Editor’s note – This piece follows a real search, set to a 1972 rock ballad about a wizard who promised peace to anyone willing to listen to their own heart. We’re running it because the ache it describes is common, and because the author, now writing from faith, is honest about where that search actually led – and where it finally found its answer in Christ.
The Song That Still Moves Me
One of the most beautiful guitar melodies I’ve ever heard is from a song by the 70s rock band Uriah Heep called “The Wizard.” (Wait 4 seconds and skip the ads; it’s worth it). Every time I hear it (including now), I start crying. Something about it penetrates deep into my soul and stirs up strong emotions. Here are the lyrics.
The Wizard — by Uriah Heep (1972)
He was the wizard of a thousand kings
And I chanced to meet him one night wandering
He told me tales, and he drank my wine
Me and my magic man kind of feeling fine
He had a cloak of gold
And eyes of fire
And as he spoke I felt a deep desire
To free the world of its fear and pain
And help the people to feel free again
Why don't we listen to the voices in our hearts
Cause then I know we'd find we're not so far apart
Everybody's got to be happy
Everyone should sing
For we know the joy of life
The peace that love can bring
So spoke the wizard in his mountain home
The vision of his wisdom means we'll never be alone
And I will dream of my magic night
And the million silver stars that guide me with their light.
Editor’s note – Notice the promise here: peace through “the voices in our hearts,” not peace through truth outside ourselves. That trade is common far beyond this song, and worth noticing wherever “follow your heart” replaces testing the heart.
Background
In 1972, I was a junior in High School at Clearwater High. I wasn’t popular, quite the opposite, because I hung out with the “hippies.” Those were the days of hitchhiking, smoking pot, going to rock concerts, and rebelling against society. I think the song’s melody perfectly captured the extreme loneliness I felt at the time. But it also gave me hope.
What I clung to
The lyrics mentioned a wise man with magical powers who wanted to help people find peace in their hearts and brotherhood with their fellow man. He said we could all achieve this peace if only we “listened to the voices in our hearts.” That’s what I wanted more than anything: to experience love, joy, and peace. It seemed to be an impossible dream in those days, surrounded by war, divorce, drugs, and greed (not unlike our society today).
The wise man’s vision also said we’d never be alone, I assume, if only we all followed our hearts. So, in my loneliness, I yearned for comfort from a source I didn’t know. So I tried listening to my heart for a long time. It told me to find comfort, peace, love, and joy in the arms of a man, then a different man, and then another, and it never worked. I was never happy. It seems I had a “broke picker” and a broken heart.
Editor’s note – Searching for love in one relationship after another, as the author describes, is a familiar story. Scripture doesn’t mock that hunger – it says plainly the heart is deceitful, and points past it to the one place the search ends.
Discovering the truth
The song calls people to discover they’re not so far apart after all, because we all long for love, joy, peace, healing, wholeness, and a world made right. The song speaks to the Christian call to love one another. It speaks of wisdom, as the Bible does, but hints that it can be obtained through someone with secret knowledge or magic.
But could any benevolent man with magical powers bring about this kind of change in the world? Hardly! I discovered many years later that there is only one man who has the power to do this, one person at a time. And that is the God/Man Jesus Christ.
God the Father sent Jesus Christ into the world to show people they shouldn’t be divided by hatred or selfishness. He modeled true brotherhood, humility, and service. He is God the Son who became man, died for sinners, and rose bodily from the dead. The apostle John described Christ’s unique identity: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1).
Conclusion
Lasting happiness will never be achieved from magic or achieving “cosmic consciousness”. True joy that lasts forever only comes through forgiveness, reconciliation with God, and life lived under the authority of Christ. The underlying problem is sin: rebellion against God’s authority and commandments. Sin offends God’s justice and separates people from Him. Magical powers can never purge one’s guilt before a holy God. The only remedy God accepts is repentance and placing one’s faith in Christ (Acts 3:19).
Following one’s heart isn’t reliable, as I’ve seen firsthand. This song suggests that people’s hearts can guide them toward truth. Scripture warns that human hearts are deceitful and affected by sin. We must test our feelings (which change constantly) against God’s Word, the only reliable source to guide our beliefs and desires.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? [Jeremiah 17:9]
I still love the melody of “The Wizard” and appreciate it as poetry that expresses human desire for hope, wisdom, and unity. Those desires aren’t wrong; they’re signs that people need something greater than themselves. But the song’s solution to rely on a magic man or one’s own heart to achieve wisdom, peace, love, and unity doesn’t work. Christianity says true wisdom is found only in Christ, the crucified and risen Lord.
I only wish a Christian rock band had written that song.
A Word from the Editor
The wizard in this song can’t deliver what he promises – no created thing, man, magic, or feeling, can satisfy a hunger God built us to bring to Him alone. Jeremiah’s verdict on the human heart still stands. But the same Scripture that names the problem also names the cure: Christ crucified and risen, received by faith, not conjured by wishing.
Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words
Distributed by – BCWorldview.org
Editor Comment: In an age shopping for spiritual answers everywhere but Scripture, you reminds us that only Christ satisfies the heart's deepest longing.
This article appeared on Medium and is reprinted with modifications and by permission.