My Books
Introduction
For a complete list of my publications, visit my Amazon Author’s page.
The books are presented below in Chronological order. They may be read in any order to the reader’s benefit. Each will stand on its own merit. However, the body of work is a development in phenomenological discovery expressed through the flow of ideas over time.
The books are under my first and last name, Walter Adams.
Emerson is my middle name, and I sometimes use Walter Emerson as my online persona.
Both, then, are my “real” name.
Author’s Bio
Over the course of fifteen years, Walter Adams has composed a body of work tracing a deeply personal pilgrimage—from collapse and suffering to enchantment, resacralization, and mystical renewal. His writings reflect a continual unfolding of insight, guided throughout by the enduring presence of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and St. Joan of Arc.
His first book, Journey to Christendom, marked the beginning—a raw and heartfelt testimonial of conversion, revealing the powerful influence of these two saints on a life once fractured, now seeking divine orientation.
In The Dove and Rose, that orientation became devotion. A poetic and descriptive work, it revealed the author’s growing interior life as it took root in spiritual friendship and the sacred geography of Mystical France.
With Royaume France, the journey deepened into metaphysical terrain. This book explored the sacred structure of reality through the lens of Catholic monarchy and the Marian heart of civilization.
The Dove and Rose II introduced phenomenology, as the author sought not just to express devotion but to encounter the lived essence of it—to contemplate the appearance of Being through the persons of Thérèse and Joan.
Finally, in The House of New Bethany, Adams approached the threshold of mystical revelation. Here, the work began to shimmer with the themes of The Sky-Veil—the liminal space between worlds, where memory, Being, and divine light meet.
Together, these works are not separate volumes but chapters in a singular spiritual and poetic journey—a mythopoeic unfolding rooted in the heart of the Church and reaching toward the eternal.
The Books
Journey to Christendom: The Freedom Dance
The First Step Toward Enchantment
It began on a blustery October afternoon in 2008, driving northward on the Eden’s Expressway after adoring the Blessed Sacrament at the Church of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Chicago. The roads were open, and so was my heart. As traffic thinned, my thoughts wandered—at first subtly, then into something like a dream. Phrases came to me, drifting through like a gentle mist:
One day
I was walking
Through a forest...
And then:
In an open field I saw an
Unusual scene
There, a group of bright,
Smiling people were,
Dancing...
Earlier, in the quiet of Eucharistic adoration, I had seen myself in a meadow beside the Blessed Virgin Mary. She spoke gently:
“If you have something you feel you need to say, you should probably think about saying it.”
I paused, then responded:
“Yes, I believe I do have something I would like to say now.”
Thus began the journey—a movement from collapse to calling, from disorientation to pilgrimage. Journey to Christendom is the first step in a fifteen-year path that would unfold through devotion, metaphysics, phenomenology, and eventually, into the mystical shimmer of the Sky-Veil. It is a testimonial of conversion, but more than that, it is a beginning: the moment the silence broke, and the dance began.
The Dove and Rose: Personal reflections on devotion to St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux
A Path of Devotion Through the Forest and Into the Light
This fourth edition of The Dove and Rose brings clarity and renewed focus to its original intent: to inspire devotion to St. Joan of Arc, the Dove, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Rose.
Rooted in personal experience, The Dove and Rose is not a biography but a series of deeply descriptive reflections—an intimate account of how these two saints reshaped the author’s interior life. A lifelong devotee of Thérèse, I encountered Joan through the poetry and plays of the Little Flower. From that moment, something extraordinary stirred: Joan of Arc stepped forward as the guiding presence of my life—second only to Jesus and Mary.
What followed was not merely a spiritual devotion, but a journey out of the Dark Forest of modern confusion and into a radiant clarity I came to call The Trail of the Dogmatic Creed. It was Joan who led me, and Thérèse who accompanied me. Together, they became my sisters, my guardians, and my celestial companions.
This book is an invitation, not an instruction. You will not find the historical story of the saints here. Instead, you will find a reflective pilgrimage—a gentle offering of devotion for those who feel drawn to walk beside Joan and Thérèse, and to begin writing their own story along the trail.
Your journey has not yet been told. But it begins here—on the path of the Dove and the Rose.
Royaume France: The French Catholic Diaspora in America
The Encounter of Hearts and the Return to Meaning
At the heart of Royaume France lies a singular phenomenon—an encounter so quietly seismic that it reshaped the entire structure of my life. It was as if everything before a particular October day in 2008 had prepared the ground, and everything after became a pilgrimage to understand what had taken place.
In that moment, through the poetic and theatrical imagination of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Joan of Arc entered my life—not as a figure from history but as a living presence. It was, in the words of St. Edith Stein, a divine glance: a sudden and unexplainable interior event that united the hearts of Joan and Thérèse in a single act of supernatural intimacy. This book is an extended reflection on the meaning of that glance.
Royaume France is not a biography of the saints, but an account of their effect on a life. It charts a movement through religion, philosophy, and phenomenology, and then back again—each step an effort to comprehend the grace given through that luminous encounter. Despite its philosophical tone, this work remains profoundly devotional. The language may rise into metaphysics, but the origin of this journey is mystical and Marian: a gift from Christ through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
This book marks a turning point in my written corpus—from devotional witness to ontological reflection, from description to interpretation. It is the record of a transformation, not yet complete, but enduring.
The French Catholic Diaspora: The French Royal Hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux
“So it is that the union of the wayfarers with the brethren who sleep in the peace of Christ is in no way interrupted, but on the contrary, according to the constant faith of the Church, this union is reinforced by an exchange of spiritual goods.” (CCC 955)[
The Starting point for this manuscript is a moment in the Fall of 2008. Through contemplating the plays and poetry of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, I experienced a profound, instantaneous psychic metanoia around the person of St. Joan of Arc. The search for the meaning of this encounter propelled me forward in Catholic faith, hope, and love. At the same time, Our Lady removed me from the corporate world where, for many years, I had been a highly paid executive leading a well-known global brand and, before that position, a Park Avenue executive consultant. I set that aside to teach part-time at various local colleges and universities, which allowed me the freedom to devote my life to St. Joan and St. Thérèse and the moment of “unreflective certainty,” a phrase I borrowed from the philosophy of St. Edith Stein. A story emerged that confirmed the authority of the Holy Catholic Church as the absolute bedrock of mankind’s order on earth and the only means of eternal salvation for the human race.
A more precise story appeared through the mist of a magnificent contemplative panorama. France, Catholic and Royal, is truly the Eldest Daughter of the Church and must be restored on earth congruent to its form in Heaven as the lily of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. The Church and France must be restored to their Catholic splendor if humanity and Western Civilization, respectively, are to be saved. Those called to this special mission are the mystical French Catholic Diaspora worldwide.
This book is a brief but essential companion for those called to the French Catholic Diaspora through the hearts of St. Joan and St. Thérèse.
The House of New Bethany: Holy Devotion to St. Mary Magdalene
The Threshold of the Kingdom, at the Feet of the Lord
Though brief in form, The House of New Bethany gathers the fruit of over fifteen years of contemplation, writing, Eucharistic adoration, and interior pilgrimage. Every sentence is the result of long silence; every reflection a doorway to something far deeper.
This book distills the essence of my entire spiritual and philosophical journey. What appears here as a gentle devotion to St. Mary Magdalene conceals a shimmering Kingdom—one formed in the light of the united hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, circumscribed within the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
This is the Kingdom of Mystical France—a hidden form that emerges in the sacred geography stretching from Bethany to the shores of Provence. Mary Magdalene, as the embodiment of this Kingdom, becomes a mystical guide whose holy companionship leads us to the feet of Christ: at Bethany, beneath the Cross, at the tomb of the Resurrection, and finally, into the sacred heartlands of Catholic and Royal France.
The House of New Bethany is not a book to be read quickly. Though its pages are few, its mystery may unfold across a lifetime. It is an offering of Catholic devotion, an invitation to walk the interior trail toward the Kingdom, and to dwell forever in the Mystical France of Our Lord’s love.
