Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, (1515 –1582), was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, author during the
Counter Reformation, and theologian
of contemplative life through mental prayer. She was a
reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered to be a founder of the
Discalced Carmelites along with John of the Cross.
Late in her
life sixteenth century Spanish mystic Saint Teresa of Avila wrote The Interior Castle, a major classic of Christian mystical literature illustrating the steps
a soul makes along the road toward greater spirituality.
She described
seven rooms, or Mansions, each corresponding to a different phase in the
spiritual journey. Mary Jo Meadow (a secular Carmelite nun and former professor of
psychology and religious studies from Minneapolis) first suggested a
correlation between these rooms and James Fowlers’ stages of faith and explained them in an article in Pastoral Psychology,1993.
In Teresa’s
First Mansions are people who have not yet made much spiritual progress. They
are still under the control of a lot of what she called “reptiles,” the pull of
the material world—possessions, honor or business affairs—which provide
occasions of sin outside the castle. They are also mostly unaware of their own
failings. According to Meadow, the First Mansions correlate with Fowler’s
Synthetic-Conventional (or our Faithful) stage where people generally follow an
unexamined set of values and opinions.
In Teresa’s
Second Mansions people have gained enough self-knowledge to realize that
conventional or conformist religiosity is not what they want, but they have not
yet made the leap beyond it and thus have not yet converted to the next step.
According to Meadow, being in the Second Mansions is like being caught between
Fowler’s Synthetic-Conventional and his Individuative-Reflective Stage.
The person in
the Third Mansions is self-monitoring, and driven by his own reason and his own
conscience. While others have spoken of this stage as one in which reason takes
predominance over spiritual concerns, Teresa turned it around and said the goal
in these mansions (if one desires to progress to the next level) is learning to
not trust one’s reason too much. Teresa spoke in the language of her time
saying in the Third Mansions people are at risk of forgetting to “fear God.”
Thus to progress beyond the Third Mansions a person would have to diminish the
importance he ascribes to his own reason and begin to think in more spiritual
terms. Another task in these mansions is to learn that we must not try to
convert others to our beliefs. The third mansion corresponds roughly to
Fowler’s Individuative-Reflective Stage (and our Rational level.)
The Fourth
Mansions is the first mystical-type level. Here the soul (person) has generally
risen above the level where the “reptiles” of sin can tempt it. (this is the
same as saying it is self-governing.) Further, it realizes it is advancing not
by its own striving, but with the help of grace. There is a level of
acceptance—the soul no longer shrinks from the trials of life and now attaches
little importance to the things of this world. Meadow likens the Fourth
Mansions to an “intensification” of the Individuative-Reflective Stage.
In Teresa’s
Fifth Mansions the soul goes into a sort of cocoon where there is complete
trust in the will of God. The ego is diminished and the importance of self and
petty worries is reduced. One no longer feels the need to control events and
has no trouble controlling his impulses. Meadow correlates the Fifth Mansions
to Fowler’s Fifth stage—Conjunctive faith. Here one begins to acknowledge the
truth and validity of other traditions and to accept the paradoxes about our
existence. The findings of science and the words of scripture both hold
valuable truths, though they may seem to contradict one another. There is the
uniting of seemingly opposite truths—the person learns to tolerate paradox.
At Teresa’s
Sixth Mansions there is sometimes intense psychological suffering, but it
coexists with joy and an intense desire for union with God. It is likened with
the “dark night of the soul.” This suffering is also a feature of Fowler’s
Conjunctive Faith. The person may well be misunderstood by others, may become
increasingly occupied in spiritual affairs and does not want to deal with more
every day practical issues.
In the Seventh
Mansions—the mystical perspective ceases to disrupt ordinary functioning. The
person can continue his duties with no difficulty. The person who may have
faced inaction before now becomes engaged in the service of God (or service to
humanity, as a part of god.) There is a great calm, a forgetfulness of self;
the ego is transcended. The interior and exterior aspects of life come into
harmony. This is similar to Fowler’s uppermost Universalizing Faith stage where
the conflicts are reconciled. The person adopts a universal and totally
inclusive worldview. He or she may be prone to bold actions that promote that
worldview, despite risk to his own personal being. The symbols (of the
individual religions) have become transparent and the person understands they
all refer to the same Universal Reality.
Meadow
concluded that despite being constructed in different locations, times,
cultures, circumstances, and languages, and using different methods,
"Fowler and Teresa both seem to have arrived at a universal understanding
of human spiritual functioning."
Adapted from here
