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SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

Spiritual Direction for the Seven Stages of the Spiritual Journey:
Sufism and Teresa of Avila
Cheryl Camp

here has been a tradition of explaining journey (“mansions”) as progression in the development
the spiritual journey of believers in some of our capacity to be intimate with God. It is not that
religions in terms of stages of development God is generous with some and miserly with others, but
with various images being used to describe rather God is always trying to enlarge our capacity to
them. The mystical tradition of Islam receive the Divine Presence (Burrows, 42). Hagberg and
T(Sufism) began early in its history to speak Guelich (252) use the image of the circle to clarify their
of “stations” (maqamat) along the spiritual path. Various stance on stage theory: the stages are on the circumfer-
numbers were given, but the number seven first appeared ence of the circle with God in the centre. Each stage has
in the writings of the Sufi Master As-Sarraj (d. 988), and equal access to God, only in a different manner. The
Farid ad-din Attar (d. c. 1230) used the image of valleys to writers also hold that the stages are fluid as we move back
describe them, as did the Bahá’í founder, Bahá’u’lláh. The and forth between them depending on circumstances,
Jewish mystical commentary the Zohar, which was compiled or we may even experience more than one at a time (7).
and redacted by Moses de Leon (c. 1250–1305), speaks This imagery mirrors that of the circular path of Sarraj,
of progressive ecstatic stages known as the Seven Halls of a tenth-century Sufi. According to spiritual stage theory,
Heaven. De Leon lived in Avila, Spain, for many years in the spiritual directees need spiritual direction that is relevant
latter part of his life. to what they are experiencing at their particular stage of
their journey.
The Catholic mystic Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y This article explores the theories and insights of
Ahumada (1515–1582) also lived in Avila as a Carmelite spiritual stage theory from Islam through Sufism and
nun. Canonized as a saint in 1622, she became known Christianity through Teresa of Avila, and the spiritual
as Teresa of Avila. She was declared a Doctor of the direction best suited for spiritual directees at the differ-
Church in 1970 because her writings were deemed to ent stages. Although “each system is integral to itself”
be of importance to the Catholic Church, and she was (al Ansari) and “comparisons can often be distortive”
considered to be of great sanctity and eminent learning. (Ameur), they can be “equally in conversation with the
Teresa was influenced by the spiritual writers of her day, ‘other’ ... [because] there are things which transcend the
including Ignatius of Loyola (d. 1556), also Spanish, who cultural bounds and that humans know experientially
had published his pedagogy of the Spiritual Exercises in and through the sheer quality of being human” (Ameur).
1548 to assist retreatants in the “developmental mystical The “conversation” presented here can enrich spiritual
process [which] consists of continued, successive trans- directors’ approaches to travellers along the spiritual jour-
formations” (Ruffing, 34). It is not impossible that Teresa ney who come to them for direction.
was familiar with de Leon’s Seven Halls of Heaven. She
wrote her own theory of seven mansions in The Interior Stage 1
Castle in 1577. In Islam, the Qur’an and Sunna (the example and say-
This structural approach has been critiqued as being ings of the Prophet Muhammad) describe the stages or
hierarchical and categorizing—hierarchical for implying stations of a spiritual traveller’s path to God, prescribing
that people at the “higher” stages are holier than those a set of guidelines for achieving them (see Al Azhari).
at “lower” stages, and categorizing for putting people in In the mystical tradition of Islam—Sufism—spiritual
“boxes” that do not allow for fluidity. However, Teresa states (hal) are experienced at the stations of the spiritual
of Avila, according to Burrows (10–11), held that God journey (maqam/makam). However, progress through the
bestows the Divine Self on everyone according to their stations is not achieved by the seeker’s own effort: “his
capacity to receive it. Teresa saw the stages of the spiritual advance from makam to makam is by God’s sway and of

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