Prophet offers his services

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33653, 1 October 1974, Page 18

Prophet offers his services

Official “Prophet of Christchurch” is the title being sought by “The Wizard” (lan Brackenbury Channell) in a four-page letter to the Town Clerk (Mr J. H. Gray).

However, the Wizard says, he wants to retain his title as Wizard of the World University Service in Australia, “ . . to guarantee that I am not taken seriously by nar-row-minded bigots.” His contribution to prophecy, the Wizard says, is in the revelation of the power of levity to sustain the logic of the Old Testament and the love of the 'New Testament.

“Logic without levity soon becomes fanaticism, and love without levity is soon transformed into hate.” The Wizard also suggests a list of duties which he could be called upon to perform — the most important, he says, being to give the people of Christchurch an example of the power of logic, love, and levity, and . . something to laugh at and gossip about other than the serious antics of their politicians, public servants, and priestly and scientific experts.” Other suggested duties include unearthing conspiracies, confronting heretics, and making “occasional forays on behalf of the Christchurch City Council into that sink of inquity and seething nest of heresy, the University of Canterbury.” Opposition to “modern progressive ideas,” representing the city to “less fortunate” cities, and defending the Christchurch Police are also mentioned. The Wizard’s letter is written on notepaper headed “University of Melbourne — Department of Levity,” and he says he wants to retain his links with the University lof Melbourne as that inIstitution’s “cosmologer” and 'head of the cosmological re- ! search and development centre.

His requests of Christchurch are few. He wants help with typing and duplicating, help in finding food and accommodation, and assistance in obtaining a passage to Antipodes Island. There, on December 4, he intends to challenge the laws of nature. As an experiment, he will attempt to vanish.