A Christian lady wrote to me after the post about the late John Todd went up, pointing me to an Answers.com page that states Raymond Buckland held a doctorate in anthropology (from King’s College, Cambridge), negating my statement that Buckland was not an anthropologist.
But it’s a good question: Did Raymond Buckland have a doctorate in anthropology? Or anything else, for that matter?
That’s not easy to determine. This site and many others state he earned his anthropology doctorate at Brantridge Forest College, Sussex. Brantridge is a diploma mill.
Other sources state Buckland studied at King’s College in London, or King’s College School in Wimbledon. The latter seems more likely. At any rate, either school could easily be confused for the King’s College at Cambridge. Someone who believed that Buckland studied at a King’s College and that he earned a doctorate in anthropology might have smooshed the two notions together.
The bottom line is, though, that no sources other than the Answers.com page mention Buckland having a degree from any school affiliated with Cambridge. If he did possess a doctorate, it’s odd that he chose to work in a menial job at British Airways for most of his career.
This is all quite interesting to me, but it will have to be sorted out at another time or by someone else. Needless to say, Wiccans are just as prone to falsely claiming degrees as anyone else. Gerald Gardiner was fond of saying he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Singapore in 1934, which has never been confirmed.
The woman also wrote: “John Todd is the real thing and as time goes on, things he said will be found to be true.” She urged me to forgive Todd, as God has done.
Let me get this straight: I am not in the position of judging John Todd, or anyone else, as a man. I can’t say boo about the state of his departed soul or his karma or whatever. I can only look at the statements he made as a living entity, compare them to the available facts, and let you do whatever you want to do with that. If you think Todd was a jerk, that’s fine. If you think he was a saintly sinner, fine. This blog is not here to hand you an opinion, it’s here to inform and amuse you in such a way that, hopefully, you’ll be inspired to dig into the facts yourself and form your own opinions.
