Interior Castle Author:St. Teresa of Avila, E. Allison Peers (Editor, Translator) Interior Castle is one of the most celebrated books on mystical theology in existence. It is the most sublime and mature of Teresa of Avila's works and expresses the full flowering of her deep experience in guiding souls toward spiritual perfection. In addition to its profound mystical content, it is also a treasury of unforgettable... more » maxims on such ascetic subjects as self-knowledge, humility, detachment, and suffering. But above all, this account of a soul's progress in virtues and grace is the record of a life--of the interior life of St. Teresa of Avila, whose virile soul, luminous mind, and endearingly human temperament hold so deep an attraction for the modern mind.
In its central image, language, and style, Interior Castle, like so many works of genius, is extremely simple. St. Teresa envisioned the soul as "a castle made of a single diamond... in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions." She describes the various mansions of this castle--the degrees of purgation and continual strife---through which the soul in its quest for perfection must pass before reaching the innermost chamber, the place of complete transfiguration and communion with God..« less