Mr. Person stresses that he is not a therapist and that he generally offers just one session to participants, which he frames as, “This is the moment in your life where you encounter a wizard, and this has the potential to change a lot and we’re going to talk about it.”

He added, “I’m weird, but I get results.”

Quirk attracts quirk. Charles Philipp, a co-founder of Micro, which builds six-foot-tall museums , hired Mr. Person last year to appear at the company’s factory in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

“There’s the idea and the gift of pulling people out of their daily routine,” Mr. Philipp said. “No one does that like a large bearded man in a pointed hat and a robe.”

The clothing is a costume, but the facial hair is not. In 2015, a joint disease in Mr. Person’s left knee flared up. Doctors gave him medication, but there was a caveat: It would turn his dark-brown hair Santa Claus white.

The perfect color locks for a wizard.

“I started a tap dance in his office. I think he was surprised,” said Mr. Person, who also l egally changed his last name as part of his new identity; it comes from the “Person is awake” line in New York City’s guide to helping someone who is choking.

As a child , Mr. Person was “into the whimsicality of life,” his friend Mr. Bhatia recalled. “He would dress up, have his hair gelled up in some strange way, wear tacky sunglasses, clashing beach shorts, that kind of thing. Even then, I think he was dancing to the beat of his own drum.”