The Wizard’s Gift by Mark Townsend

A review by Colin Whitby

Last year I reviewed a book that was published by O books (The Art of Being Psychic by June-Elleni Laine) and as a result of that I have been invited to review future books as they are released.

This is how I came to read Mark’s insightful book, which immediately reminded me of a number of other books that illustrate the same theme, such as The Alchemist by
Paulo Coelho, where we learn that what we need to know is right in front of us, but that we have to make a journey there and back in order to be able to find it.

I loved Mark’s style, it put me in mind of how Terry Pratchett weaves his magical tales, moving from one subject to another very quickly, keeping a good pace and ensuring we are interested and want to know what happens to the key characters.

Much of how the book came into being and how Mark came to write it can be found in our interview this month, so to whet your appetite, and without giving too much away, here’s a small extract from Mark’s postscript:-

‘There seems to be a desperate longing for inner peace and contentment in today’s fast paced world. Just take a look in your bookstore. Go to the areas marked Mind-Body-Spirit, Popular Psychology and Comparative Religion and see how many titles you can find that are written from this perspective. It seems like we in the West are more rest-less than ever. Perhaps we’ve lost something? Perhaps we’ve become disconnected from something that was once a natural part of life……I believe we have become almost immune to the sound of our inner wisdom – what I call the Wizard Within. It is the deepest magic that exists at the centre of the forest of our thoughts – underneath all the inter-twined creepers and vines. I believe that all of us have this Wise One inside us, but that his or her words have become drowned out by the background noise of our modern lives’.

Of course anyone using the word Magic has my attention, how else should we be living our lives except Magically?