Cheap Interior Castle (Book) (St. Teresa of Avila, E. Allison Peers) Price

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Customer Reviews of Interior Castle

A Mystical and Artistic View of a Soul's Journey !!!
Interior Castle is a wonderfully profound and insightful book enabling the reader to gain a better understanding and perspective of the "levels of faith" and a soul's journey toward union with God. Written over four centuries ago by Teresa of Avila, the book describes the soul as a castle with interior mansions and in each of the mansions, there are many rooms. The journey of the soul is toward the inner most chamber of the castle where God resides. St. Teresa describes the features and characteristics in each of these mansions. One might think of the mansions as "spheres of relationships"; relationship of love of God, love of our neighbor, and love of ourselves. As one moves from mansion to mansion, these relationships of love grow and change just as the features, characteristics, and experiences of God in each of the mansions grow and change. The entire journey can be summarized in St. Teresa's words "All the way to Heaven is heaven, too!".

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A beautiful book on the journey of a soul
St.Theresa of Avila is one of my favorite authors. She has so much insight to offer us. This book compares the soul to a castle with different rooms, which she calls mansions. Each mansion is a different stage of the soul on it's journey toward God. St. Theresa talks about seven mansions. As the soul passes from one mansion to the next the soul progresses toward God more completely. Theresa explains in each stage what is lacking and what we can to do to reach the next stage. I feel this book offers many valuable insights to help us on our journey toward God.

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A book for all religions
Mirabai Starr, the translator of this work, describes herself as a "Hindu/Buddhist/Jew translating the Catholic saints". Her translation is lovely, but quite different from the original, as she substitutes St. Theresa's own words with some that are perhaps more "universal". Below are Ms. Starr's own words:

"I opted to minimize references to the inherent wickedness of human beings and replace such terms as "sin" and "evil" with "missing the mark," "imperfection," "unconsciousness," "limitations," and "negativity." "Mortal sin" is "grave error." I call "hell" "the underworld" and the "devil" the "spirit of evil". When I name the "three divine Persons" in the seventh dwelling is what Teresa refers to as the "Holy Trinity."

As I said, the translation is quite lovely, but when St. Teresa said "sin" she did not mean "limitation" or "negativity". She meant sin. This translation is useless to me.