ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996                   TAG: 9605200092
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-6  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: SWANNANOA
SOURCE: REX BOWMAN THE (CHARLOTTESVILLE) DAILY PROGRESS 

`NEW AGE' SCHOOL TO PUT ITS OLD IDEAS TO THE TEST

Greg Hagin, the sandal-wearing director of the University of Science and Philosophy, acknowledges that Swannanoa, the correspondence school's mountaintop palace, sometimes gives people the creeps.

Somber sonatas forever wash over the Italian Renaissance villa's leaky roof and decaying gardens, pumped out through a series of giant metal speakers atop turrets. Marble slabs lie cracked and askew all over the Afton Mountain estate.

And visitors to Swannanoa, who pay $7 for the grand tour, find themselves whispering as they stroll single-file through the palace's dimly lit lower floor, as if they are tiptoeing through a shrine.

``You mention Swannanoa, you'll get a reaction ranging from `magnificent' to `spooky''' sighed Hagin, resting his lanky frame on a bench in the spacious gardens. ``There's not much in-between with people. It's either magnificent, splendid and wonderful, or crazy, spooky and scary.''

But things are changing at Swannanoa, principally because things are changing at the University of Science and Philosophy.

The school that has offered traditional correspondence classes containing an untraditional curriculum since 1957 is joining the Information Age, Hagin said.

``This place is turning over a new leaf,'' Hagin said. Then, cocking an ear to the metallic sound coming from the speakers, he added: ``Man, that music is really weird.''

Hagin is still new to his job as university director.

A native of New Jersey, the 33-year-old Hagin took the job in February after then-director Shirley Smith mentioned in a phone conversation that she wanted to step down. Hagin publishes ``Lightness of Being,'' a tabloid journal of New Age thought out of Charlottesville, and the university was a regular advertiser.

When Smith mentioned her desire to leave the University of Science and Philosophy, Hagin said, ``in the next 30 seconds, I offered my services.''

The school is now heading into the 21st century with a plan, Hagin said.

``First, we may seek accreditation,'' Hagin said. ``And we've just acquired 45 acres, and right now we're doing a feasibility study to see if we can offer the core curriculum on site.''

The core curriculum?

It has been essentially the same since the university was founded by Walter and Lao Russell. For $200, students receive various books authored by the Russells on ``the science of spiritual being.'' After reading the books and other materials supplied by the school, all of it totaling no more than 1,000 pages, students receive a certificate. There are no exams.

``The Russells were way ahead of their time,'' Hagin said. ``Walter Russell was, in modern terms, a genius. He felt that everybody had genius, and he found a way to tap into his genius.''

``Walter and Lao Russell proved with their lives that everybody had genius inherent within them, and the challenge of mankind is to access that genius.

``In a nutshell, the core curriculum is about self-discovery.''

Walter Russell was 77 and sported a snow-white goatee when he married Lao Cook in 1948. She was 44.

Since 1957, roughly 200 people a year have been curious enough to examine Russell's abstract pronunciamentos, taking the correspondence course the school offers and reading such Russellian texts as ``Misconception of Prayer,'' ``Basis of All Life's Problems,'' ``The Principle of Holiness in Sexed Matehood,'' and ``Meditation Scientifically Explained.''

The not-for-profit university has supported itself over the years with sales from the Russells' books, paid tours of the house, and interest on savings and investments. ``There's really nothing that far-out at Swannanoa,'' Hagin said. ``We're kind of mainstream now. We've seen a lot more far-out stuff than what's here.''

LENGTH: Medium:   76 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. Greg Hagin, director of the University of Science 
          and Philosophy in Swannanoa, says the school may seek accreditation 
          in its push toward 21st century education.