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The Spiral Staircase
Karen Armstrong
A raw, intensely personal memoir of spiritual exploration from one of the world’s great commentators on religion.After seven years in a convent, which she left, dismayed by its restrictions, an experience recounted in ‘Through the Narrow Gate’, Karen Armstrong struggled to establish herself in a new way of life, and became entrapped in a downward spiral, haunted by despair, anorexia and suicidal feelings.Despite her departure from the convent she remained within the Catholic Church until the God she believed in 'died on me', and she entered a ‘wild and Godless period of crazy parties and numerous lovers’. Her attempts to reach happiness and carve out a career failed repeatedly, in spectacular fashion. She began writing her bestseller ‘A History of God’ in a spirit of scepticism, but through studying other religious traditions she found a very different kind of faith which drew from Christianity, Judaism and Islam and, eventually, spiritual and personal calm.In her own words, her ‘story is a graphic illustration – almost an allegory – of a widespread dilemma. It is emblematic of a more general flight from institutional religion and a groping towards a form of faith that has not yet been fully articulated but which is nevertheless in the process of declaring itself’. Her lifelong inability to pray and to conform to traditional structures of worship is shared by the many who are leaving the established churches but who desire intensely a spiritual aspect to their lives.‘The Spiral Staircase’ grapples with the issue of how we can be religious in the contemporary world, and the place and possibility of belief in the 21st-century.
THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE
KAREN ARMSTRONG
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_28c65d0c-82d9-5dd3-84cd-8b972102008c)
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
This edition published by HarperPress 2005
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2004
Copyright © Karen Armstrong 2004
Karen Armstrong asserts the moral right to be
identified as the author of this work
PS Section copyright © Georgina Laycock 2005
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Estate of
T. S. Eliot and Faber & Faber Ltd, for permission to reprint an excerpt
from the poem ‘Ash-Wednesday’, from Collected Poems, 1909–1962 by T. S. Eliot.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007122295
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2016 ISBN 9780007372720
Version: 2017-03-23
PRAISE (#ulink_59bba00c-74e0-5873-85f6-fe61d14965ff)
From the reviews of The Spiral Staircase:
‘A book full of riches’
MICHÈLE ROBERTS, Literary Review
‘Unputdownable – absorbing, moving and hopeful’
Daily Mail
‘Her prose is admirably lucid … She writes with great insight and clarity about shifting states of mind and of feeling and about the evolution of thought, and she gives a more exact and vivid account of the pleasures of writing than any I have come across in a literary biography’
LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT, Sunday Times
‘Open, accessible, writing without jargon or denominational loyalty, Armstrong manages to put into words something that most of us cannot express … She tells a good tale at her own expense. She recounts the challenges she faced on her journey with amusement, a good ear for dialogue and an absence of self-pity or piety’
New Statesman
‘This terrifically readable book … is a fine testament to how the effort to escape self-pity and sustain the spirit in adversity is itself richly creative and can reward’
SALLEY VICKERS, Spectator
‘Written with enormous charm and elegance … If you are mystified as to why religion, which you thought was all but dead and buried, has bounced back with such alarming impact on to the human scene, then Karen Armstrong is probably your best guide’
Scotsman
EPIGRAPH (#ulink_de67cb73-12d7-5f58-b2b9-568a4291361a)
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
T. S. ELIOT
Ash-Wednesday, I.
CONTENTS
Cover (#u0d202d9d-d533-5605-8755-652b2570c794)
Title Page (#u14e0c2b9-456c-5673-af34-7b0b37eeeee9)
Copyright (#u809e6b39-a951-5ea0-a310-d01c18b2f454)
Praise (#ue40db73e-1ca9-536c-a18d-6976bcb0697a)
Epigraph (#u3e49bdfc-d94c-54ce-9770-3a561ad79daf)
Preface (#u75dc8bed-1387-54fc-86d9-e22f7d3ea956)
1 Ash Wednesday (#u5dc27be1-fed5-597d-9884-6e6a0a120a52)
2 The Devil of the Stairs (#u91666486-f524-50c0-8da2-ea3f76ea9f78)
3 I Renounce the Blessèd Face (#litres_trial_promo)
4 Consequently I Rejoice (#litres_trial_promo)
5 Desiring This Man’s Gift and That Man’s Scope (#litres_trial_promo)
6 The Usual Reign (#litres_trial_promo)
7 Infirm Glory (#litres_trial_promo)
8 To Turn Again (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Interview With Karen Armstrong (#litres_trial_promo)
