Spanish mystical author Teresa of Avila famously envisioned the soul as a castle with seven inner "dwellings." In her book, The Interior Castle, she leads the reader through each of these dwellings and finally to the castle's innermost chamber, where we might apprehend a vision of God in God's oneness and enter into divine union. Here we survey these stages of the spiritual journey as described by Teresa.

This is part three in a fourpart series on Christian mysticism:
1. "God is not good": PseudoDionysius (   • "God is not good": PseudoDionysius  )
2. God beyond God: Meister Eckhart (   • God beyond God: Meister Eckhart  )
3. Chambers of the soul: Teresa of Avila (   • Chambers of the soul: Teresa of Avila  )
4. Nothing, nothing, nothing: John of the Cross (   • Nothing, nothing, nothing: John of th...  )