Mark Townsend is a former episcopal priest, who now teaches spiritual lessons through magic. His ultimate goal is to help people learn more about themselves and his own mind at the same time. He spoke with Aspen Public Radio's Patrick Fort earlier this week.
Highlights of the interview
On how he learns about people through magic...
There's lots of psychology in magic. There's much more of a rapport with people. If I was to simply do a card and have that be a surprise, or you can do a card trick and have the card that the person selects connect to their personality type... It just gets a whole lot more interesting.
On how the church accepts magic...
The episcopal church is very positive. They would see (magic) in the same way they see music, or painting. But of course there are other kinds of traditional elements of Christianity that the word 'magic' jars. To me magic is a symbolic word for the beauty of life. If an illusion can conjure up that image of the power of life then I'm quite happy to use it.
