Raymond Charles Barker

In 1916, both of his parents became actively involved with the Unity Church formed in Rochester that year, with Barker attending the Sunday school.

In 1944, Barker accepted a co-ministry with Elizabeth Carrick-Cook at the San Francisco Institute of Religious Science.

He had first met Carrick-Cook at the 1940 International New Thought Alliance Congress that she and her Absolute Science Center hosted.

It marked the beginning of a close friendship that introduced Barker to the teachings of the English metaphysician Frederick Lawrence Rawson, whose work in America had been continued by Carrick-Cook's late husband, Jay Williams Cook.

Some of his students included future Religious Science leaders Stuart Grayson and Louise Hay.