Page "Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor" Paragraph 11

Philip Kerr's conversion came only after experimenting with Eastern religion, but he later became a spiritual advisor for Astor.

In time, his bitter rejection of Catholicism also influenced Lady Astor, intensifying her own anti-Catholicism.

She was also affected when her friendship with Hillaire Belloc, who was Catholic, began to grow cold because of his disdain for the rich and her efforts to convert his daughters to Christian Science.

The loss of that relationship further alienated her against Roman Catholicism.

Lady Astor's devotion to Christian Science was more intense than orthodox, and she sent some practitioners away for disagreeing with her.

But she was deeply committed to her own interpretation of the faith and held to it almost fanatically.

Many of her letters from that time on mentioned Christian Science, and letters from others to her joked about her efforts to convert peers to her beliefs.

This vehemence of belief demonstrates that she was, by this time, considered " insane " by secular intellectuals ; it is therefore by all accounts astonishing that she was taken even remotely seriously in later years by the English establishment.