The Worlds of Katherine Kurtz

Jeff Meyers asks: asks: I realize this is a very personal question, and I hope I don't offend you, but does the Christian faith as expressed by Joram, Camber, Duncan and Kelson and your other protagonists reflect your own religious beliefs? As a devout Christian myself, Camber's, Joram's, Duncan's, and Kelson's Christianity made them, to me, more personally heroic. By contrast, in your Adept series, Occult, New Age, and Wiccan philosophies have replaced what previously I saw as orthodox Christianity, specifically Roman Catholic. I don't wish to imply any disrespect for any other person's faith or to take away the validity of these beliefs, at all. I am just curious as to know how this trend developed. Would you mind discussing your personal religious beliefs? I do believe it is an interesting topic, and could lead to some excellent discussions on the spirituality of the Deryni.


Katherine Says: It's just another way of looking at relationships with Deity, Jeff—and I would hope that you see Adam as a fairly orthodox Christian in the important things, even if he sometimes works within the context of other faith systems. (Just as it was my intention to show, in Lammas Night, that there are more points in common between Christianity and various occult "takes" on religion than one might first suspect.) "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...."So I would label Adam something of a pragmatist; he uses what works, in what he has to do—and is on cordial terms with his bishop. (His statement about treating past life "memories" "as if" they were real resonates with the way I feel about such things.) Me (to answer your question about my own beliefs)—I'm "officially" Anglican/Church of Ireland, or non-Roman Catholic, or Old Catholic, or an eclectic mixture of all these and other things. Labels can be precarious at best, and are dangerous at worst....