Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Spiral Staircase
    Unavailable
    The Spiral Staircase
    Unavailable
    The Spiral Staircase
    Ebook412 pages9 hours

    The Spiral Staircase

    By Karen Armstrong

    4.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateJun 9, 2016
    ISBN9780007372720
    Unavailable
    The Spiral Staircase
    Author

    Karen Armstrong

    Karen Armstrong was born in Worcestershire. After becoming a nun in the 1960s, she left her order and lectured in literature at London University before becoming a full time writer, broadcaster and international adviser on religious and political affairs. She has addressed US Congress, the UN and Canadian parliament on Islam and fundamentalism. Among her other books is the bestselling ‘History of God’.

    Read more from Karen Armstrong

    Related to The Spiral Staircase

    Related ebooks

    Religious Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Poetry and Intrigue in Uzbekistan: On Hamid Ismailov’s ‘The Devil’s Dance’

      Aug 8, 2018

      In Hamid Ismailov’s book The Devil’s Dance, one Uzbek prisoner says to another, “It’s time for afternoon prayers, I think. Are you a believer, or one of the moderns?”—a familiar and false dichotomy that intellectuals in Muslim countries have had to c

      6 min read

    • Article

      Sir Kenneth Branagh

      Jan 17, 2022

      Sir Kenneth Branagh
      5 min read

    • Article

      Steven Pinker

      Oct 24, 2022

      Steven Pinker
      5 min read

    • Article

      Louis Theroux

      Feb 21, 2022

      Louis Theroux
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘Call yourself English?’

      Aug 21, 2019

      ‘Call yourself English?’
      19 min read

    • Article

      Adeel Akhtar

      Mar 25, 2024

      Adeel Akhtar
      5 min read

    • Article

      My Adventures in Hell

      Jul 25, 2019

      On one particular drive, I interrupted my father and told him, apropos of nothing other than to see how he would react, that I didn’t think Hell was real. The post My Adventures in Hell appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Finding a Place in Oral History

      Feb 2, 2023

      With my first book, Heavy, I wanted to capture Rock Springs, the Wyoming boomtown where I grew up, in all of its grit and glory. Not long after Heavy came out, however, I began to feel like I’d only scratched the surface of the place. The realization

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Iľja Rákoš

      Dec 23, 2020

      I’d been out of the hospital following (let’s call it) treatment for COVID-19 about a month. My hospital ward of 50 patients had one oxygen concentrator. Despite my blood-oxygen saturation levels of 90%, that device wasn’t coming my way anytime soon.

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Vitality of Opposing Energies: The Millions Interviews Paul Lisicky

      Mar 17, 2020

      I was very conscious of trying to write about emergency—how do people survive when they can’t take for granted they’re going to be around in the morning? The post The Vitality of Opposing Energies: The Millions Interviews Paul Lisicky appeared first

      9 min read

    • Article

      Southern Stand

      Mar 16, 2020

      Southern Stand
      5 min read

    • Article

      Bearing Witness to All That’s Being Lost: The Millions Interviews Claire Vaye Watkins

      Oct 4, 2021

      It's really easier than ever to forget that we are in a place, a specific place, and we need that place to be healthy for us to be healthy. The post Bearing Witness to All That’s Being Lost: The Millions Interviews Claire Vaye Watkins appeared first

      14 min read

    • Article

      Jonathan Franzen’s New Novel ‘Crossroads’ Is Set In The Chicago ‘Burbs And Launches A Trilogy. He Knows You Already Have An Opinion About It.

      Oct 20, 2021

      Jonathan Franzen’s New Novel ‘Crossroads’ Is Set In The Chicago ‘Burbs And Launches A Trilogy. He Knows You Already Have An Opinion About It.
      8 min read

    • Article

      Fire Season

      Oct 5, 2021

      Fire Season
      4 min read

    • Article

      Mallory Ortberg On The Remixed Fairy Tales Of Her New Book 'The Merry Spinster'

      Mar 14, 2018

      Call Cinderella Paul. Mallory Ortberg, co-founder of the dearly departed feminist website The Toast, Slate's "Dear Prudence," and the author of "Children's Stories Made Horrific" and "Texts from Jane Eyre," turns beloved fairy tales on their heads in

      5 min read

    • Article

      Poetic Justice

      Oct 23, 2017

      Poetic Justice
      18 min read

    • Article

      Falling

      Jul 6, 2021

      Falling
      17 min read

    • Article

      My Mid-life Crisis

      Nov 30, 2023

      I’D SEEN THE WORD ON SOCIAL MEDIA. MID. THE SHOW WAS MID. THE song was mid. The rapper was mid. So many shows, songs, rappers, and more are unknown to me, trees in the now-bewildering wilderness of pop culture that the young navigate effortlessly. Bu

      5 min read

    • Article

      Peter Ackroyd

      Jul 12, 2021

      Peter Ackroyd
      4 min read

    • Article

      Readers' Letters

      Jul 26, 2023

      SIR: I have just celebrated my 80th birthday and been much acclaimed by my family and friends. Even the government has got in on the act, as it has increased my state pension by 25p a week. Unfortunately, my village shop has hardly anything to offer

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Courage To Be Happy

      Feb 1, 2023

      MARRIAGE and columns have this in common: you tend to repeat yourself. More than once in these pages, I have quoted the New Yorker’s legendary film critic Pauline Kael. After President Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972 she wrote: ‘I live in a rather

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Spiral Staircase

    4.5/5

    3 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words