In the late ’80s I suddenly woke up from the cultural slumber I had been taught to believe was the ‘real world’. A few years later I wrote The Wizard Within – what I call a Philosophical Thriller, a novel of action and ideas (my newly minted genre). The Wizard Within is a crazy ride that poured out of me in six lightning weeks; it was ready for release in 6 months. At a time when computers were just making an entry into our lives, I furiously wrote the first rough draft on canary yellow paper using a blue Pentel .07 mechanical pencil (the .05 kept breaking!).
The impact my first book has been more than gratifying; for example, a bookstore owner (Spiritwood Books) took the time to read The Wizard Within and surprised me with two picture windows full of my book (I mean, who does that!?). At the local level, reactions were over the top, sometimes with people buying 10 copies at a time. I even had people from across North America contact me with dizzying, grateful tales regarding how The Wizard Within entertained them to no end, while at the same time answering fundamental questions about life. Yes, wow! What I still find shocking, however, is that when it was released, I didn’t fully understand The Wizard Within – in fact, it has taken me 30 years across three more books to decipher and distill the wisdom that I channeled as a young man.
I became even more committed to writing and counseling (and Reflexology) while also raising a family, and so my rapturous odyssey was put on the back burner while I finished my second book, Flight Manual for the Soul, a practical guide to peace of mind, which likewise garnered powerful reactions from readers, including some bestselling authors. I thought I was on my way as an author, but a painful divorce and a rebound relationship with a narcissistic, sociopathic party-girl stole my thunder and drove me to drugs, wild sex parties, near suicide and a massive brain hemorrhage. This was me reliving the massive trauma I suffered in my home of origin and recreating it grandly with a ‘fall of Rome flair’… and yet I had written the likes of The Wizard Within and Flight Manual for the Soul – I mean Wtf!!! One step forward, ten steps back.
What I have realized subsequently is that the gauntlet of horror I opened for myself after my first two books were published was really the testing ground for my emerging perspective, what I have come to call The Art & Science of Beliefs. Without doubt, I took this brand, spanking new model of human experience to hell and back a thousand times… and it led me through every self-created catastrophe with grace and panache (even when I was homeless, singing and playing my guitar on the streets for food and wine, and even when I was on a gurney in the back of a speeding ambulance, told I had but hours to live).
If there is one thing I have learned only too well, it’s that ‘trauma fosters drama’, and the level of trauma I experienced in my home of origin made my drama truly Shakespearian. Ergo, I am not an armchair philosopher, for I have lived (and nearly died many times) in the dark, rat-infested trenches of life. In spite of all the self-created adversity, I’m still smiling, largely because of the Art & Science of Beliefs: it helped me hone a superball resilience and transform me into the quintessential Bobo Doll – no matter how much of a beating I take, I pop right back up with a crazy clown smile (which can be disconcerting for one’s detractors!).
I am an effective counselor largely because I have lived life to the extreme, and was still able to heal myself; consequently, I know exactly what disempowerment and dysfunction looks and feels like, just as I understand what true empowerment is and how to practically achieve and maintain it.
albertthor.ca 