Fourth Mansions was inspired by Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, and u0026 contains quotations from the book, which quotations Lafferty uses as chapter headings. The Interior Castle is a metaphor for an individual's soul; its different rooms, different states of the soul. In the middle of the Castle the soul is in the purest state, which equals Heaven. Lafferty uses more complex symbols to bring colorfully into life his many-sided tale of an individual's reaching towards Heaven or Truth.Take a trip thru a psychedelic reality, with seven very special people blending to create a higher form of humanity: A laughing man living alone on a mountaintop, guarding the world. The Returnees: men who live again and u0026 again, century after century. A dog-ape and "Plappergeist, and " who can only be seen out of the corner of one's eye. A young man named Foley, very much like us, who begins to find out about the above people and u0026 things, and u0026 how they're reshaping the world!