Hekhalot ,The Origin of Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle Theory

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582 AD) introduced the theory of the Interior Castle (the Seven Mansions) as a path towards union with God and the attainment of His divine presence. Since Teresa was not a classical theoritician, it raises the question of how much influence Hekhalot (the Seven Halls for attaining divine visions) had on the presentation of her theory. The hypothesis of this paper is that Teresa was influenced by Hekhalot. The writing of this article proved the validity of the aforementioned hypothesis and demonstrated that Teresa incorporated concepts and terminology from Hekhalot into the structure and development of her theory, with repeated references to the ancient covenant, particularly the book of Ezekiel, as one of the sources of Hekhalot. Emphasizing on the role of contemplation in achieving union and overcoming obstacles to union, Teresa was influenced by Hekhalot. Comparing the seven mansions with the seven halls reveals significant similarities that indicate Teresa's adoption of Hekhalot in presenting the theory of the Interior Castle. Both the mansions and the halls aim for the vision of unity and the unity of vision, with the difference being that Teresa associates vision with union and Hekhalot with encounter. However, this does not imply that Teresa had mastery over the reading and study of Hallucination; rather, she drew from the prevailing mystical literature of Avila, which contained these opinions and teachings.