It was not Halloween, and they were not on their way to a costume party. And though she drew attention from passers-by, there was no finger pointing or starting.
That’s because, in Christchurch, seeing a wizard is not completely out of the ordinary.
For decades, the city has had an official wizard. Born in the United Kingdom, Ian Brackenbury Channell settled in New Zealand in the 1970s, where he became known as The Wizard. As if to reinforce how serious he is, he even held a New Zealand driving license issued to The Wizard, although he says he has not officially changed his name.
Now, 87 years old, The Wizard spends less time in the public eye. He wants to find a successor – and turns out to have one in 39-year-old Ari Freeman, who learns guitar and fronts a psychedelic funk band.
As he and Freeman sit at a table outside a sunny downtown cafe, a middle-aged cyclist yells at them, “No casting spells fellas!”
“Can’t promise anything,” Freeman quits.
Become a wizard
As a young man he backpacked The Wizard in Europe, was a Royal Air Force Officer in Canada, and taught English literature at the University of Tehran. But it was not until he and his then-wife moved to Australia that he found the role he would spend his life in: The Wizard.
After studying sociology and psychology, he worked as an organizer of community medicine for the University of Western Australia in Perth, and then as a lecturer in sociology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney.
There he began what he called a ‘fun revolution’, aimed at bringing love, logic and levity to the world, and turning the university into a ‘theater of the absurd’. When he lost his university job, he hatched a plan with the vice-chancellor to give him a new job – The first official UNSW wizard.
“I invented a wizard out of nothing,” says The Wizard. “There were no wizards when I came into the world, except in books.”
A picture of him in the role – published by Origins, the UNSW archive newsletter – shows him wearing a leather jacket, standing on a chair and holding a skull like a modern Hamlet.
The Wizard was a prominent part of campus life at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia. (Credit: UNSW Archives)
The Wizard promoted New Zealand in Sydney in 1981. (Credit: Trevor James Dallen / Fairfax Media via Getty Images)
For The Wizard, his job does not mean spelling, or personalizing Gandalf from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Once he sees it, his role is to be a kind of provocateur – someone who brings a sense of joy to the world, but also criticizes the system. A showman, who does not care to fool himself.
“Every day the world is getting more serious, so fun is the most powerful thing in the world right now,” he says.
But, as The Wizard puts it, there were a lot of people against him. The academics in Sydney did not know what he was doing (“academics do not like crazy, fun things,” he says), so he went to the University of Melbourne, where he claims to lead his own cosmology department. However, the university says this is an “aggrandizement” of what he did – according to her he was not committed to the university, although he was affiliated with the student union.
When he became a wizard, he said he lost all his friends and his wife left him – he says he turned her on and threw him out of the house in a ritual by inviting friends to come too. “For me it was fun, but not for her. She’s still angry.”
He moved to Christchurch, New Zealand in 1974. And it was there that his wizarding path really stepped up.
Mystic Christchurch
If ever there was a place to be a wizard, it’s Christchurch.
While many downtown buildings have not yet fallen into disrepair since the 2011 earthquake that devastated the city and killed 185 people, some of the Gothic rebuilding architecture remains, and there is a distinctive British feel to it. the built environment. As low-lying mist rolls through the city, clinging to the gray stone buildings and statues of the colonial era, it has the effect of admiring a scene from a British crime series, like a low-budget horror film.
In short: it’s aptly mystical for a wizard.
When The Wizard arrived in Christchurch in the 1970s, he saw the city as the ‘romantic dream’, a beautiful place far from the rest of the world, which probably did not become a hub for economic development. .
While there, he became a chieftain on Cathedral Square, where he stood on a ladder and dressed in a variety of outfits, including in a loincloth like John the Baptist. He praised the British Empire and criticized what he called “anti-male sexism”.
“I’ve been the most popular man in Christchurch ever since,” The Wizard claimed. “And the most hated by the bureaucrats.”
But when his profile came up, he got more official recognition.
In 1988, Waimate – a town not far from Christchurch – was hit by a drought. The organizers of a local agricultural fair have invited him to perform a rain dance, and, according to The Wizard, rain fell only a few hours after he started beating his drum. “The magician approached the refreshment tent to look at the shed and share the free whiskey that had been put in his hands by the visibly shaken farmers,” his website says.
A letter sent by then-New Zealand Minister Mike Moore to The Wizard in 1990. (Credit: provided by The Wizard)
A copy of The Wizard’s New Zealand driving license. (Credit: provided by The Wizard)
In 1990, the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mike Moore, wrote him a letter on the official letter of the Prime Minister, suggesting that he “urgently consider my suggestion that you be the Wizard of New Zealand, Antarctica. and become relevant offshore areas. “
Eight years later came perhaps the biggest validation of his status to date – and a fantastic turnaround.
According to a council spokesman, his services include assistance with promoting local events and tourism, as well as welcoming dignitaries as well as delegations in the city, who would normally attend no more than 200 hours of work each year.
In 2009, The Wizard received the Queen’s Service Medal – one of the highest honors in New Zealand. “I could not believe it, I thought it would never happen,” says The Wizard.
A wizarding student
Freeman has been a student of The Wizard for six years – but has long seen himself as a wizard.
“I think it came together in the mid-20s. It’s one of those things you have no name for and when you look back, you realize you did it for a long, long time. to have.”
In 2014, Freeman decided to take the next step. He walked up to The Wizard, already sporting a long bear. “Hi, I’m Ari, and I’m a young wizard,” he recalls saying. “OK, let’s get started then,” Freeman tells the Wizard.
Being a student of the wizard – as you might think – is not a particularly formal arrangement. The couple meet and argue a lot, although Freeman can rarely change The Wizard’s opinion.
After all, the Wizard – who often slips into incredible tangents – is reluctant to hold strong views. The Census, which he has evaded for decades, is “a branding of animals on the farm.” Wicca, also called Pagan witchcraft, is “shallow consumerist goods, I’m afraid … It’s like vegetarianism, it’s mud.”
The Wizard is resistant to the idea of a female wizard, and suggests that women may be fairies instead. He is not convinced by climate change, although he likes the idea of a simpler way of life (“The hobbits were equal.”)
Among the things that Freeman and the senior assistant disagree on is music. While The Wizard says that a lot of music is “evil”, Freeman thinks that music is a form of magic. If he plays the right song in the right context, he can make people dance. “They will think it’s their idea to dance, but my song did,” he said.
Freeman has become a wizard with not many expectations, but in his tens of thousands of interactions he had hardly any negative experiences. He has received the same positive reception from his friends, family and partner. When he told his partner he wanted to be a wizard, “they love it.”
But times change for types of wizarding. The Wizard’s old ghost – Cathedral Square – is not what it used to be. A barricade embraces the old church, and birds sit in the earthquake-ravaged cliff. And there is probably not much need for a public figure whose views are increasingly out of step with the people around him.
Freeman knows he can not be a wizard without buying the community. If people want a wizard, he will be one, he says. The council did not comment when asked if Freeman would get The Wizard’s contract.
“I want the wizard phenomenon to continue, and I will fulfill that role completely,” Freeman said. “Like a band needs a guitar player – I’ll be that guitar player.”
For Freeman, a wizard is a way to empower people who are lost or depressed, and shake them out of bounds of what is expected.
“It takes someone to do something unusual to brush their head to make a zeitgeist change,” Freeman said. “And those people are magicians.”
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