Spiral Staircase: A Spiritual Autobiography Analysis

This assignment will deal with The Spiral Staircase as a spiritual autobiography. It will not be in the form of one composite essay, but will rather address each question separately, as has been laid out in the original question.

1. The first step of the course you came to a deeper understanding of the basic structure of spiritual accompaniment (see page 7-24 of the reader). Read the autobiography carefully. Describe the main forms of spiritual direction present in the chosen autobiography, using the triangle of the reader (pages 21 and 24)

Spiritual accompaniment, according to Ancilli's edition, "seeks to guide the person being accompanied in her or his relationship with Divine reality" (Reader 2006:14). Barry expands on this, as: help given by one Christian to another which enables that person to pay attention to God's personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the
consequences of the relationship (idem). In this relationship there is an accompanist, the person being accompanied and the Divine Presence. It is incumbent on the accompanied individual to initiate this relationship, and the accompanist in turn brings in his/her insight, discernment, communication skills and experience. When "[t]he deeper layer in conversation opens up in mutual respect between […them, and] is present, Divine light streams into the person being accompanied" (ibid:23). Thus the person being accompanied is central to this dynamic which relates to his/her search for God. The accompanist is thus an "instrument of mediation" (ibid:24)

Karen Armstrong, the author, is the person to be accompanied in this exercise. She set out on her journey with the Divine, according to her spiritual autobiography The Spiral Staircase, when she entered her convent in 1962 at the age of seventeen years, entirely of her own volition and with "unusual resolution" (Armstrong 2005:1). She tries to explain this within the milieu of the sixties, looking for external rather than internal reasons, although she does describe many of her dreams, as delineated below. Religious life appeared to be a "soft option", although she feels that had she not "wanted to find God", she "would not have lasted more than a few weeks" (ibid: 2).

She had set out to have an intimate relationship with "the infinite and ultimately satisfying mystery that we call God" (idem) but the problem was that although she is faced with this mystery in many guises, she is unable to recognise God in it. Is she "yearning for transformation"(idem) in God or just transformation? Was her journey a spiritual one because she recognises that unlike her peers, she does not have the physical makeup to take the "Rock'n'Roll" option and thus seeks the "soaring theatre" and "imagery of Catholicism" (ibid: 5) instead.

She wished to "live more authentically and "sought intensity and transformation in the life of a nun"(ibid:5-6). Sadly seven years on, she admits failure; she could not entirely subjugate the ego, nor could she abandon herself (ibid: 7). During the novitiate, she had focused on her spiritual life – "learning about prayer and the meaning of […their] Rule"(ibid: 10). She had planned to "develop an interior attitude of waiting permanently on God, perpetually conscious of his loving presence" (ibid: 20). Her goal was to connect with the Divine but it did not seem to be materialising.

The convent and its form seemed to represent God for her. The superiors in this institution "stood in the place of God" (ibid: 27). Ironically, when Karen left the convent, on her first day out, she responds to the form of authority that she had apparently rejected – the bell, which in the convent represented the voice of God. Her response to this ‘voice' has her kissing the floor (ibid: 23). She acknowledges that it was her "failure to find God"(ibid: 25) that propelled her away from the convent rather than the rituals. And yet, what she appears to be left with are only the rituals.

She saw herself as having been a soldier of God. She was expected "to die to […her] old sel[f… and] to become utterly pliable to the will of God" (ibid: 45). Yet through the initiation "God seemed to have gone" and in her mind was a "curious blank" (ibid: 57). She saw this as a "God-shaped gap" for God had never spoken to her (ibid: 58). Moreover she was unable to focus on Him for two minutes, seeming "allergic to God" unable to pray" thus feeling her religious life was a sham (ibid: 59-61). This allergy manifested in her body in her last year in the order and she succumbs to a breakdown(ibid: 67). With the discarding of her habit was the equivalent distancing of "beliefs and principles" (ibid: 33). Conviction was replaced by doubt.

Tennyson, through his works and Karen's response to his poetry, acts like a virtual accompanist. He remains steadfast in his belief in the Divine and thus, in this instance he acts as a form of tzaddik, "his being-there exerts the decisive influence" (Reader, op cit:13). Yet Tennyson's poetry does divert her, as with her seeing religion as a form of art. Tennyson's tension between faith and doubt further reflects her "own perplexities" (Armstrong, op cit: 113).

She questions whether God is a "mental aberration" (ibid: 80). She then posits "if there were no God" then much of her life has been nonsense (ibid: 81). Yet she acknowledges "God had never been a real presence to […her]" (idem). Even when in Israel, she says "there was no God here…Instead there was simply a suspension of self" (ibid: 194). As a reminder almost, she says her "involvement with God [i]s well and truly over" (idem) when her sister Lindsey becomes a Buddhist. She keeps reminding the reader about this, and yet on some level, I feel that it is almost as though she is reminding herself.

One of her mirrors for this separation from God is Herbert Hart, a committed atheist, He challenges her on the veracity of the "Virgin Birth or the Trinity" (ibid: 125). Furthermore he contests the validity of the existence of Jehovah over Apollo. This reference to mythology is the first of many and seems to confuse Karen in her perception of theology.

She also blames God for Jacob's condition, yet in the next breath negates the existence of an "overseeing deity"(ibid: 134), in which she questions whether she has ever believed. Thus she feels she is "relinquishing the last vestiges of religious belief" (ibid: 137) at the time she takes Jacob to church, agreeing to give him a fantasy about it. Ironically, she had begun her journey in the convent through her imagination rather than facts. She had hoped to "see the world transfigured by the presence of God" and for her to "soar like an eagle" (ibid: 166). That never transpires and with the ‘friendliness' of Vatican II she becomes unhappy with God whom she realises has never been her friend (ibid: 141).

And yet I wonder how much she has given up totally on God. For when discussing this with Jane, she speaks of one needing to find God beyond the ritual: music, singing and spectacle, which implies that she does recognise that perhaps she had glimpsed God through one of these moments. She states that when she is on her knees with nothing else, she cannot find God. However this nihilism must be very strong, if, as a lapsed Catholic, she exhibits no guilt about attempting suicide. This lack of guilt is because she does "not believe that God is there" (ibid: 154).

Eliot's poem thrilled her. She experienced it as a gift, which in another time she would have seen as a "moment of grace". However, in this poem she could not see "the work of a God"(ibid: 167) although she recognises that God is very present in Eliot's world. At this point, she trivialises both art and the words of the Bible. They are not a Divine inspiration for her. Even words of the Bible are perceived as simply being a "law of human condition" (idem).

Subsequently she feels a fraud when asked about spiritual practice, lacking confidence that her momentary experience of oratio at her desk could possibly be sacred.
It was surely just a moment of delight in work that absorbed me. I was not directing prayer to anything or anybody. There was still emptiness where the personalized God used to be (ibid: 334).
Here she experiences "the quiet presence of God which communicates itself in the here and now of his creative operation" (Reader, op cit:10). However, she is unable to discern this thus showing the need for an accompanist at this point.

With time and study, she realises that although "[t]he personalized God might work for other people" it did nothing for her(ibid: 329). Thus with the ‘permission' of "[s]ome of the best mystics" she awakens to a world that may in fact have a place for God (ibid: 329). These mystics, through their writings act as her accompanists, albeit unknown. They become her sheik by making her "increasingly aware of God's working in [the…] self" (Reader, op cit: 18). She is able to rediscover God through the very tools that helped her to reject Him - art and mythology. She, like "many of the theologians" (ibid: 336), feels an absence which is "paradoxically a presence in […her] life" (ibid: 337). Ironically she personifies this, using "somebody" (ibid: 337), making the concept of God into a personalised God once again.

Yet near the end of the book she writes that compassion is the litmus test and we should live out our relationship with God through action. She sees her role of sharing her "understanding of Islam and fundamentalism" as a "form of ministry" (ibid: 340).

In wanting to renounce the journey, it would appear that she either identifies with or perceives herself as a prophet, when she refers to Jonah who asks God to allow him not to be one (ibid: 334)
According to the Talmud, though,
Prophecy is bestowed only upon a very wise sage of a strong character, who is never overcome by his natural inclinations in any regard.
Instead, with his mind, he overcomes his natural inclinations at all times. He must [also] possess a broad and correct perspective. A person who is full of all these qualities and is physically sound [is fit for prophecy] (Kabbalaonline.org sv On Becoming a Prophet 25.11.2005).
If she is implying that she could be a prophet, a couple of issues need to be clarified: Karen has not been physically sound throughout her life, although her body appears to be in balance now; furthermore, she does not seem to have eschatological information or have brought forth a revelation. I feel that at times she becomes over-enthusiastic or very disenchanted and then cannot perceive her role objectively. Nevertheless, she does see herself finally as an instrument of God, which was so difficult for her to recognise throughout most of the
book. The main form of Spiritual Direction given to Karen appears to have been through a third person. According to the desert monks, "[t]he accompanist here stands symbolically for the alterity that is God" (Reader op cit:10). However the Reader states that the mediation only succeeds when "abbas is a person who has himself become spiritual (πνευματικος), i.e. inducted into the love between the Father and the Son relation" (idem). Moreover the son needs to make the movement of breaking the I-centredness and opening the self to the other. Most of the people in Karen's life are unconscious of this ‘relation' between the accompanist or abbas and the person being accompanied or monk as from the aforementioned paradigm. Each of the people who pass through her life plays a role which is often secular. Thus, this analogy fails in Karen's case.

Sometimes it is a friend, at other times a superior, who makes an intervention, albeit unwittingly guided by the unseen hand of God. Interestingly, the questions this ‘transient' accompanist asks, whether in the form of Jane or Jenifer etc, or the comments made, helps Karen to reassess her life or to give her a message that other people would attribute to a message from the Universe or the Divine. Thus these people act as the ‘prophet' from the Sheik and the Murid (idem). For often, by their inadvertent comments, they bring her back on the right track. However, Karen rejects God and therefore rationalizes everything that could possibly be beyond the physical.

She speaks of God and religion often throughout the book– yet not as functioning aspects of her life. She refers to both God and religion as problematic or non-existent. Karen sometimes gives away her authority with respect to God to many different people in her life. And in certain circumstances treats them as a substitute for that higher authority. For me though, often they are the voice of God.

For instance, Herbert Hart raises a "hieratic hand in greeting" (Armstrong, op cit:159) which makes me wonder as to how much she sees him and Jenifer as her saviours, despite their atheism. Tennyson ‘became' her friend, unlike God, for Karen and the poet seemed to inhabit "the same unpredictable world" (ibid: 114). Like her friends, Charlotte and Rebecca, she becomes anorexic (ibid: 128). When Dr. Piet asks her to surprise him, she attempts suicide in 1971, almost as though she must obey this representative of the deity (ibid: 146).

On the positive side, it is only when the doctor verbalises that "'[h]ospitals are not for intelligent people'", that she gives herself permission not to return(ibid: 161). As discussed further on, Charlotte is a mirror for her by renouncing everything that has meaning. Furthermore, as did Karen's mentors at university (ibid: 186), Charlotte suggests that she give up academia and begin writing (ibid: 169) which in my opinion is the hand of God guiding her.

When she is unable to hear her ‘inner voice' that clearly, or is unaware of what she does, others expose it for her. For example when Jean Floud offers to take her to mass which Karen does not want to attend, Jenifer verbalises that she should not go as she always returns home in a bad temper (ibid: 182).

Her experience with epilepsy both drew her to and away from God. The doctor as an aside says, "'it's interesting that you were once a nun. People with temporal lobe epilepsy are often religious'" (ibid: 209). Yet, she had experienced hallucinations of demonic proportions too (ibid: 208, 211). Nonetheless, as she had the seizure, she entered a new dimension of pure joy, fulfilment and peace: the world seemed transfigured, and its ultimate significance – so obvious and yet quite inexpressible – was revealed. This was God. (ibid: 205-6)
Almost in the next breath, she refutes this by relegating God to a "faulty brain" (ibid: 206). This tension is significant in her journey, for she vacillates between knowing and not knowing, believing and not believing in her role of being virtually ‘accompanied'. Furthermore, Hausherr refers to mystical experiences on one's pilgrimage that can range from the imagined to the satanic or Godly (Reader, op cit:19). Despite Karen reducing her experiences to epilepsy, they do need to be explored.

Another accompanist for her is Hyam Maccoby who introduces her to Judaism, orthopraxy and the concept of the Golden Rule that she holds so dear(ibid 265-7). She asks an interesting question here: "How could you live your faith unless you were convinced that God existed?" (ibid: 267)

Her belief was that in fact God did not exist, but she chose to write about God "as a pragmatic expedient" (ibid: 298). So often, we are guided by the things we do not think about or that seem to hold little value in our lives – and in retrospect these are the signposts of God. She still blames God for "lur[ing her…] into the convent; his mythical perfection […making her] chronically dissatisfied" (ibid: 300). Yet her relationship to "prayer, God, holiness […] seemed to have happened to somebody else" (ibid: 230). She reiterates that God should not be taken seriously and yet feels that God and she have "unfinished business"(ibid: 300).

Another signpost is her study of the Holy Grail. It exemplifies her life: when she is not preoccupied with God, she lives in "the wasteland" living an inauthentic life (ibid: 302). And when she begins work on A History of God, she enters the forest, she enters the "interior realm of the psyche"(idem). She discovers that "[t]he real story […is] unfolding, at first imperceptibly and by slow degrees, within […her]self" (ibid: 303).

Through these studies she discovers that the religious quest is "about living intensely as possible in the here and now" (ibid: 304). As discussed below, she puts into practice the essential principles of being on one's own path and embracing one's own pain (ibid: 305). She is being prepared for the moment of unfoldment before God.

The Divine becomes more tangible for her at the point that she perceives God as intangible. This is both paradoxical and apophatic. He reveals himself to her as the most hidden form, viz., "‘Nothing'"(ibid: 326-7). Cantwell Smith (ibid: 327) is instrumental in giving her permission to let go of an anthropomorphic God. Then "Fred Burnham, the director of Trinity Institute, Wall Street" says to her,
You always claim that you have never had a religious experience. But I disagree. I think you are constantly living in the dimension of the sacred. You are absorbed in holiness all the time! (ibid :336)
I feel that she has not fully comprehended this as yet.

Her love in action philosophy and following her bliss has brought this relationship of herself and the Divine together. For she says, "if we follow it to the end, it will take us to the heart of life" (ibid: 341). And yet ironically, she had been taught this in her religious order, for the foundress' words were: "'Do what you are doing!'" Karen had not been ready for this at seventeen or twenty three and thus had to do the journey to get to understand God's relationship in her life.

2. In the second step we explored the position of the person being accompanied, and we discerned five layers of transformation (page 25-38). Read again the spiritual autobiography. But now, you are the director of the writer.
2.1 Analyse and describe shortly in the autobiography which of the five layers of transformation is most dominant:
· Transformation in creation
· Transformation in recreation
· Transformation in conformity
· Transformation in love
· Transformation in glory * Which of the other layers are also present?
· Indicate how these layers are inter-related.

Waaijman defines the five different layers as:
(1) the transformation from non-being to being in God's creation of man (2) transformation from being malformed to being re-formed in God's re-creation of man; (3) man's becoming conformed to a Divine-human transformation model which introduces a person into Divine reality; (4) transformation in love in which the soul is led into God, while God takes up his abode in the soul; (5) the transformation in glory which awaits us after this life but of which the transformation in love already contains a sketch (Spine 9.01.2006 sv Exploration of different levels of transformation, my italics)

Transformation in conformity and recreation and love stand out as the three layers in The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong. Conformity and recreation are the most dominant yet love plays a significant role in her understanding and transformation towards the end of her spiritual autobiography.

Karen is driven to pursue a life that relates to God and so to a certain extent this alludes to Transformation in creation as defined by Waaijman with reference to Destining(Waaijman, 2002:457). However, Karen is unaware of what this specific purpose is, which is in a sense inconsistent with transformation in creation, where the person being accompanied has a ‘gut' understanding of a relationship with the Divine. She states however, "I wanted to find God" (Armstrong, op cit:2) and feels driven to go into the convent hoping, yet failing "to make a gift of [...her]self to God." (ibid: 23). She had hoped to "develop an interior attitude of waiting permanently on God, perpetually conscious of his loving presence. But that had never happened" (ibid: 20).

Transformation in recreation is comparatively dominant in The Spiral Staircase. Karen continually allows herself as St John of the Cross states, to "be defined by finite forms" (Waaijman, op cit:460) whether internally or externally. Consequently she deforms herself – "turn[ing] away (shub) from […her] original orientation to God (ibid:462). She gives away her power to organisations and people in authority and defines both herself and God accordingly. We are told that those who deform themselves continually seek to re-form. St Augustine says, "People must turn away from the deformation in which, by worldly desires, they were conformed to this world, and be re-formed by him" (ibid: 461).

John of the Cross perceives reformation as one of "the first steps in the spiritual life" (ibid: 462).
He goes on to say:
This is the night of the senses which aimed at reformation on the sensory level. ‘God places them in this night solely to exercise and humble them, and reform their appetite lest in their spiritual life they foster a harmful attraction toward sweetness' (idem).

Evidence of Karen being humbled and thus deformed pervades the book: having to renounce the convent; feeling that she had no original input as an academic; advice from her lecturers that she is not geared for academic life; failing her PhD; generally not coping on a social level; the failure of her second book; being a "failed heterosexual" (ibid: 216); her second TV programme with the Israelis being quashed; her voice disappearing while talking on a live programme; her ill health; being asked to leave Dulwich; her suicide attempt and two subsequent sojourns in psychiatric hospitals are some of the many indignities she was faced with about herself.

Within the concept of transformation in recreation, there is the moment of reversal, which Waaijman aligns with the biblical verb "to turn"(Waaijman, op cit:462). Armstrong uses the metaphor and leitmotif of the climbing of the spiral staircase throughout the book with reference to T. S. Eliot's poem Ash Wednesday. (Armstrong, op cit:14-5). This turning is a constant theme of the poem. It "trace[s] the process of spiritual recovery…[and] has been central to …[her] journey" (ibid:14). Each time she felt that she was turning away and yet it was recursive. She goes on to say, "In mythology, stairs frequently symbolize a breakthrough to a new level of consciousness" (ibid:15). It is only at the end of the book, that she seems to realise this, acknowledging that although she may be "covering little ground, …[she is] climbing upwards…[she] hope[s] towards the light" (ibid: 342).

"The real moment of transformation is the reversal (teshuwah)," according to Waaijman and within this are interconnecting aspects: return to the origin; mutual return and a change of consciousness (Waaijman, op cit:462).

For Karen, this return is subtle and I am not sure how much she is aware of, as Waaijman calls, "[t]he moment of reversal [that] consists in the birth of the awareness that I bear the image of God in me from the beginning"( Ibid:463). She does not acknowledge it blatantly, but her choice of motif, indicates that she does understand this. The mutual return would thus naturally occur and yet the change in consciousness or metanoia is the aspect, which holds Armstrong in thrall. She writes, "this compassion could bring us directly into the presence of God. It was a startling moment of clarity for me" (ibid: 331). Like Paul, hers was "a radical reinterpretation of …[her] understanding of God's actions in and will for the world" (Waaijman, op cit:463).

Transformation in conformity
Initially, Karen took on the form of Christ hoping to be reformed in the image of God. And yet this form proved to be her undoing, although it proves to be essential to her way of interaction and coping in the world. Her motivation for joining the religious order is for me unexpected. She perceives the life as "remarkably unencumbered", "concerned with higher things" and she "wanted that radical freedom" (Armstrong, op cit:5). She "sought intensity and transformation in the life of a nun" (ibid: 6).
Armstrong in the preface to her autobiography writes:
My head was filled with the imagery of Catholicism, with the lives and examples of its saints, and the soaring theatre of its liturgy. I too wanted to be ‘sent', to experience an ecstasy that would lift me to a different dimension, to go to another place, and live more authentically than seemed possible in the world I knew (ibid:5).

And yet it was a petrified trail, for she spent most of her novitiate in tears (ibid: 8), having become more emotionally frigid as it felt as though the convent had "moved an immeasurably long distance from the spirit of the gospels" (ibid: 11). For her, concentrating on her spiritual life meant spending most of her time learning about prayer and the meaning of […the] Rule" (ibid: 10) of St Ignatius Loyola (ibid: 45). Included in this was the belief that:
The Rule which governed our lives down to the smallest detail taught us that the bell should be regarded as the voice of God, calling each one of us to a fresh encounter, no matter how trivial or menial the task in hand. Each moment of our day was therefore a sacrament, because it was ordained by the religious order, which was in turn sanctioned by the Church, the Body of Christ on earth (ibid: 19).
Further, there was the expectation particularly on Ash Wednesday "to achieve a greater level of perfection than ever before […] refrain from speech […] walk quietly […] open and close doors […] silently [...and] laugh in a restrained trill" (ibid: 21). At Cherwell Edge, she was conflicted between the form of Oxford University with the teaching of critical thinking and the "military obedience" (ibid: 45), for instance, in the form of the Convent and "the religious formation of the Noviceship" (ibid: 11). She recognises however that "[a]cademia had its own disciplines that were as exacting […as] the convent" (ibid: 33).

The external form of the convent was not only exemplified in obedience and will be dealt with lower down. The irony is how she fights the form of the convent and yet when she ultimately decides to leave it, she adopts a similar outward form to run her life – whether earlier at Oxford, living in a house cooperatively (ibid: 110), then teaching, later working in the media (although she hints at that being far more fun-filled and busy) or finally writing. After the loss of the form of the convent, she states, "If I had lost one cloister, I could immure myself in my studies and find another"(ibid: 47). She was "still to an extent living in a convent, one of […her] own making"; "still locked inside […her] own head" (ibid: 131).

The metaphor of the Lady of Shalott as her "alter ego" (ibid: 195) indicates her inability to "confront external, objective reality" (ibid: 113). The change in form and removal of her habit, she felt, allowed her to discard "a good deal of … [her] old religious self" and yet she felt that in secular issues she was "not … entitled to an opinion" (ibid: 33).

Paradoxically, she has a strong opinion about the Catholic Church and its views on sexual matters, which are secular (ibid:32). She "continued to behave like a nun" and was ever vigilant at not allowing her "mind, heart and body" to betray her as had happened when she kissed the floor at the university as she would have done in the convent (ibid: 22). For her, "rules became absolute and could not be adapted" (ibid: 161). This allows for greater control of her life which prepares her for crises like failing her PhD, "[t]here was nothing surprising about it" (ibid: 198).

Other aspects of the form of convent life involved confessing faults in public; performing elaborate penances; never unburdening the self (ibid: 24); counting up "faults on a special string of beads" (ibid: 81); kneeling to elders as a reminder "that they stood in the place of God"(ibid: 27). Karen tends to isolate herself mentally, emotionally, frequently physically and finally with silence. She restricts her social interactions, and ultimately immerses herself in God, religion and spirituality. It is only at this final point that those doors stop slamming in her face(ibid: 13).

As a result of the convent form, the novitiate was a "conditioning" and they "became entirely dependent upon…[their] Superior's every move, and accepted her worldview and her opinion of …[them]selves as gospel truth" (ibid: 44). This led to Karen attributing her beliefs to many authority figures later on in her life. For instance, when she read Tennyson, he became a "friend" and Jane a "lifeline", whom she "followed suit" with "biting riposte" (ibid: 114-6). During psychiatric treatment at his ‘request' she surprises Dr Piet. But this is strangely by taking an "overdose of sleeping pills" (ibid: 147). As mentioned above, these authority figures could be a representative for the ultimate authority figure of God. She seemed unable to let go of the form that represented the God figure and part of her inability to move on was her not being able to lay down her habit, although she keeps saying that she did. She had appropriated herself far too well to that model of the convent.

One of the paradoxes for me is her response to action. The initial order which Karen chose was that of St Ignatius, the meditation of which we are told "was based on a three-part programme: See, Judge and Act" (ibid: 58). She renounces this. She struggles to relate to that which is the essence of the order and feels cut off. Where God had been in her mind, "was now a curious blank" (ibid: 57). Absurdly it is the very essence of acting, which "did not work for [her]" in the convent (ibid: 59) that so much later in the book awakens Karen and brings her to the next layer.

Transformation in love is also present.
We have an inkling into her perceiving a more open way of thinking when she attends her first synagogue service: "there were other ways of being religious…Not everybody felt that it was unworthy to feel emotional and to show …feelings" (ibid: 203). Her perception of herself was being unable "to inspire love" (ibid: 217) although here she was referring to a partner rather than for God. She attributes this to not trusting "the integrity of […her] own mind" (ibid: 218).

This indicates the change that is coming insofar as her letting go of her intellect, control and form. John of the Cross indicates letting go as vital to this stage (Waaijman, op cit:471). This allows her to open to that knowing beyond knowing. In the Spiritual Canticle, it is "the highest state attainable in this life" (ibid: 469).

For Karen, this is presaged by her feeling "as though […she] were heading into an abyss" (Armstrong, op cit:247) while on the bus from school in 1982. She "woke up feeling empty and hollow" (idem). Her recollection of her "strange lightness" on leaving the hospital and the feeling that she "had nothing to lose" (ibid: 248) after the overdose is a hint of her movement into this state.

Another aspect of this is her understanding of orthopraxy, explained to her by Hyam Maccoby (ibid: 267) as "‘"Right practice" rather than "Right belief"'", which when related to Judaism resonates for her with the observance of the Rule in the convent (ibid: 274). For Karen, Study of Jewish Law "brought Jews into the presence of God" (ibid: 276). This was a method which appealed to her. Furthermore, her perception of Muslims in prayer reminds her that by using God's words, they were "taking the Word of God into their very being" (ibid: 277). I find it strange that she does not see that this action by Christians does not evoke this same feeling within.

These observations that she makes are some of the stepping-stones to her reaching a point of understanding the ‘nothingness' of God and the necessity for compassion and love as a human being. Her exposure to St Paul and the crusading ethos "broke […her] heart" and she "began to feel emotionally involved" (ibid: 290-1). She "was forced to confront the darkness of the human heart […,her] heart was beginning to thaw […and she…] was able to feel the pain of other human beings"(ibid: 291). In deciding to be regularly empathic and to give it practical expression in 1989, she "was beginning to act according to the Golden Rule" (ibid: 306) of "Hillel: ‘Do not do to others as you would not have done unto you'" (ibid: 266).

While working on Muhammad Karen realised that "editing out ego is […] an essential prerequisite for religious experience" (ibid: 312). Through being engrossed in study (ibid: 322), she learned the disciplines of ecstasy, in the sense of εκ-στασις, meaning ‘standing outside' (ibid: 312-3) and goes on to say that κενωσις is the "self-emptying […] found in the life of God itself [where…] we leave ourselves behind [and…] enter another state of consciousness" (ibid: 313). She learned too that "when they (sic) learn to live from the heart […] the spiritual human being is born" (ibid: 315).

During her writing of Muhammad she "had to make a constant, imaginative attempt to enter empathically into the experience of another" (ibid: 314).
Writing his life was in its own way an act of islām, a ‘surrender' of my secular, sceptical self, which brought me, if only at second hand and at one remove, into the ambit of what we call the Divine (idem).

And so the theory was continually preparing her for letting go. Her experience widened to that of "feeling loved and appreciated" at the Leo Baeck College (ibid: 317). Her writing exposed her to silence as though it were a presence that compelled her to enter her inner world and talked "directly to [her…] own yearning and perplexity" (ibid: 318).

The form of art, music, mythology and poetry resound throughout the book, whether she refers to Eliot, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Beethoven, Crusaders and the Holy Grail (ibid: 302), Dionysus (ibid: 337) or the Lady of Shalott (ibid: 295). While listening to music she notes:
This, I was aware, was probably the kind of experience I had sought in religion. While I listened, I felt my spirit knitting together. Things began to make sense (ibid: 73).
Much of her reformation occurs, is inspired or catalysed by art, as she implies above. It speaks to her through this form(ibid: 319).

Her understanding of religion is enhanced through this, although ironically she sees religion as a form of art (ibid: 323) having been introduced to this by Hyam Maccoby(ibid: 267). She delineates the four steps necessary for this attainment of elusive truth to occur:
[G]ive it your full attention, wait patiently upon it, and make an empty space for it in your mind. And finally the work declares itself to you, steals deeply into the interstices of your being, line-by-line, note-by-note, phrase-by-phrase, until it becomes part of you (ibid: 319).
She recognises that the change is gradual only later but soon gets to a point of having "no agenda"(ibid: 321). She then experiences "mini-seconds of transcendence, awe and wonder" (ibid: 322).

As with her adherence to authorities in the convent, here too her starting point is the authority of theologians and religious traditions. Nonetheless, she does commit by saying that the Greek Orthodox statement about God having two characteristics is valid: to be paradoxical and apophatic (ibid: 327).
Adherents of the apophatic tradition hold that God is beyond the limits of what humans can understand, and that one should not seek God by means of intellectual understanding, but through a direct experience of the love (in Western Christianity) or the Energies (in Eastern Christianity) of God.
(Wikipedia 20 March 2006 sv ‘Negative Theology')

Waaijman accentuates this by referring to Dionysus' thematizing of unknowingness in his treatise The Mystical Theology(Waaijman, op cit:815).
She speaks of her "extraordinary sense of relief […when she had read…] that our ideas of God were man-made" (Armstrong, op cit:327). She further speaks of her renouncing "rational analysis" as it is "useless for God" (ibid: 329). Compassion is the "litmus test" (ibid: 328) historically and for her it "is a habit of mind that is transforming"(ibid: 332). She further finds joy with suffering which has led to her putting herself "outside the prism" of herself (ibid: 333). Her telling of the momentary nature of the experience and her very human nature that traps her, elucidates her humility(ibid: 334).

"[C]ompassionate action and practically expressed respect for the sacred value of all human beings" with particular reference to Islam is a "form of ministry" for her(ibid: 340). "This state of being inwardly moved by the Spirit of love intensifies the sense of being a participant in the life of God" (Waaijman, op cit:476) and so Karen is layered by the transformation of love.

With reference to the layer of Transformation in glory, I am not sure whether this applies to Karen, as nor am I sure as to whether it relates to me. She acknowledges attaining moments of transcendence, which I instinctively feel does relate to glory. However, if we truly examine this concept, it usually refers to a non-physical experience particularly with reference to post-death. Waaijman writes, "Transformation in glory escapes all definition. Yet transformation in love catches a glimpse of it" (ibid: 478).

2.2 Analyze and describe shortly the autobiography and describe a roadmap of transitional moments.
§ How many transitional moments can you discern?
§ What is the difference between them?
§ What is the continuity between them?
§ What is the progression which you perceive in these moments?
§ What are the external circumstances provoking partially the transitional moments?
§ Which are the targets of the spiritual journey that the author set to him/her self?
§ Which means has the author used to achieve these aims?
§ Did the transitional moments correspond to the objectives of the spiritual journey?
§ In what way did these moments estrange from them?
This is the third book that Karen Armstrong has written about herself. The first, Through the Narrow Gate, was so successful that it came out in paperback and her friends assumed she had made a lot of money from it (Armstrong, op cit:246-7). This was a "salutary experience […and made her…] confront the past and […learn] a great deal" (ibid: 12). The second memoir, Beginning the World, was for Karen a monumental failure – her "worst book" (idem) she had ever written. Her third, The Spiral Staircase, has been written in retrospect, implying that she is assessing the past and thus more "ready to see this phase of […her] life in perspective." (idem)

If one looks at the pattern of her life and the roadmap of events, it appears to be beset with hurdles. With each hurdle, Karen is filled with doom and then some other opportunity seems to open up for her. Yet, it is only in hindsight that she recognises the gift and learning or lesson that comes with each crisis; although there are many gifts and lessons that she is unable to see.

What are transitional moments? They are defined by Waaijman, within the context of Transformation in Creation as that right moment where God reveals himself in terms of the accompanist who is in the process of becoming (Waaijman, op cit:458). However, can one also view this transition point as an ‘aha', quantum leap, clarity or moment of truth? Based on this, I can discern seven major transitional moments: Joining the convent; leaving the convent; attempting suicide; grand mal epileptic seizure and diagnosis; failing her viva; visiting Israel; writing in isolation starting with writing about God. There are approximately twenty minor transitional moments which make up the total, which are expanded upon below.

When one looks at the difference between these many transitional moments, they seem to fall on either side of a continuum. Some of the transitional moments are created through adversity, like her failing her viva. She does not reflect on her mind reawakening, but "simply note[s] it as an irony" (ibid: 204). She has no "ulterior motive" any more (idem). Other transitional moments, however are created through joy and experiencing the moment. For instance, when ‘The Dame' recites Eliot, Karen is "profoundly and spontaneously moved by the poetry"(ibid: 164).

Karen is aware that there is continuity between these moments.
[W]as I pushed into solitude, or did I jump? It was my idea to go into a convent, and nobody forced me to stay in the religious life so long. Recently I have started to wonder whether my solitary state may in fact be due to some deeper imperative within myself, which I am only just beginning to understand (ibid: 218).
Thus she sees that there is something beyond her understanding deep within that propels her along this path. She is faced with crises and choices that seem to be reaching a focal point at which moment she then starts to grasp the essential meaning of that convergence.

The continuity between transitional moments is gradual, sometimes repetitious and on one or two occasions, backtracks. For she writes of having made the transition, for instance, of letting go of her ego (ibid: 312). Yet later, we find her ego very much in evidence when she admits to feeling "intense irritation when a minor official is rude, or when I encounter inefficiency and stupidity" (ibid: 334). Yet, she recognises that although her "life has kept changing" she has found herself "revolving round and round the same themes, the same issues and even repeating the same mistakes"(ibid: 341).

In general, the progression in these moments are implied through my analysis of each of the transitional moments below, as are the external circumstances provoking them. An example of this is when she feels that she has no need to impress anyone after having "been ejected from academia so publicly […and] no longer had an ulterior motive" (ibid: 204). Thus she is faced with herself and the text. This allows her to be in the moment and the experience. She then comes to the realisation that "immersing […herself] in the text" is what she "should have been doing all along" (ibid: 204). She becomes cognisant that she does have her own ideas once again. This is further amplified for her when she is invited in 1982 to do a pilot for Channel 4. In having to speak without prompting for twenty minutes, she reinforces her own perception that she can in fact think without an authority to guide her. She perceives herself as having healed effortlessly. Ironically, this ability to convey "ideas and information" and "to think on [...her] feet" is a result of her having taught in the classroom – an activity that she felt had "arrested her progress" (ibid: 252). This gives her the courage to approach the next transition of not having a steady income with a lighter heart and "great calm and an occasional flicker of excitement"(ibid: 250-2). I perceive progression between many of the moments but for the sake of space have confined it to this example above. The others are implicit throughout the explanation of transitional moments further on.

An example of external circumstances provoking partially the transitional moments is her relationship with Jacob Hart. She feels that it is incumbent on her to take him to mass, otherwise "nobody would" (ibid: 142). His religious life begins as hers ends (idem). She thus offers herself in service, yet is unable to perceive it as such. His epilepsy also prepares her for the acceptance of her diagnosis. I am entranced at the unity that results from her experiences, not only in this instance. How she is given the opportunity to work and live with a child who becomes ‘religious' and who suffers from the same malady as Karen – though as yet undiagnosed. His participation in her life provokes partially her ability to work more positively with the transitional moments around being diagnosed epileptic and continuing to ‘work with' God even though she sees Him as "finally departed from […her] life" (ibid: 142).

Another example of external circumstances is her initial exposure to Judaism after meeting Hyam Maccoby, where she sees it as a "religion of doing rather than believing" (ibid: 274). Later she states, "[a]nd what our world needs now is not belief, not certainty, but compassionate action" (idem). While writing Muhammad she experiences orthopraxy in order to understand her subject matter. These all act as catalysts to her making that final ‘aha'. Armstrong, throughout, uses references of other authors, which I feel is often because she is frightened to commit herself – a vestige of academic life. At some point, however, and she often does not make this clear, she internalises the thinking and enacts it in her own life. So, for instance, with reference to compassionate action this is reinforced through her "spend[ing] a great deal of […her] time helping people to understand Islam"(ibid: 340).

The targets of the spiritual journey set by Karen Armstrong for herself are clearly delineated in the beginning of the book.
I wanted to find God. I was filled with excitement and enthusiasm […] convinced that I had embarked on a spiritual quest, an epic adventure, in the course of which I would lose the confusions of my adolescent self in the infinite and ultimately satisfying mystery that we call God. […] Very soon I would become a wise and enlightened woman, all passion spent. God would no longer be a remote, shadowy reality but a vibrant presence in my life. I would see him wherever I looked, and I myself would be transfigured, because, as St Paul had said, my puny little ego would disappear and Christ, the Word of God, would live in me. I would be serene, joyful, inspired and inspiring – perhaps even a saint (ibid: 2).
Karen was waiting patiently for "the cloud of unknowing, [when] all would be revealed" (ibid: 52-3). She was "yearning for transformation" (ibid: 2) and she did everything as perfectly as possible to achieve it. Her focus however was on the perfection rather than the experience and so she kept missing out on what was directly before her. Even when she receives the letter saying she has failed, that too is looked at from the point of view of being right. She had for years felt that she was no good, and so in a "grim sense […] this was right; it had to happen"(ibid: 199). This need for perfection thus both estranged from and corresponded to the objectives. Had she not striven for perfection, she would not have been confronted with the lessons of failure and humility, for instance in learning to release her ego.

Her expectations of God and His role in her life were not forthcoming; there was no comfort, no wooing of the soul; no being "drawn into the higher states of prayer, into further reaches of silence, and into a mysterious state that lay beyond the reach of thoughts and feeling" (ibid: 61). Karen perceives that she "never left base-camp" although she is "moved by the beauty of the music or uplifted by a rousing sermon" which she feels did not count (idem). Those moments correspond to her objectives and yet she refuses to recognise them, thus estranging from them. She is so busy looking for fireworks, that the light sparkling right in front of her is unseen.

She sometimes does not recognise where she has come from or who she is. She criticises Jenifer for making religion out to be "like an iron tonic: a regular dose each week [which] would automatically induce peace of soul" (ibid: 136). However, I feel that that was originally Karen's dream too. Yet her lack of self-awareness estranges her from her goals. Although she does recognise how the Hart boys were like her in rejecting society, materialism and success and also in "seeking what gave life intrinsic value"(ibid: 139). She does nevertheless seek success and is thus mortified when she apparently fails, as with the thesis and her being shown on reruns with the dregs of society. So there is a lack of consistency and although they appear to estrange her from her objectives, ultimately they correspond because she is confronted by her ego, which she is learning to letting go of by the end of the book.

One of her initial goals was to lose her confusions, but this occurs much later than she had expected. In fact, it is when she becomes dogmatic that she seems most out of touch with herself. For instance, when she flies to Tel Aviv, she is convinced that her "mission in life was to unmask the dogmatic intolerance of the churches"(ibid: 264). Her absoluteness about "religion consist[ing] essentially of belief" (ibid: 138) limits her on her journey. She realises that a "personalized God[…has] done nothing for […her]" (ibid: 329). This frees her thinking up and she thus ends the book giving definitions of God being ‘Nothing' trying to eliminate confusions for the reader, yet I felt that it was not all that clear cut for her either.

Initially Karen attempts to achieve her aims by means of conventional religion. Yet she struggles to work in that form and so she uses the form of art, often unconsciously. It is only when she is aware of her spiritual journey, that she then starts to internalise the writings of mystics and theologians, yet still being inspired by art through music, painting, mythology and literature. She also refers to Iris Murdoch's characters who have religious experiences that transfigure them through and in the presence of art. This is something that happens to Armstrong frequently, as for instance when hearing Dame Helen Gardner reading Ash-Wednesday (ibid: 191). This leads to her concluding at some point that "theology, like religion itself […is] really an art form" (ibid: 323). which for me estranges her from her objectives.

The leitmotif of the narrow spiral staircase enables her to have hope and to achieve her goals. She envisages herself trying to step off and walk along a more common path. Yet each time she returns to this "twisting stairwell" she finds an unexpected fulfilment, even though she seems to be "apparently covering little ground" (ibid: 342). This means helps her to understand her journey and to put it into perspective, thus allowing her to achieve the aims of the spiritual journey.

She is highly critical of herself and so when she adjudges herself not "worthy of God"(ibid: 26) and having "failed to find God"(ibid: 25), she leaves the convent. Although this too appears to have estranged her from her objectives, it enables her to open herself to secular life and thus learn the lessons that she so wished to learn in and through the convent. In this autobiography and the roadmap of transitional moments, Karen goes back to the beginning of her spiritual journey which she defines as going into the convent at age seventeen. It is her "own decision" (ibid: 1). She has a personal piety, which draws her toward having an intimate relationship with God, and yet she later writes that God was not her friend (ibid: 141). She realises that there is a tension between the studied and lived spirituality, which is beyond her(ibid: 7).

She often glimpses transitional moments which do not lead to an immediate transformation but rather build up until there seems to be a critical mass. The first of these moments that she writes of is during her Noviceship, when she challenged Mother Walter and said she "no longer knew what obedience really was" (ibid: 9). The next moment is when she arrives in Cherwell Road to begin university studies, and her "life fell apart" (ibid: 11). She knows on some level that she should leave but is "filled with dread" about returning to secular life (idem). She remains there for seven years when she finally decides to make the break away from the religious into the secular world.

And yet, she find that she is in "exile", which for her is a "spiritual dislocation" (ibid: 41). She feels as though "the world ha[s] no meaning […] lacking all sense of direction, not knowing where to turn […for the Earth had become] bleak, dark and eerily empty"(ibid: 41-2). She feels as though she has "entered a twilight zone between life and death" becoming "scared stiff" (ibid: 46). She felt dead to both people and literature, which is quite dangerous for her as the latter is something that she "thought […she] had loved" (ibid: 50). This deadening was also helped by the many pointless activities she engaged in like sewing without a needle. Yet for her, this was a moment that she understood later on; knowing that her "mind no longer worked freely" (ibid: 54).

Her opening to other realisations were helped by incidents such as her going to chapel for Mass and observing that perhaps she "had not been the only one who had had difficulties with prayer" (ibid: 88) although prior to that this was a "shameful secret" (ibid: 60). On this same occasion, she recognises that she "could only move forwards, however difficult that might seem" (ibid: 89).

Her hope and wish is to live an academic life, possibly (although this is not verbalised) at Oxford. However this is not to be, for she is failed on her PhD after having been given a prize and scholarship and excelling at undergraduate level with a congratulatory first.

She lives initially in a cloistered type environment at the convent. In Through the Narrow Gate, she predicted that she "would in some sense be a nun all […her] life" (ibid: 13). This enables her to ultimately live a "solitary existence, writing, thinking and talking almost all day and every day about God, religion and spirituality" (idem). This corresponds to her objectives.

Furthermore she has an expectation of developing "an interior attitude of waiting permanently on God, perpetually conscious of his loving presence. But that had never happened"(ibid: 20). Thus her objective by the end of The Spiral Staircase is ultimately met and all the transitional moments seem to be pushing her to work in the Divine presence.

On the evening when she kisses the floor, she acknowledges that perhaps she "had unconsciously wanted – just once – to appear in […her] true colours to the rest of the world" (ibid: 23). This is quite poignant for in much of the book she uses masks and speaks through other authors, not wishing to expose who she truly is. And in this moment, which coincides with her leaving the convent and entering secular life, she declares her allegiance to something which she outwardly denigrates.

She exhibits a lack of inner knowing. When writing of anger, she denies it having a place in her life. She cannot understand how "[t]hey protested, noisily and vociferously" (ibid: 27). The rage of the students towards the dons astounds her (ibid: 29). Then she recalls her rage at the convent ‘Establishment' (ibid: 29). There seems to be a gap in time here, where she writes of this using her ‘autos', thus only attaining some level of self awareness later.

Later at the university, in keeping with her remaining a ‘nun', she lives a similarly cloistered life, but then has to find other accommodation. She goes to live with an atheist family, the Harts, whose son Jacob is an epileptic. Ironically, Jenifer, his unbelieving mother, encourages Jacob to attend church with Karen and be baptised. Karen is thus forced to engage in a religious life against her will.

She sees a psychiatrist, Dr Piet (who is a composite of many doctors for her), as a result of her frequent ‘fainting spells'. She feels unheard, for whenever she tries to talk of the convent, he does not recognise her need. She attempts suicide although cannot recall how or why. She sees "this strange act [as…] another cry for help. […for she] did not know how to live any longer" (ibid: 148-9). At this point, she reaches a "new stillness" (ibid: 149). When Jenifer comes to collect her from Littlemore Hospital, where she had expected to be incarcerated, she walks out to a new world.
The late autumn leaves looked more golden than I had ever seen them and the air smelled fragrant after the thick, heavy despair in the ward. I felt a thrill of pure exhilaration. Suddenly everything seemed possible (ibid: 158).
As we drove back to Oxford, I felt a surge of returning life. There was excitement in the bustle of the streets, and the graceful curve of the High Street had never looked more beautiful(ibid: 159).
This event "proved to be a watershed" for her (idem).
When she is hospitalised at Warneford on two more occasions, being heartsick and then anorexic, once again she does not appear to be heard. And yet the doctor gives her the hope to believe in herself. Karen can now recognise her own "talents" and "intelligen[ce]" (ibid: 160-162). She is able to reframe her intelligence so that although it did not "interest […] the University of Oxford, […] it was a potentially powerful tool, a weapon that would help [her…] to fight [her…] way out of this apparent impasse" (ibid: 162). At this point she turns a corner, taking her life into her own hands. For she comes to understand that only she could do that, thus becoming self-empowered.

When she first heard Dame Helen Gardner lecturing on T.S. Eliot's Ash-Wednesday in 1973, she "felt the first flicker of true recovery" (ibid: 164). Her "mantra, with its serene determination to let go of the past and cultivate new strength and joy" (idem) from Wordsworth, is the basis of Eliot's poem. This resonance seemed to waken her to being "profoundly and spontaneously moved by the (sic) poetry" again "reaching something deeply embedded within" (idem). A sense of integrity comes upon her with "a complete and satisfying ‘fit' between [… her] inner and outer worlds" for it endorses her own state of not having "weakly abdicated from the struggle for life and health, but had somehow stumbled upon a truth about the human condition"(idem). In giving up hope, Eliot inspires in her that it may in fact "be the way forward" (ibid: 165). This enables her to "stop fighting […her] malady" and to see the "sign of life, a shoot that had suddenly broken through the frozen earth" (ibid: 166-7). Using the motif of the "winding stair" (ibid: 168) she sees that she is only on the first steps. Her friends often play the role of reminding her of her path. When Charlotte for instance tells Karen to free herself to take her "out of the straitjackets that […she] keep[s] tying […her]self up in" (ibid: 170). This leads to her asking herself whether she was "really any better?" (ibid: 172)

She then moves to London where she is employed at Bedford College. During this time, she has an epileptic seizure and her condition is fortunately diagnosed correctly. Throughout this period she becomes more and more disillusioned with religion and finally rejects it.

She is then employed as an English teacher at Dulwich, a prestigious girls' school. She believes that her new job is dull and "doing [her] no good at all" (ibid: 223). This is interesting because for the first time she voices a judgment from the start. Yet in retrospect, she acknowledges that this experience turns out to have been valuable(ibid: 230, 251). Moreover, she shows a lack of consistency, for she does find it "fun" to watch the younger students encounter great writers for the first time (ibid: 223). She also is reprimanded for laughing loudly, which means that she was able to enjoy herself (ibid: 225). Her frequent lack of understanding of her inner world versus her outer world contributes to the estrangement of objectives. For she often is unable to hear her inner voice. She is frequently away from school due to her ill health. Constant attempts by the neurologist to stabilise her condition exacerbates her absence. As a result of this, she is asked to leave her post.

While still at Dulwich she visits the Cockburns. Sir Bob attracts all manner of holy people and so for her it is ironic that in this "godless family", while "recoiling from the very idea of faith" she would take her first step "back to religion" (ibid: 236-7).

In 1982, after being fired from the school, she boards the bus, "away from […her] nice safe job, but it seemed to be going in the right direction" (ibid: 253). Instinctively Karen here seems to know what is good for her, yet she falls into a blue funk easily with each crisis.

Soon after, she is invited to present her viewpoint about religion on television and her performance so inspires a commissioning editor that she is then asked to write the script and present a programme on St Paul working with a company in Israel. Her first visit to Israel inspires her on many levels (ibid: 270-81). She is given permission to be asocial (ibid: 278); she is accepted by some and ignored by others. This frees her on a subtle level. She is also exposed to the Abrahamic religions in a completely new way(ibid: 276-7). The warmth of the Muslim people and acceptance into their homes (ibid: 279) sets a precedent for her future interaction with Muslims in the future. Although with one breath she says she was "still convinced that God and […she were] through" (ibid: 280). On this same trip, she speaks of the Muslims "taking the Word of God into their very being" (ibid: 277). She denies the existence of God in her question: "Was I still a nun, living in the world and yearning for a deity that did not exist?" (ibid: 244) Despite her not believing in God or the Church doctrines, she "still longed for the sense of heightened intensity and transcendence that the convent has promised to give" her (idem). Thus the same event both corresponds and estranges from her objectives.

In 1985 while working on The First Christian and studying the crusades she becomes "determined always to listen to ‘the other side'"(ibid: 292).

In 1989, she decides to write A History of God which sparks off many changes although she is not consciously aware of them. During this writing, she also writes Muhammad, which was published in autumn 1991. This brings her into the welcoming arms of the Muslim community and she is invited to speak at many special events.

She comments that she unwittingly "embarked on a spiritual quest" (ibid: 305). Her setting off on her own path and acknowledging and feeling her pain fully are "two […] essential principles of religion" which led to her "imperceptibly being transformed" (idem). Furthermore she pushed her "I" to the background for the sake of the book Muhammad, particularly because of the "dangerous climate". This inadvertently led to her practising "one of the most universal religious principles" of "editing out ego"(ibid: 312). She alludes to her inability to understand this,
For years I had longed to get to God, ascend to a higher plane of being, but I had never considered at sufficient length what it was that you had to climb from (ibid: 313).

She acknowledges how when treated with love and appreciation during her sojourn at Leo Baeck College, she "became a more lovable person" whose "ideas flowed more freely. It was an important lesson" (ibid: 317).

While researching A History of God she came to appreciate the "enveloping quiet […as] almost a presence" (ibid: 318). She began to feel alive and at home "in the silence, which compelled …her] to enter […her] interior world and walk around there"(idem). This is a vital ‘aha' for her. It is something she was unable to do in the convent and after all this time, it suddenly takes on the significance which she had been seeking all along.

As a result of her slow emergence on the spiritual journey, she reaches a transitional moment after the publication of A History of God. She is aware that her life changes as she practises compassion which according to monotheism "could bring us directly into the presence of God. It was a startling moment of clarity for […her]."

In 1998, she realises that she is being transformed and becomes consciously aware of her spiritual journey. Her relief at reading Cantwell Smith's Faith and Belief and Belief in History is great and yet she paradoxically relates it in academic terms commenting on his "dry, scholarly prose" (ibid: 327). She discovers that "our ideas of God were man-made" (idem). This frees her in her belief system, allowing her experience of God to take prominence, rather than opinions and texts, although she still tends to base her thinking thereon.

Since 2001, post 9/11 – the "September apocalypse" - she has been drawn to Kabbalah and yet in a perfectly ecumenical way, she "spend[s] a great deal of […] time helpi