"When I've been
going around talking
about Islam and
fundamentalism, as
I've done regularly
since 9/11 and even
before then," she
explained at
Powell's, "there
would nearly always
be a question: 'How
did you come to
this?' So, there's
been an interest in
my life somehow.
That's one of the
reasons that I
agreed to write [
The
Spiral Staircase]."
In 1969, at the
age of twenty-four,
Karen Armstrong left
the Roman Catholic
convent she had
entered as a
teenager. She
returned to a
changed world.
Unrecognizable.
Vietnam, The
Beatles, feminism,
the sexual
revolution... But
more affecting was
this: she had tried,
and failed, to find
God.
Before she became
one of the
English-speaking
world's foremost
commentators on
religion, Armstrong
weathered anorexia
and depression
alongside fainting
spells and blackouts
due to epilepsy that
went undiagnosed for
years.
Now she shares
the story of her
return bit-by-bit,
step-by-step to
secular life.
The Spiral Staircase
is "a story about
becoming human," the
Washington Post
declared, "being
recognized, finally
recognizing
oneself."
Dave: I
noticed that you're
wrapping up a
month-long tour of
America, and I
wondered whether
you've heard
particular questions
again and again as
you travel from city
to city.
Karen
Armstrong: Apart
from the current
political situation
and Islam and
fundamentalism, it's
been "How can we
deal with the rising
intolerance in this
country?"
Religious-based
intolerance, I'm
speaking of:
religious certainty.
America seems to be
very riled up at the
moment about
religion. Not just
the Al Queda threat,
but also Bush and
his politics, his
sense of being
inspired by God.
There's been a lot
of "How do we redeem
our religions? What
can we do?"
A lot of people
have come out of the
woodwork and said,
"I was in the
seminary" or "I was
in the convent."
Others, they bear no
relation to you on
the surface, to my
own story, and yet I
think the book has
helped them find a
morphology through
which they can look
at their own journey
and passages.
Compassion, the
meaning of
compassion that
comes up a lot. And,
"What is the role of
belief in faith? Do
you believe in God?"
I point out that
that's a very
Christian question,
a very Western,
modern question.
It's not actually
the proper question,
but nevertheless
it's what people
want to know. For
them, that is the
question.
Dave: And
what is the question
that you prefer to
ask instead?
Armstrong:
I say that religion
isn't about
believing things.
It's ethical
alchemy. It's about
behaving in a way
that changes you,
that gives you
intimations of
holiness and
sacredness.
People have such
clear ideas of what
God is you know:
creator, father,
personality watching
over me. It's not
what I believe in,
even though I like
to use the word
sometimes. So people
will ask, "Is
traditional faith
wrong?" And I say,
"No." It doesn't
really matter what
you believe as long
as it leads you to
practical
compassion. If your
belief in a
traditional God
makes you come out
imbued with a desire
to feel with your
fellow human beings,
to make a place for
them in your heart,
to work to end
suffering in the
world, then it's
good. Nobody has the
last word on God,
whether they're
conservative or
liberals.
Dave: You
write in The Spiral
Staircase about
achieving ecstatic
moments through
study, which you
recognize as part of
Jewish tradition.
How do readers
relate to that idea?
Armstrong:
Not many people
spend their life
studying religion,
let's be frank. No,
this is just for me.
I'm not putting my
life forward as some
kind of blueprint
for other people;
this is just a
memoir. But Jewish
people recognize it.
As I've written, in
the Leo Baeck
College where I
teach, as soon as I
shared the idea for
the first time,
Lionel Bloom, my
boss, said, "This is
very, very Jewish."
My point is that
we've all got to
find our own form of
prayer, our own form
of worship. Being
dragooned into one,
as I was when I was
young, is not going
to do any good.
There are myriad
forms of
spirituality. You've
got to find the
right one for you.
Dave: In
the new book, you
describe waking up
in a hospital and
being told that
you'd tried to
commit suicide. But
you had no
recollection of
doing it. You'd
blacked out.
Somehow, through
years of fainting
and blackouts, you'd
never been tested
for any kind of
physical ailment. It
wasn't until years
later that you were
diagnosed with
epilepsy. How could
that have happened?
Armstrong:
I don't know. Within
the convent, as it
were, I think it
speaks in part to a
danger in the
compartmentalization
of religion; people
find it difficult to
think outside their
specialty. So much
specialization might
mean that they're
not willing to look
elsewhere for
answers. And as I
say in the book,
there's still a
resistance to the
idea. Even today,
there are friends of
mine who insist that
the whole thing is
psychosomatic. A lot
of friends of mine
in London are
psychotherapists,
not with a medical
training, true, but
they find it very
difficult to believe
that something that
produces an
emotional reaction
is physically based.
It goes against
their thought. It
seems to be a
prejudice of our
post-Freudian age
that everything has
got to be boiled
down to the psyche.
Dave: When
you were younger,
you read Tennyson
and felt a profound
connection to his
work. It must have
made so much sense
when you were
diagnosed.
Armstrong:
Absolutely. Of
course I was drawn
to the man! He was
anguished by the
same kinds of
symptoms. It was the
great black threat
that hung over his
entire life. His
brother was
incarcerated in a
home for the same
reason. His father
died of epilepsy. It
was called "the
black curse of the
Tennysons." That was
a moment of
revelation for me,
yes.
Neurology seems
utterly fascinating
in the whole process
of religion and art.
Think of people like
Van Gogh you can see
it in those
tormented canvasses,
the kind of vision
he had. And
apparently we write
a lot, too. Not
always to any great
effect, but think of
Dostoevsky's great
fat novels. It's all
very interesting.
Dave:
Being on tour and
talking about
yourself now in
support of this
memoir, how is that
different than
promoting one of
your other books?
Many of the people
in attendance
probably know you
best from your
critical studies.
Armstrong:
When I say that I
was unable to pray,
sometimes you can
almost feel a sigh
of relief going up,
that someone has
dared to say that.
Or when I say that I
felt I was better
off without
religion, or that I
don't think
believing in things
matters, you feel
people relaxing
somehow.
If readers aren't
interested in my
story, that's fine.
I tell you what,
though: Frequently,
reviewers have said<85>about
The Battle for God,
for example, I
remember one whole
paragraph saying,
"We have no notion
of what Ms.
Armstrong herself
feels about these
things. Is she doing
this as a scholar?
Is she a skeptic? Is
she a Catholic?"
That's repeated
quite often.
Also, when I've
been going around
talking about Islam
and fundamentalism,
as I've done
regularly since 9/11
and even before
then, there would
nearly always be a
question: "How did
you come to this?"
So, there's been an
interest in my life
somehow. That's one
of the reasons that
I agreed to write
it, the persistence
of these questions,
rather like when I
wrote my first book,
Through the Narrow
Gate, because people
were endlessly
asking me about the
convent. What was
it like in there?
I could then say,
"Read the book."
Because I don't
belong to an
affiliated church,
nor an affiliated
university, and I'm
very much a
freelancer, I think
people do want to
know where I stand.
Dave:
People are desperate
for this kind of
information:
objective,
knowledgeable
perspectives on
other belief
systems. You were
just seventeen when
you joined the
convent. You hadn't
yet been exposed to
other faiths. Most
people haven't at
such a young age.
Armstrong:
No, though people
are more and more
doing it now.
Alongside the
sectarianism that is
growing, the fact
that we are living
cheek by jowl with
people of other
faiths, the fact
that our world has
shrunk to a global
village, means that
for a long time and
in a most unsung way
people have been
spontaneously
reaching out to
other faiths. More
Christians read
Martin Buber
than Jews. Jews read
Paul Tillich and
Harvey Cox. And
Jesuits have long
been learning
meditation from
Buddhist monks.
Because there's more
information now than
there was, I think
people are doing it
not in a principled
way but
spontaneously.
Rumi, for
example: People are
reading him in
droves in the West.
Sufism is very
popular. My little
book on the
Buddha was very
popular. What we
need in this world
right now is a dose
of the Buddha's good
sense, I think:
low-key
spirituality.
I think this is
in the zeitgeist
now; people are
doing it. Since
9/11, Americans in
particular have
become aware that
now it's not just a
nice thing to do;
it's imperative to
learn. And we've got
to bring up our
children to know
about other
religions.
Everybody, not just
the West. When I go
to mosques or
synagogues, I'll say
the same thing.
We've got to know
more about each
other's religions so
we don't harbor
distorted,
inaccurate images.
It's too dangerous.
Dave: Part
of the motivation
for you to write
A History of God
was the realization
that the three major
religions have so
much in common.
That's not an
assumption most
people would make.
Armstrong:
No, and similarly in
my next book I'm
going to look at the
history of the Axial
Age, which is when
all the great world
religions come into
being. I'll be
looking at
Hinduism and the
Chinese,
Confucius and
the
Taoists, and the
Greeks, too. Again
you see the same
profound
similarities, the
same issues coming
up, and that's quite
endorsing, actually.
Instead of seeing
your own tradition
as an idiosyncratic,
lonely quest, it
becomes part of what
human beings do,
part of a universal
search for meaning
and value. This is
the kind of scenario
that the human mind
goes through in its
search for ultimate
meaning.
Dave: It's
reaffirming to think
that people with no
contact, in vastly
different
geographical areas,
would ask similar
questions and reach
many of the same
conclusions.
Armstrong:
Jews, Christians,
and Muslims, as I
say in that book,
working in isolation
and often in deadly
hostility to one
another still come
up with the same
questions, the same
values. That tells
us something about
our humanity, and it
is affirming.
Dave: In
The Battle for God,
you explain that the
West has had
hundreds of years to
evolve toward the
religious and
cultural order we
now inhabit. But
that order is now
being artificially
imposed in
developing parts of
the world.
Armstrong:
And accelerated.
It's all happening
at too great a
speed. With us,
there were centuries
in which these ideas
could trickle down
from the
intellectuals, from
people like
Locke down
through various
routes, often
through religion, to
the ordinary person
in the street or the
pew. There's not
been time in various
parts of the
developing world;
it's all been too
quick. What can be
done about it? They
can't just take
three hundred years
over. They've got to
modernize yesterday,
and that is causing
a lot of problems.
Dave: And
yet something needs
to be done. A person
could say to the
West, "Stop imposing
your way of life,"
but realistically
it's unlikely to
change;
globalization isn't
going to stop.
Armstrong:
No, it isn't. I
wrote about this at
the end of
Muhammad.
Wilfred Cantwell
Smith wrote a
little book on
modern Islam in 1956
[Islam
in Modern History]
the book was printed
just before
the Suez crisis,
when everything
changed. Already he
could see we were
heading for trouble.
He said, first of
all, that the Muslim
world has got to
accept the West;
their religion says
that you must see
things as they are,
so Muslims must
accommodate the West
and not feel this
dreadful dismay;
they've got to get
over it. But
equally, the
Christian world and
the West have got to
recognize that they
share the planet not
with inferiors but
with equals. If we
both don't achieve
this, Cantwell Smith
said, we will have
failed the test of
the twentieth
century.
September 11
shows that none of
us did too well on
that.
I think it's a
question of
attitude. We mustn't
regard these other
traditions with
thinly veiled
contempt or fail to
recognize the very
real difficulties
they're having in
the course of
modernization. We
can't sweep reality
under the carpet,
saying, "Come, come.
Surely they can get
together a modern
democratic society
by this time."
It took us a
long, long time even
to get votes for
women. It was the
1930s or something
before a woman could
earn a degree and be
an accredited B.A.
at Oxford and
Cambridge. People
were able to do that
because our cultures
were on a roll and
we felt empowered
enough to ask the
impossible. We
demanded from our
masters, in Britain
and here in the
States, more
enfranchisement and
a larger share in
the decision-making.
This was a demand.
In parts of the
developing world,
people feel so
disenfranchised now
that they don't have
that spirit of
freedom to demand
democracy.
You've got to
feel that your vote
makes a difference.
Even in our
countries<85>
Less than half the
population turned
out to vote for
Tony Blair last
time. That means
that even though he
has a huge majority
in Parliament, he
has no mandate from
the country because
people don't feel
that their vote
makes the slightest
bit of difference. I
suppose what I'm
saying is that we
must try in our
policies, as we now
look at this new
world that we
entered on 9/11, to
empower people and
not make them feel
like there's nothing
they can do.
Dave: But
in regards to
fundamentalism, as
differently as it
may have manifested
in each religion,
something all
fundamentalists
share is the fear of
annihilation, the
fear that their way
of life will not
survive. And it's a
legitimate fear.
Armstrong:
It's true. In the
Muslim countries,
that has been
immensely true. In
Judaism,
fundamentalism took
major leaps forward,
first just after
the Holocaust,
then again after the
1973 war when Israel
suddenly felt
vulnerable again and
felt its isolation
in
the Middle East.
Then look at Muslims
whose modernizers
were aggressive and
mowed you down in a
mosque if you didn't
wear modern dress;
or took women's
veils off in the
street and ripped
them to pieces in
front of them with a
bayonet; tortured
mullahs; abolished
Sufi orders and
forced them
underground.
This is experienced
by the ordinary
Muslim in the street
as an assault
against religion,
and yet what are
these modernizers
supposed to do?
They've got to
modernize fast.
They've got to
secularize. Somehow
we've got to see
that this has been
counterproductive.
What we know from
the past is that
when fundamentalists
are attacked,
whether they're
Christian, Jewish,
or Muslim, they
become more extreme.
Certainly that
happened in this
country at the time
of the Scopes trial.
The ridicule they
faced at the hands
of the secular press
led fundamentalists
to go from the left
of the political
spectrum to the
right, where they've
remained.
Dave: You
compare the
Industrial and now
the Technological
Age to the Axial
Age. Underlying
economic and
cultural changes are
essentially forcing
religion to adapt.
Armstrong:
Religion speaks to
contemporary
conditions or it
dies. The difference
is that in our
current pivotal
period of major
social,
technological, and
economic change,
which has
transformed the
world, our geniuses
have mostly been
scientific. We've
had no spiritual
geniuses of the
stature of the
Buddha or
Muhammad or
Jesus or
Confucius or
Lao Tzu or
the prophets of
Israel. I
won't go on. There
was a galaxy of
spiritual stars in
the Axial Age. We
don't have our own.
We still rely on
those original
insights.
My book, I hope,
will be a critique
of the way we're
religious today. It
often seems to me
that in our various
religious
institutions we're
producing exactly
the type of religion
that people like the
Buddha wanted to get
rid of. Buddha and
Isiah and
Socrates, all
these people, who
said, "Question
everything. Never
take anybody else's
word for it. Never
take anything on
faith. If a
religious belief
doesn't conform, if
it doesn't work for
you, leave it,
that's fine.
Question everything,
even utterly sacred
truths." Like the
prophets of Israel
saying that God is
not reflexively on
the side of the
Israel, as he was at
the time of the
Exodus.
And compassion is
the key. No interest
in doctrinal
formulations, very
little interest in
the afterlife<85>most
of those religious
leaders were just
concerned with
living fully. All
this is very
different from the
way people conceive
of religion today.
In the absence of
religious geniuses,
let's make good use
of the ones we had
at the time of the
Axial Age and try to
get back to some of
those great insights
that in fact chime
really well with
modernity.
Dave: But
as you say, whatever
Buddha or anyone
else advocated two
thousand years ago,
those messages have
since been co-opted.
Year by year,
through centuries
and centuries, the
original message
changes to the point
where today,
particularly as we
encounter them
through the media,
who actually
encounters those
messages as they
were intended? And
how will that
possibly change
without a spiritual
leader?
Armstrong:
The trouble also
with the media is
that they'd probably
blow someone to
smithereens. They'd
all have found some
expos on the
Buddha. I once was
giving a phone-in
for the
Buddha book, and
some woman rang up
and said, "What's so
great about this
guy? He's just some
lousy skunk who left
his wife and kids."
You can only say,
"This is certainly a
blot on his
ascension."
Plus the whole
business of
celebrity now, which
has become a kind of
awful disease, can
go to people's head,
even with the best
will in the world.
We're all fragile
beings. They may
look giants from
this distance, but
they were vulnerable
human beings.
Dave:
You've written
biographies of both
the
Buddha and
Muhammad. How do
you approach a
biography when the
subject lived so far
back in history?
Armstrong:
For
Muhammad, I went
straight back to the
four major
biographies of the
Prophet, eighth
century and ninth
century. And these
are not slim
volumes; these are
massive tomes that
try to place all the
Koranic texts in the
context of the
Prophet's life.
They're real
attempts to write
history, as it were.
Those were my
principal sources.
And scholarly tomes
also about
conditions in
pre-Islamic Arabia.
My desire, at the
time of the Rushdie
crisis, was to show
the Prophet as he is
treated in early
Muslim sources and
in Muslim tradition
for a Western
audience that was
becoming
increasingly and
dangerously, I felt
hostile to Islam.
Dave: You
put aside
A History of God
to write
Muhammad when
the fatwa against
Rushdie was
issued. How was the
book received?
Armstrong:
Most of the secular
press in the UK
either ignored the
book or was sort of
sneering at it. My
publishers had been
scared of publishing
it because they
thought I'd be
joining Salman in
hiding. They thought
Muslims wouldn't
like a Western woman
writing this book,
but the Muslims
loved it.
I'd written it
for Westerners, so I
was surprised by
Muslims writing in,
saying, "I've given
this to my children
who are Westerners."
And people have said
to me, "It's because
of this book that I
can bring up my
children Muslim.
Because they are not
like us," they've
said. "We're from
the pre-modern
period. These kids
question everything.
They're not content
with the kind of
answers we had."
People have told me
that they've taken
the book on the Hadj
with them and cried
over it.
A History of God
was my big
breakthrough book.
Muhammad came
out before that, and
Muslims were the
first people to see
that I might be
something more than
a TV personality or
a runaway nun. They
took me seriously.
And here, too,
Muslim organizations
brought me over the
Atlantic to come and
speak. It was and
has continued to be
well received. Also
the little book on
Islam.
Dave: What
do you want readers
to take away from
your books? Is there
one thing more than
others?
Armstrong:
The main thing I
want them to get is
this idea of
compassion. That's
what we need now.
Dave: That
everything boils
down to the Golden
Rule.
Armstrong:
I'm convinced of it.
It's in all the
traditions, and it's
what the world needs
now more than
religious certainty,
more than doctrinal
statements or more
rules about what
people can do in the
bedroom and who can
get married and who
can be bishops or
priests. All this is
like fiddling while
Rome burns.
All the world
religions developed
in violent societies
like our own. All of
them came from
societies where
civilization seemed
on the point of
collapsing under the
weight of aggression
and violence. Where
old values were
going out, no new
ones were coming to
take their place.
The first impulse in
many of these
religions was a
revulsion from
violence. That's
what we need now, to
get back to some of
that.
Dave:
Anything you've been
reading and enjoying
lately?
Armstrong:
Every year,
especially before I
go on one of these
trips, I go through
the whole of
Jane Austen. She
reminds me what good
writing is.
Otherwise, basically
just pap on this
tour. My brain goes
into pap. I read the
newspaper and just
stare out the
windows.
Karen Armstrong
visited Powell's
City of Books on
March 20, 2004.
courtesy: Powell
Books