The Scrivener: I Was A Teenage Course Junkie
…Another correspondence course I bought was not in weekly or even monthly parts. It was on hypnotism, and turned out to be a less-than-impressive, badly printed booklet. Nevertheless, it was interesting enough. The scrappy knowledge it conveyed might just have enabled me to hypnotise at least one friend, some years later…
Brian Barratt confesses to a teenage addiction to correspondence courses.
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In March 2008, the eclectic and excellent Open Writing on-line journal published my essay on 'Proper Bishops And Another Messiah'. http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2008/03/proper_bishops_1.php#more In it, I mentioned that when I wrote to St Andrews Collegiate Church, in London, their response was gibberish. The time has come to tell the full story.
At the time, in the mid-1950s, I did not fully realise that St Andrews Collegiate Church was a dubious organisation. It was run by Charles Dennis Boltwood, one of the episcopi vagantes, unattached self-appointed bishops, dealt with in my article in 2008. The building in Tottenham which housed the 'collegiate church' and the 'Ecumenical Church Foundation' was a former Methodist chapel. I should have realised something was amiss when I saw a photograph of the small dowdy chapel. The foundation 'enjoyed the chartered rights of innumerable Academies and Colleges' throughout the world. Grandiose prevarication was the name of the game.
In those far-off years, I was keen on correspondence courses. Although I was taking an official, valid and recognised three-year course in Bible Study, Theology and Homiletics with the Methodist Church, I succumbed to temptation. I asked 'St Andrews Collegiate Church' to send some sample lessons, for a small fee, in one of their correspondence courses for a 'degree' (ho ho) in Theology. What I received was gibberish, totally incomprehensible, so I wrote and told them. In their reply, they told me that the language did tend to 'take after the old Teutonic', whatever that meant. I realised that I had been conned.
The correspondence course thing started while I was still at school. Having been raised on 'Dandy' and 'Beano' comics, I graduated to 'Punch' but was also buying a monthly copy of 'Prediction'. That magazine dealt with all manner of wondrous topics relating to Spiritualism, Astrology, Telepathy, Ghosts, Yoga, the lot. It just happened that I was fascinated by these things when I was a boy.
The School of Yoga advertised a course in 'Yogism', an adaptation of Hatha Yoga by Desmond Dunne. In late secondary school years, I was struggling with studies and homework, and felt that I needed to learn to relax and calm my mind. So I paid my modest fee and received weekly lessons, by correspondence, in Yogism. That course was in fact very useful indeed. Nearly 60 years later, I might even still have it somewhere, in a dust-laden old cardboard carton in a cobwebbed corner.
Another correspondence course I bought was not in weekly or even monthly parts. It was on hypnotism, and turned out to be a less-than-impressive, badly printed booklet. Nevertheless, it was interesting enough. The scrappy knowledge it conveyed might just have enabled me to hypnotise at least one friend, some years later. Mind you, he was gullible. And Irish.
Then there was the course in Healing By Colour, or something like that. A couple of sample lessons came from The Institute Of Life Sciences (for the usual small fee, of course), whose teachings and material preceded the so-called New Age by many years. I was probably about 14 or 15 when I covered a number of small lamps with tissue paper of various colours but somewhere failed to convince myself or anybody else that they had therapeutic power.
The final correspondence course was very much more down to earth. Just over 50 years ago, I had passed all my exams and qualified as a Methodist Local Preacher and was also working at the Methodist Bookroom in Harare (then known as Salisbury). The manager, a genial chap, wonderful to work for, insisted that I learn something about accountancy. I therefore took a course, by correspondence, with The School of Accountancy, which was based in South Africa.
I hated maths. I hated figures. Having to learn accountancy in the days of pounds, shillings and pence was a nightmare. I'm afraid I gave up before the last lesson arrived. However, what I learnt came in very useful in later years when I had to supervise and analyse company accounts in Zambia and Australia. By then, I suppose I was addicted to making companies profitable.
© Copyright Brian Barratt 2009
Ref: Anson, Peter L., 'Bishops at Large', Faber and Faber, London 1964.
