St. Teresa of Avila: Levitations, Divine Grace, and the Devil's Lie by Jeff Callaway

St. Teresa of Avila: Levitations, Divine Grace, and the Devil's Lie

By Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

The Spanish night was cold and silent in the 16th century convent, but within the chapel of the Convent of the Incarnation in Avila, something profound was happening. A diminutive woman, barely five feet tall, was lifted inches from the floor during prayer, suspended between heaven and earth, her face radiant with the presence of something far greater than herself. Her name was Teresa Cepeda y Ahumada, later canonized as Saint Teresa of Avila, and what she experienced during those mystical moments would become a cornerstone in understanding the nature of divine grace, spiritual ecstasy, and the human capacity to commune with the eternal.

Yet her extraordinary experiences came with a terrible price. In an age of fear, suspicion, and the Spanish Inquisition's ever-watchful eye, Teresa's levitations were not universally celebrated as signs of holiness. Instead, many questioned the source of her supernatural experiences. Some whispered that the devil himself was lifting her into the air. Others suggested that demons were orchestrating her spiritual visions and mystical encounters. The accusation was as old as humanity itself: when confronted with the inexplicable and the supernatural, mankind instinctively divides the unknown into two categories: divine or demonic. Few possess the wisdom to look deeper, to examine evidence carefully, and to consider that perhaps God's grace operates in ways that challenge our limited understanding.

This accusation against Teresa echoes across centuries with a particular historical irony. In the Gospels, when Jesus Christ himself performed miracles of healing and cast out demons from the afflicted, the Pharisees and scribes accused him of the same transgression. "He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons," they charged in Matthew's Gospel. If the Son of God was accused of working through demonic power, should it surprise us that a humble Carmelite nun would face identical accusations? The parallel is startling and deeply revealing about human nature, institutional fear, and the battle between those who recognize divine truth and those who seek to suppress it.

The Woman Behind the Levitations

Teresa was born in 1515 into a family of conversos, Spanish Jews who had converted to Christianity, a heritage that would add another layer of suspicion to her life in an age obsessed with religious purity. She entered the Carmelite convent at twenty and immediately showed signs of an extraordinarily deep spiritual life. Her prayer was not routine devotion; it was an intimate dialogue with God that consumed her entire being. By her thirties, she began experiencing what religious scholars classify as mystical phenomena: visions, auditions, raptures, and most strikingly, levitations.

These were not private, hidden experiences. They occurred in public, witnessed by her sisters and visitors to the convent. According to historical records documented by her confessors and other eyewitnesses, Teresa would be lifted from the ground during moments of profound prayer and ecstatic union with God. Her confessor at the Convent of the Incarnation, Father Baltasar Alvarez, documented numerous incidents. Sisters at the convent testified to finding her suspended in air, her body elevated several inches from the stone floor, lost in what appeared to be complete absorption in spiritual contemplation. The phenomenon was so pronounced that Teresa herself eventually pleaded with God to stop levitating her publicly, as she recognized the distraction these events caused to her community and the controversy they generated among those less inclined to view them with charitable interpretation.

Teresa's own writings about these experiences reveal a woman of remarkable intelligence and psychological insight. In her autobiographical works, particularly her Life and The Interior Castle, she meticulously describes her spiritual experiences with a combination of poetic beauty and scientific precision that would not be out of place in modern psychological literature. She was acutely aware of the dangers surrounding her experiences and took great care to distinguish between genuine mystical phenomena and potential delusions or demonic deceptions. She sought counsel from learned theologians and remained constantly vigilant against the possibility of self-deception or spiritual pride.

The Documentary Evidence

The historical record of Teresa's levitations is remarkably substantial for phenomena often dismissed as legend or exaggeration. Multiple witnesses, including her confessors, bishops, and fellow nuns, documented these events. These were not anonymous reports or questionable hearsay; they came from educated clerics with the authority and responsibility to distinguish between genuine mystical phenomena and fraud or demonic activity. The Inquisition, for all its cruelty and excess, maintained rigorous standards of investigation. If Teresa had been determined to be in league with demons or perpetrating fraud, she would have faced serious consequences. That she eventually died in the Church's good graces, was beatified in 1614, and canonized in 1622 speaks volumes about what careful investigation revealed.

One of the most compelling aspects of Teresa's documented levitations is their consistency. Witnesses describe similar phenomena across different time periods and locations. She would enter a state of profound prayer, often accompanied by what she termed "the prayer of union," in which the soul experiences complete absorption in God's presence. During these moments, her body would become rigid and light, rising from the ground. The episodes were brief, lasting from seconds to several minutes, and would conclude with her returning to normal consciousness, often confused or disoriented about how much time had passed.

Father Luis de Granada, a prominent theologian of the era, investigated Teresa's experiences and declared them to be genuine manifestations of divine grace. Other Dominican friars who carefully examined her life, her writings, and the testimony of witnesses similarly concluded that her mystical experiences, while extraordinary, bore all the marks of authentic divine activity rather than demonic deception.

The Inquisition's Scrutiny and the Devil's Accusation

If Teresa lived with a persistent fear, it was the fear of the Inquisition. She was brought before inquisitors multiple times to answer charges concerning her spiritual experiences and writings. Her works were scrutinized line by line. Her critics included both within the Church and among secular authorities who viewed her mystical theology as potentially heretical or, worse, as evidence of demonic possession or collusion.

The accusations against her mirrored the tactics used against any person claiming supernatural experiences in that era. She was told that her visions could be hallucinations. Her levitations could be demonic tricks designed to build false confidence in her spiritual state. Her writings could be the product of a deluded mind or, even more sinister, inspired by evil forces seeking to corrupt the faithful. These accusations were not unique to Teresa; they were the standard response of institutional authority when confronted with phenomena it could not easily explain or control.

What is remarkable is that the Inquisition, despite its many failures and cruelties, ultimately sided with Teresa's defenders. The Church's official investigations concluded that her experiences were consistent with authentic mystical phenomena as described in the writings of the Desert Fathers and the Christian mystical tradition. She was permitted to continue her work, to found reformed convents, and to write her spiritual treatises, which became foundational texts in Catholic spirituality.

This institutional validation is crucial to understanding the distinction between genuine mystical experience and demonic deception. The Catholic Church, through its theological tradition and its investigative mechanisms, recognized that authentic union with God could produce extraordinary phenomena. The Church's theology acknowledges that God can, through His infinite power, suspend the ordinary laws of nature. That saints have levitated, that saints have received stigmata, that saints have experienced miraculous healings—these are not contrary to Catholic doctrine; they are consistent with it.

The Parallel: Jesus Accused of Demonic Power

To understand the depth of the injustice directed toward Teresa, one must return to the Gospels and examine the identical accusation leveled against Christ himself. In Matthew's twelfth chapter, the Pharisees witness Jesus casting a demon out of a man who was blind and mute. The man is healed, able to see and speak. Rather than rejoicing in this miracle, the Pharisees conclude: "It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow casts out demons."

Jesus's response to this accusation reveals something profound about the human tendency to attribute divine works to demonic sources. He responds with logic and with a direct moral observation. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. If Satan were casting out Satan, his kingdom would be divided and fall. Moreover, Jesus points out that the Pharisees have not questioned whether other Jewish exorcists might be acting through demonic power to cast out demons. They apply a different standard to him because they have rejected his identity and his message.

But then Christ adds something even more significant, something that cuts to the heart of the matter: "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." The accusation against Jesus, he suggests, reveals something about the spiritual state of the accuser, not about the one accused. Those who refuse to recognize God's action when confronted with it place themselves in opposition to Him.

This parallel is not coincidental or merely poetic. Throughout history, the Church has recognized that similar accusations are leveled against saints and mystics precisely because they threaten the established order or exceed the comprehension of those making judgments. When someone encounters the genuinely supernatural—when someone witnesses authentic divine grace manifesting through human vessels—the response reveals whether one is willing to accept evidence of God's action in the world or whether one has settled into a worldview in which the supernatural has been domesticated or denied entirely.

Understanding Levitation: The Mystical and the Mysterious

From a purely scientific standpoint, human levitation defies the known laws of physics and gravity. In our contemporary age, in which we pride ourselves on empirical verification and measurable phenomena, levitation occupies an uncertain space. Mainstream science does not acknowledge it as a genuine phenomenon. Yet the historical documentation is substantial, and dismissing it entirely requires either denying the testimonies of credible witnesses across centuries or assuming a conspiracy of lies spanning religious traditions, cultures, and historical periods.

Some researchers have attempted to explain levitation through psychological mechanisms. The human body, when in states of extreme focus, meditation, or trance, demonstrates remarkable capacities that exceed our baseline understanding. Deep meditation can lower heart rate, alter brain wave patterns, and produce measurable changes in consciousness. Perhaps, some suggest, extreme mystical states could somehow produce anti-gravitational effects through mechanisms we do not yet understand. Others point to the documented phenomenon of poltergeists and other paranormal activities that seem to involve the movement of objects without visible physical contact, suggesting that consciousness might, under certain circumstances, exert force on physical matter.

From the paranormal perspective, levitation is treated as a genuine phenomenon, though one whose mechanism remains mysterious. Researchers in parapsychology and paranormal studies have examined historical cases of levitation across religions and cultures—Hindu yogis, Tibetan Buddhist monks, Islamic Sufi saints, and Christian mystics. The consistency of the reports, the credibility of witnesses, and the documented nature of many accounts suggest that levitation, while rare and not fully understood by conventional science, may represent a genuine interaction between consciousness and physical reality.

Yet from a Christian theological perspective, the mechanism is perhaps less important than the meaning. God is not bound by the laws of physics that He created. He can suspend them as He chooses. When God parts the Red Sea, when He allows water to become wine, when He resurrects the dead, He is not violating the laws of nature; He is demonstrating His transcendence over those laws. That He could lift a human body from the ground during moments of profound spiritual communion is entirely consistent with His nature as revealed in Scripture. The question is not whether God can do such things, but whether He did so in Teresa's case.

The Devil's Strategy: Confusion and Accusation

Catholic theology recognizes that the devil's primary weapons are deception and accusation. The Book of Revelation identifies Satan as "the accuser of our brethren." The devil does not typically announce himself through lies so obvious they cannot be believed; rather, he obscures truth through confusion, introduces doubt where certainty should reign, and plants accusations designed to corrupt our judgment. When confronted with the genuinely divine, the devil's strategy is often to suggest that it is demonic. If he cannot prevent God's action, he seeks to poison human interpretation of that action.

This is precisely what occurred with Jesus. The Pharisees could not deny that a man had been healed. They could not claim the miracle had not occurred. But they could introduce a sinister interpretation: that the power behind the miracle came from hell, not from heaven. In doing so, they obscured their own role in rejecting the Messiah and placed themselves in opposition to God's work. Jesus recognized this as Satan's strategy—the attempt to make people misinterpret the signs of God's kingdom and therefore fail to recognize their Messiah.

Similarly, with Teresa, those who accused her of demonic involvement could not deny that extraordinary phenomena were occurring. They could not claim that her spiritual life was unremarkable or her experiences ordinary. But they could introduce suspicion: that the source of her experiences was not God but the devil. In doing so, they revealed their own incapacity or unwillingness to recognize authentic divine grace when confronted with it.

The Church's eventual validation of Teresa's experiences was therefore not merely a historical footnote. It was a decisive recognition that authentic divine activity had been correctly distinguished from demonic deception. The Church employed the criteria it had developed through centuries of engagement with both genuine mystical phenomena and demonic manifestations. It examined the fruits of Teresa's spiritual life: her sanctity, her virtue, the positive impact on her community, the theological soundness of her writings, the consistency of her experiences with Christian mystical tradition. All of these factors pointed toward divine origin rather than demonic.

The Fruits Reveal the Root

Jesus taught that one knows a tree by its fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. This principle becomes crucial when evaluating extraordinary spiritual phenomena. If Teresa's levitations and mystical experiences had been demonic in origin, one would expect to see corresponding moral and spiritual corruption. Instead, what we find is the opposite: profound holiness, intense charity, genuine humility, and a transformative impact on all who encountered her.

Teresa founded new convents and reformed existing ones, creating communities dedicated to prayer and service. Her writings, still read today, have guided countless souls toward deeper communion with God. Her advice to her sisters consistently emphasized obedience, humility, and attachment to Christ. She was scrupulous in her own spiritual practices, humble in acknowledging her limitations, and careful to submit her experiences to Church authority and to wise counselors. These are not the fruits of demonic activity; they are the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, Teresa's mystical theology—the framework through which she understood and described her experiences—is entirely consistent with the Church's tradition of mystical theology. She drew upon the Desert Fathers, upon Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, upon the Neoplatonic tradition mediated through Christian thought. Her descriptions of the stages of prayer and the progression toward union with God align with established theological understanding of how grace operates in the human soul. This theological sophistication is not what one would expect from someone either deluded or under demonic influence.

The Heart of the Matter: Divine Love Breaking Through

Beneath all the historical details, the accusations, the investigations, and the documentation lies something more profound. The levitations of Teresa of Avila, whether they are understood through the lens of mystical theology, paranormal investigation, or the intersection of both, ultimately point toward a reality that transcends our ordinary categories of understanding: the reality of divine love penetrating the human soul with such intensity that the body itself is transformed.

In her accounts of these experiences, Teresa consistently emphasizes that the levitations were not sought, not desired, and deeply embarrassing to her. She did not cultivate them through spiritual practices or psychological techniques. They occurred spontaneously, unexpectedly, when she was lost in prayer, when her will was entirely surrendered to God's will, when the boundaries between the self and the divine seemed to dissolve. She described the experience as one of profound peace, overwhelming joy, and a clarity of understanding concerning divine truth that far exceeded anything available through rational thought alone.

This is the heart of Teresa's witness. She was not claiming special powers or extraordinary abilities. She was not seeking admiration or authority. She was testifying to an encounter with the divine that exceeded her capacity to fully comprehend or control. The levitations were merely the most visible manifestation of something far more profound: the soul's capacity for union with God, the reality of grace working in human nature, and the possibility of an intimate relationship with the divine that transforms everything it touches.

The Modern Relevance: When Evil Accuses the Good

In our contemporary age, we live in a world that has largely lost the capacity to recognize the supernatural in either its divine or demonic manifestations. We have created a materialist consensus in which extraordinary phenomena must be explained away as psychological illusions, neurological anomalies, or mass delusion. In this worldview, there is no room for God's action in the world, nor for the devil's malevolence. Everything is reduced to the physical and the psychological.

Yet the question Teresa faced remains relevant. When confronted with phenomena that exceed our explanation, with experiences that suggest the presence of the transcendent, how do we respond? Do we adopt the Pharisees' strategy of dismissing or demystifying authentic encounters with the divine? Do we reflexively attribute extraordinary experiences to demonic or psychological sources when they threaten our worldview? Or do we remain open to the possibility that God may act in ways that challenge our understanding while remaining consistent with His revealed nature?

The accusation against Teresa mirrors the accusation against Jesus for a reason. Throughout history, those who have encountered authentic divine grace and attempted to testify to it have faced similar accusations. The accuser's strategy has remained consistent: introduce doubt, suggest hidden malevolent sources, appeal to institutional authority and popular suspicion, and thereby poison the well of truth.

Yet the Church, at its best, has recognized this pattern and guarded against it. The canonization of Teresa, her recognition as a Doctor of the Church, and the enduring authority of her spiritual writings represent the institutional Church's solemn judgment that she was not deceived and not demonic. She was a saint through whom God chose to manifest His grace in extraordinary ways.

Conclusion: The Victory of Truth Over Accusation

The levitations of Teresa of Avila ultimately testify to a reality far greater than any individual phenomenon. They testify to the existence of a spiritual realm that interpenetrates our physical reality, to the capacity of the human soul for communion with the divine, and to the truth that God's grace can break through ordinary limitations when it serves His purposes. They also testify to the danger inherent in the accusation that attributes divine works to demonic sources—a danger that Jesus himself confronted and exposed.

Those who accused Jesus of casting out demons through demonic power were not engaging in careful theological analysis. They were employing a rhetorical strategy designed to delegitimize His authority and turn people away from Him. Their accusation revealed not the truth about Jesus but the hardness of their own hearts. Similarly, those who accused Teresa of being under demonic influence were not engaging in legitimate spiritual discernment. They were employing fear and suspicion as tools to suppress what they could not control or understand.

Yet the truth, as it did with Jesus, ultimately prevailed. The Church's investigation vindicated Teresa. Her sanctity was recognized. Her writings were preserved and studied. Her example became a foundation of Catholic spiritual tradition. The accusation, which once seemed so plausible to those wielding institutional power, was revealed as false.

In our own age, when the supernatural has been largely banished from intellectual respectability, the story of Teresa of Avila remains a powerful witness to truths that transcend materialism and psychological reductionism. It reminds us that God is not bound by our categories of understanding, that grace can manifest in ways that challenge our assumptions, and that the accusation that attributes divine works to demonic sources is as old as human resistance to God himself. Teresa's levitations, whether explained through mystical theology, paranormal investigation, or the intersection of both, ultimately point toward the victory of divine truth over all accusations of darkness. They remain a testimony to what happens when a human soul, opened entirely to divine grace, participates in the transcendence of the Almighty, lifted beyond the ordinary constraints of creation by a love so profound that even the physical body cannot remain untouched by it.

The devil's lie—that divine grace is demonic—has been exposed by the fruit of Teresa's life. The truth has prevailed, as truth always does, in the end.

~ Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

© 2025 Texas Outlaw Press

https://texasoutlawpress.org