy) within the convent, her life since she left the cloister has been devoted to a style of intellectual live that bears some deep similarity to the routines followed in religious orders - and the irony of this similarity does not escape her. On her lifelong quest, she found herself straying far from orthodox Christianity, delving into the teachings of both Buddhism and Islam - and she has written books on both subjects.
Here's the interesting thing: Lots of modern authors who write memoirs focus with near obsession on their illnesses, disabilities, eating disorders, depression, etc. Armstrong discusses all these issues, too, but while other memorists build them up, Armstrong seems to want to minimize them. What interests her are things she is capable of, not those she is incapable of, and her book's impact is all the richer for her minimalist approach.
This intensely personal book is also an exceedingly solitary book. The only relationship that seems to matter for Karen Armstrong is her relationship with God, a being who, in her view, probably does not exist.
This doesn't stop her from ultimately deciding (with characteristic pragmatism and without retreating from her skepticism), that leading a religious life is worth it, because "Faith is not about belief but about practice...The laws of religion are true because they are life-enhancing."
That's good enough for me.

A Work of Amazing Religious Maturity - A MUST READ!
Karen Armstrong is -- here's the word again -- an amazing woman. Having read all of her other books with the exception of her autobiographies, I envisioned a solid academic, with cadres of graduate students pulling together masses of data for her review. No -- Armstrong is a theological autodidact! Her personal religious and spiritual journey has, to paraphrase one of her favorites, T. S. Eliot, said, led her to where she started only to know it for the first time. The God she ran from as a young adult has come to greet her in a very different form -- but I'll leave the specifics of this reverse quest for you to discover for yourself.

Where her earlier work was clever and provocative, Armstrong has matured into one of the most thoughtful liberal religious writers of our day. She recognizes that the world cannot be healed without dialogue, and that you cannot have dialogue without running the risk that YOU may be changed. "It is not enough to understand other people's beliefs, rituals, and ethical practices intellectually," Armstrong says. "You have to feel them too and make an imaginative, though disciplined, identification." (p. 290.

As one might expect from the breadth of her writings, Armstrong draws from the wells of myriad religious traditions, identifying what this reviewer believes to be the enduring truth, the thread that unities all genuine religious searching. She learns from her own varied experiences, grows from adversity (e.g. a failed PhD thesis; years of undiagnosed epilepsy; and, of course, her much-noted years as a Catholic religious) and confronts both herself and her culture with unfailing honesty.

Although Armstrong is far from the end of her journey (one hopes), she has adopted a theology of orthopraxy, which draws her into authentic living, honoring and accepting both weaknesses and strengths. Armstrong attempts to ground her life in the conviction that "compassion is a habit of mind that is transforming. . . You have to be prepared to extend your compassionate interests where there is no hope of a return." This reviewer is particularly delighted by her conclusion, based on her exhaustive research of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, that "fundamentalist movements distort the tradition they are trying to defend by emphasizing the belligerent elements in their tradition and overlooking the insistent and crucial demand for compassion." (p. 295)

These points and many others, emerge in the theological commentary that forms the final chapter in this book. This chapter alone could form the basis for several month's active discussion.

If you read no other spiritual or religious work this year -- make it this chapter. But be warned -- Armstrong's honest exploration can be dangerous to your complacency!