2014 Reprint of 1961 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "Interior Castle" is one of the most celebrated books on mystical theology available. 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 enlightenment. In addition to its profound content, it is a treasury of important maxims on such ascetic subjects as self-knowledge, humility, detachment and suffering. But above all, this account of a soul's progress in virtue and grace is the record of a life-of the interior life of St. Teresa of Avila, whose soul, mind and temperament hold so deep an attraction for the modern mind. In its central image, Teresa describes 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 the castle, the degrees of purgation and strife, through which the soul must pass in its quest for perfection before reaching the innermost chambers, the place of complete transfiguration and communion with God.