ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the practice of devotional reading opened the door to a more subjective form of spiritual knowledge, based on faith and love rather than on learning, and therefore not restricted to theologians. It focuses on the three most controversial ideas promoted by the spiritual books Teresa read: the superiority of experiential knowledge over intellectual pursuits, the universality of the Christian call to perfection, and the need for learned and uneducated people alike to practise humility as a means of attaining spiritual knowledge. The chapter looks at evidence from Teresa's Vida which shows how she assimilated the advice on the practice of tears offered in Osuna's Tercer abecedario, and complemented it with the testimony of her own experience.
