by Karen Armstrong
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by Karen Armstrong
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by Karen Armstrong
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The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah by Karen Armstrong |
by Karen Armstrong
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Amazon.co.uk 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 The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness 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 TS 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 meaning 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, Amazon.com
Review
Praise for The Battle for God: 'The quality of this remarkable book lies as much in its detail as in its sweeping vision' Daily Telegraph'Armstrong displays all her usual talents: she has an eye for colourful evidence, a wonderful gift for clarity of exposition and an unerring sense of pace and voice and narrative.' Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Literary ReviewPraise for The History for God: 'Only those who think they know it all will fail to be fascinated by Armstrong's search for God.' The Economist'Highly readable and ought to be read...Karen Armstong has read widely, has missed nothing, and gives us as solid a purview of the God of the past as it would be possible to find in a book,' Anthony Burgess, Observer'Karen Armstrong is a genius.' A. N. Wilson
This is Karen Armstrong's second sequel to Through the Narrow Gate in which she related her experiences as a Roman Catholic nun. Dissatisfied with her first attempt to describe the years following her departure from the convent she has now written a lucid and moving account of how difficult it has been to achieve peace and confidence in herself. Using the imagery of Eliot's poem Ash Wednesday she tells of her constant struggle to rise above disappointment and defeat. Careers in Scholarship and teaching showed her that she was clever but so damaged by the training she had undergone in her order that she had become unable to feel and think for herself. To make matters worse, her fainting fits and memory loss were misdiagnosed and it was not until a doctor told her that she was suffering from epilepsy that she finally achieved tranquillity and success as a writer. Very moving. (Kirkus UK)
An introspective, decidedly un-cheery work that seeks to set the author's record straight. After Armstrong wrote an account of her seven years as a Catholic nun (Through the Narrow Gate, 1981), she followed it up with a cheery but admittedly untruthful memoir depicting her new life outside the convent (Beginning the World, 1983). Now, to describe the turnings her life took as she struggled to find her way in a secular world, Armstrong (Islam, 2000, etc.) adopts the image of a spiral staircase as a symbol of spiritual progress in T.S. Eliot's Ash-Wednesday. First as a student at Oxford, where she earned a B.A. and M. Litt., but failed to obtain a doctorate, and then as a teacher in a private girls' school in London, a position from which she was dismissed after a few years, she was what can best be described as an emotional wreck. Fainting spells while still in the convent progressed to episodes of amnesia and panic attacks, which led to years of useless sessions with psychiatrists, anorexia, even a suicide attempt and hospitalizations. Finally, in 1976, a physician recognized her epileptic seizures for what they were and put her on appropriate medication. At a loss as to how to make a living after losing her teaching job, Armstrong was in despair when publicity surrounding her first book brought her TV work. An early disastrous appearance convinced her that she could not make a career out of being an ex-nun, and when a chance to write a low-budget documentary on the early Christians came along, she grabbed it. By 1983 she was in Israel researching her subject. Exposure to Judaism and Islam while in the Middle East set her on a new course: writing about the historical development of the three great Abrahamic faiths, and in doing so examining her own ideas about religion, spirituality, and God. From her teenage search for God in a convent and her subsequent attempts to debunk religion, Armstrong struggled to clarify her own beliefs. What matters, she concludes at last, is not dogma, or right belief, but right action-in a nutshell, the Golden Rule. Well-written and relentlessly self-aware. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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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 The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness 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 TS 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 meaning 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, Amazon.com
Review
Praise for The Battle for God: 'The quality of this remarkable book lies as much in its detail as in its sweeping vision' Daily Telegraph'Armstrong displays all her usual talents: she has an eye for colourful evidence, a wonderful gift for clarity of exposition and an unerring sense of pace and voice and narrative.' Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Literary ReviewPraise for The History for God: 'Only those who think they know it all will fail to be fascinated by Armstrong's search for God.' The Economist'Highly readable and ought to be read...Karen Armstong has read widely, has missed nothing, and gives us as solid a purview of the God of the past as it would be possible to find in a book,' Anthony Burgess, Observer'Karen Armstrong is a genius.' A. N. Wilson
This is Karen Armstrong's second sequel to Through the Narrow Gate in which she related her experiences as a Roman Catholic nun. Dissatisfied with her first attempt to describe the years following her departure from the convent she has now written a lucid and moving account of how difficult it has been to achieve peace and confidence in herself. Using the imagery of Eliot's poem Ash Wednesday she tells of her constant struggle to rise above disappointment and defeat. Careers in Scholarship and teaching showed her that she was clever but so damaged by the training she had undergone in her order that she had become unable to feel and think for herself. To make matters worse, her fainting fits and memory loss were misdiagnosed and it was not until a doctor told her that she was suffering from epilepsy that she finally achieved tranquillity and success as a writer. Very moving. (Kirkus UK)
An introspective, decidedly un-cheery work that seeks to set the author's record straight. After Armstrong wrote an account of her seven years as a Catholic nun (Through the Narrow Gate, 1981), she followed it up with a cheery but admittedly untruthful memoir depicting her new life outside the convent (Beginning the World, 1983). Now, to describe the turnings her life took as she struggled to find her way in a secular world, Armstrong (Islam, 2000, etc.) adopts the image of a spiral staircase as a symbol of spiritual progress in T.S. Eliot's Ash-Wednesday. First as a student at Oxford, where she earned a B.A. and M. Litt., but failed to obtain a doctorate, and then as a teacher in a private girls' school in London, a position from which she was dismissed after a few years, she was what can best be described as an emotional wreck. Fainting spells while still in the convent progressed to episodes of amnesia and panic attacks, which led to years of useless sessions with psychiatrists, anorexia, even a suicide attempt and hospitalizations. Finally, in 1976, a physician recognized her epileptic seizures for what they were and put her on appropriate medication. At a loss as to how to make a living after losing her teaching job, Armstrong was in despair when publicity surrounding her first book brought her TV work. An early disastrous appearance convinced her that she could not make a career out of being an ex-nun, and when a chance to write a low-budget documentary on the early Christians came along, she grabbed it. By 1983 she was in Israel researching her subject. Exposure to Judaism and Islam while in the Middle East set her on a new course: writing about the historical development of the three great Abrahamic faiths, and in doing so examining her own ideas about religion, spirituality, and God. From her teenage search for God in a convent and her subsequent attempts to debunk religion, Armstrong struggled to clarify her own beliefs. What matters, she concludes at last, is not dogma, or right belief, but right action-in a nutshell, the Golden Rule. Well-written and relentlessly self-aware. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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