Next Level Soul Podcast Episode 34
A spiritual channeler is a person who says they receive messages, teachings or presence from a source beyond the ordinary self, such as guides, angels or higher consciousness, and pass them on through speech or writing. Paul Selig is one of the best-known channelers working today. In this conversation he tells Alex Ferrari how it all began: a skeptic raised without a spiritual life, a prayer found in a hotel drawer, a voice that told him to get his act together, and the slow road from college teacher to author of books he says were dictated to him.
Key Takeaways
- Paul says he was raised sort of an atheist, and that at 25 he had finished his whole list of achievements and still was not okay.
- He says he said a prayer for people in crisis from a hotel Bible, and three days later heard a voice telling him to get his act together.
- He says he kept this private while teaching at NYU and Goddard College, and that the guides began dictating books around 2009.
- He says the books are unedited transcripts, and that he needs a live listener in the room to channel.
- He says he is not a guru, and would question any channel who claims to be all powerful.
- A spiritual channeler is a person who says they receive and relay messages from a source beyond the ordinary self, such as guides or higher consciousness.
Who Is Paul Selig
Paul Selig is a New York City-based teacher, author and psychic. A 2026 profile from Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of World Religions notes that he earned an MFA in creative writing from Yale, that his plays have been staged in the United States and abroad, and that he began teaching creative writing at Goddard College and NYU in his mid-twenties. The same profile reports that he grew up an atheist and that his spiritual awakening came around the Harmonic Convergence of August 1987.
Paul works as a psychic, a medium for the living and a channel. Beginning with I Am the Word in 2010, he has published a series of books that he says were dictated to him by a group of guides. His official website is paulselig.com. Paul also teaches Awakening Divine Consciousness inside NLS Mastery, and you can try his free masterclass on awakening divine consciousness first. The rest of this page follows the episode in his own words, then explains channeling in plain language and how his work fits into that tradition.
A Skeptic Raised Without a Spiritual Life
Alex opens by asking how Paul’s remarkable spiritual journey began. Paul says it was unexpected and unasked for. He tells Alex he was raised sort of an atheist and did not know what a spiritual life was, or why anyone would want one.
Then, at 25, about a year out of grad school, he had a list of things he believed would make him okay in the world. He says he achieved the whole list and was not okay by any stretch of the imagination. Out of sheer necessity, and not because he thought it would be a nice thing to do, he began looking for something more.
A Hotel Room, a Prayer and a Voice
Paul says the real story starts on a work trip to St. Paul. He was having a very bad night, and he describes a moment of crisis he could not even name. In the drawer was one of the Bibles that the Gideons leave in hotel rooms, and in it was a prayer for people in crisis. He says he did not know exactly what his crisis was, but he knew he was in one, and he said the prayer.
Three days later, he says, he heard a voice telling him to get his act together. He listened. He began to open up psychically, he stopped partying, and he had his first experiences of energy.
Around the time of what people were calling the Harmonic Convergence, Paul says he asked to be woken up. His reasoning was simple. If there is a God, and he was starting to think maybe there was, why would it say no? That request, he says, began a journey he is still on.
Hands on the Body, Names in the Mind
Paul tells Alex he went on to study a form of energy healing, and that he would never have called himself a psychic in those days.
He was volunteering at a center for people living with life challenging illness. When he put his hands on someone, he began to hear things for them. He gives an example: with his hands on a person’s chest, he might hear the name Billy. He learned to simply ask who Billy was, and the person might say a father, a brother, a lover or a dog.
As this kept being confirmed, Paul says, he began to trust the transmission. He is careful to say it was not a voice in the room. He describes it as a thought that blocks out all other thoughts and has a very different quality. He then started a group that met in his apartment for many years.
Keeping It Private, Then the Books Arrive
For years, Paul says, he was a college teacher. He taught at NYU and ran a writing program at Goddard College. He tells Alex he was not looking to be known for any of this. He finally built a website for clients, but he left off his name and photograph because he did not want to be outed.
Alex says he relates, since he comes from the film industry and once feared showing this side of himself. Paul says he still bumps into his own resistance every time he becomes a little more public, and that he is a shy person by nature. But each time he stepped through it, he says, more was available on the other side.
In about 2009, Paul says, the guides he works with began to dictate books through him. He says there are ten now, with nine in print. The first, I Am the Word, was dictated in 2009 and published in 2010.
Like a Radio: How He Describes the Work
Paul describes himself as a radio. When he channels, he says, he turns the dial up a tiny bit and another broadcast becomes available. He says he also works as a psychic, or as he puts it a medium for the living, tuning in to a person to feel what it is like to be them. What he does, he says, is take dictation.
He says the books are unedited transcripts of recorded sessions. Perhaps three words in a whole book might be corrected, such as a plural he dropped by talking too fast. He tells Alex the first book took about two and a half weeks to deliver, and the most recent about a month and a half.
There is one condition. Paul says he cannot do this alone with a recorder. He needs an active listener in the room, because the guides are teachers and they need their students.
Not a Guru: Holding the Door Open
Alex says it is fascinating that Paul is not a guru, and Paul agrees. He says he does not think of himself as terribly special and that thinking so is a real trap. The one thing he gives himself credit for is showing up, even when he did not want to and thought he might be nuts.
He tells Alex that he questions the teachings, even interrupting dictations to ask a question, and the guides will say that Paul has a question.
Looking back, Paul says he can see how he was prepared without knowing it. He says teaching taught him to love in an unconditional way, and that he lived for years with a severe writer’s block that was a source of shame. He says the guides once said that his job is to hold the door open for other people, and that the books are a doorway for others.
The Upper Room, Fear and What He Does Not Know
Paul explains that his last three books concern what the guides call the Upper Room, which he describes as the next octave of consciousness. He says getting there is not that hard, and that the claims are simple, such as I know who I am in truth and I am free.
He also repeats the guides’ image of living in a basement apartment and being offered one on the 20th floor. Paul says many of us get up there and then run back downstairs to reclaim what we know, even if it makes us unhappy. He says the guides teach that fear claims more fear, and that the answer is to stop taking the bait, which is different from ordinary prudence.
When Alex asks about his mission, Paul says he does not know. When asked why we are here, he says he does not know either, but offers his own view: to learn, to experience, to love and to enjoy what it means to be in a body with other beings.
What Is a Spiritual Channeler?
A spiritual channeler is someone who serves as a channel, or conduit, for information that they believe comes from beyond their ordinary mind. The source might be called a guide, an angel, an ascended master, a collective of teachers, a higher self or simply a higher consciousness. The channeler listens, receives and then relays the message in speech, writing or art.
Channelers say that the experience is different from their own thinking. Paul, for example, tells Alex it is not a voice in the room. He describes it as a thought that blocks out all other thoughts and has a very different quality. Other channelers describe a felt presence, a flow of energy or a sense of words arriving whole.
The word is often used interchangeably with medium. Traditionally a medium relays messages from the deceased, while a channeler relays teachings from guides and master teachers. In practice the line is blurry, and many people, Paul included, do both. Our overview of channelers and mediums explores how the two roles overlap, and our guide to spirit guides looks at who people believe they are connecting with.
Types of Channeling
Channeling is often described in a few broad styles. The categories overlap, and many channelers move between them.
| Type | What It Looks Like | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Trance channeling | The channeler enters a deep trance and may have little memory of what was said | Edgar Cayce gave thousands of readings in trance; Jane Roberts channeled Seth in trance |
| Conscious or mental channeling | The channeler stays aware, receives thoughts or impressions, and puts them into words | Paul Selig says he hears the words in his mind and then speaks them |
| Automatic writing | The channeler lets a pen or keyboard move and writes without planning the words | A long tradition in Spiritualism and in modern channeled books |
Reference works on mediumship describe the same ground. They note that mental mediumship takes place within the medium’s own consciousness, that trance is a common state for mediums and channelers, and that in automatic writing a spirit is said to write through the medium’s hand. Many modern channelers also work live in front of audiences, as Paul does, so that the listeners become part of the process.
A Short History of Channeling
People have sought messages from beyond for as long as there have been oracles, shamans and seers. A few landmarks help place Paul’s work.
- Eighteenth century: The Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg claimed to speak with angels and spirits.
- 1848: The Fox sisters in New York became famous for claiming contact with a spirit, and modern Spiritualism is often traced to them.
- Late nineteenth century: Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophists popularized the idea of receiving teachings from ancient masters.
- Early twentieth century: Edgar Cayce gave an estimated 22,000 trance readings, many about health. Read more about Edgar Cayce.
- 1970s: Jane Roberts published The Seth Material and Seth Speaks, and “channeling” became the popular word. See our guide to the Seth Material.
- 1980s: A wave of public interest, helped by the 1987 television miniseries based on Shirley MacLaine’s Out on a Limb, brought channeling into the mainstream.
Paul’s books sit in this lineage. The Harvard profile notes that his writing draws on Christian Gnosticism, Buddhist thought, A Course in Miracles, the Seth materials, New Thought and Theosophy while not being reducible to any one of them.
How Paul Selig Describes His Own Work
In his own words in this episode, Paul calls himself a radio. When he channels, he turns the dial up a little and another broadcast becomes available. He says what he does is take dictation, and that the books are unedited transcripts of recorded sessions. He needs a live listener in the room, because the guides are teachers who need their students.
He is also candid about what he does not claim. He is not a guru, he questions the material, and he interrupts dictations to ask questions. He says he would question any channel who claims to be all powerful. That humility is a useful guide for anyone exploring channeled material: listen with curiosity, keep your own discernment and take what rings true.
Paul Selig’s Books
According to the Harvard profile and book listings, the dictated books include:
- I Am the Word (2010)
- The Book of Love and Creation (2012)
- The Book of Knowing and Worth (2013)
- The Book of Mastery (2016)
- The Book of Truth (2017)
- The Book of Freedom (2018)
- Beyond the Known: Realization (2019)
- Alchemy (2020)
- The Kingdom (2021)
Paul says in the episode that his books are available online and at all booksellers and bookstores. Ask your local bookstore or library to find them.
How to Explore Channeling Wisely
- Treat channeled material as a perspective to weigh, not as an authority to obey.
- Notice how a message feels in your body. Does it leave you calmer and more loving, or more afraid?
- Be careful with anyone who asks for large payments, isolates you from loved ones or claims to be the only voice of truth.
- Remember that channeling is a spiritual practice and not a substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
- Practice your own listening through meditation. Our guide to connecting with your higher self is a good start.
Please enjoy my conversation with Paul Selig.
Guest Links: Connect With Paul Selig
- Take Paul Selig’s Next Level Soul Mastery course: Awakening Divine Consciousness
- Awakening Divine Consciousness: A Free Masterclass
- Paul Selig, official site
- Paul Selig on Facebook
- Paul Selig on Instagram
- Paul Selig on YouTube
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Go Deeper with Paul Selig: Awakening Divine Consciousness
Paul Selig guides you into awakening divine consciousness in Awakening Divine Consciousness, part of NLS Mastery. Watch the free trailer below.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Paul Selig and what is this episode about?
Paul Selig is an author and channel who talks with Alex Ferrari about how his path began. This episode follows his story from a skeptical start, through a prayer and a voice, to the books he says the guides dictated.
How did Paul Selig begin his spiritual journey?
Paul says he was raised sort of an atheist and had no idea what a spiritual life was. At 25 he had achieved everything on his list and still was not okay, so he began looking for something more. He says he said a prayer for people in crisis, heard a voice three days later, and asked to be woken up.
How did Paul first discover he could channel?
Paul says it started while he was volunteering at a center for people living with life challenging illness. With his hands on a person, he began to hear names, and he learned to ask who they were. As the details were confirmed, he says, he began to trust the transmission.
Who does Paul say the guides are?
Paul describes the guides as a collective of teachers. He says they have spoken the name Melchizedek, but that he is not interested in names because names carry baggage. He says they describe themselves as who you become when you know who you are.
How are Paul Selig books created?
Paul says the books are dictated and then published as unedited transcripts, with maybe three words in a book corrected. He says the first took about two and a half weeks and the latest about a month and a half. He adds that he needs an active listener in the room, because the guides are teachers who need their students.
Why does Paul say he is not a guru?
Paul says he does not think of himself as terribly special and sees that idea as a trap. He says he questions the material and interrupts dictations when he is confused. He tells Alex that he would question any channel who claims to be all powerful. He sees the books as a doorway for others rather than a title for himself.
What does Paul say about the Upper Room and fear?
Paul describes the Upper Room as the next octave of consciousness, and says the guides teach simple claims such as I am free to lift into it. He shares an image of a 20th floor apartment that many of us leave to go back to the basement. He says the guides teach that fear claims more fear, so the answer is to stop agreeing to it.
Where can listeners find Paul Selig and his books?
Paul says his website is just his name, PaulSelig.com, and that his books are available online and at all booksellers and bookstores. See the guest links on this page.
What is a spiritual channeler?
A spiritual channeler is a person who says they receive messages or teachings from a source beyond the ordinary self, such as guides, angels or higher consciousness, and relay them through speech or writing.
What are the types of channeling?
Common styles include trance channeling, conscious or mental channeling and automatic writing. In trance the channeler may not remember the session. In conscious channeling the person stays aware and puts impressions into words.
What is the difference between a medium and a channeler?
Traditionally a medium relays messages from the deceased, while a channeler relays teachings from guides or higher beings. Many people, including Paul Selig, work in both ways.
What books has Paul Selig written?
Paul’s dictated books begin with I Am the Word in 2010 and include The Book of Mastery, The Book of Truth, The Book of Freedom, Alchemy and The Kingdom. See the book list above.
Sources and Further Reading
- Harvard Divinity School, Center for the Study of World Religions: Paul Selig. A 2026 profile of his background, awakening and books.
- Goodreads: I Am the Word series. Titles and publication years of the early books.
- New World Encyclopedia: Medium and Channeling. History of mediumship, trance and automatic writing.
- Encyclopedia.com: Mediums and Channelers. How the term channeling grew in the 1970s and 1980s.
- Paul Selig, official site.
Keep Exploring
- Paul Selig on Resurrection, separation and the reckoning
- Paul Selig live: overcoming fear
- Paul Selig’s free masterclass on awakening divine consciousness
- Connecting with your higher self: a complete guide
- Browse more free masterclasses and the Next Level Soul Podcast.
Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:27
I'd like to welcome the show Paul Selig, how you doing, Paul?
Paul Selig 1:18
I'm well, thank you.
Alex Ferrari 1:19
Thank you so much for being on the show. I've been an admirer of your work for quite some time. And I wanted to have you on the show to kind of introduce my audience to your work, and what you've been doing. So to get started, how did you begin your remarkable spiritual journey that you are on right now?
Paul Selig 1:38
Yeah, you know, I mean, it was unexpected and unasked for truthfully, I was raised sort of an atheist and didn't know what a spiritual life was, or why one would ever want one. But when I was 25, I was about a year out of grad school, when I had a list of things that I had to achieve that I thought would make me okay in the world, and I got the whole list and I wasn't okay, by any stretch of the imagination, and really out of sheer necessity, not because I thought it would be a nice thing to do, I begin, you know, looking for something more. And, and I didn't even know that I was doing and when the real story is, you know, I was working on a project in St. Paul. And I was staying in the gopher campus motor Lodge, fancy place in St. Paul. And I didn't know where the drugs were in St. Paul, and having a very bad night. You know, the Gideons leave these books in the drawers and hotel rooms. And this there was this thing. It's in prayer for people in crisis. And I don't know that I knew what the crisis was that I was in. But I knew I was in one and I said it. And three days later, I heard a voice telling me to get my act together, which was the beginning of a lot of other stuff that you know, happened. And I listened to it. I started to open up psychically around the time, I quit partying, and that was a surprise. I didn't know what that meant. I started, I had an experience of energy. You know, around this time of this thing people were calling the Harmonic Convergence, I asked to be woken up and I thought, well, if there is a God, and I was starting to think, maybe there was and you asked to be woken up in a why would it say no, was my thinking at the time I was 25 year old with platinum blonde hair and leather jacket. And, you know, anyway, so I began and it began a journey that's I'm still on. And I studied a form of energy healing. When I was maybe 30 ish or so I'd been going to somebody for a bit because it was a context for the experiences I was beginning to have, which were energetic and visual, and some auditory, and not flashy, it was all very subtle, and I never would have called myself a psychic in those days. But I was volunteering at a center for people that were living with life challenging illness. And I found that when I had my hands on their bodies, I began to hear things for them. You know, I when I had my hands on your chest, I heard the name Billy, I learned to say, who was Billy and you'd say, I father, my brother, my lover, my dog, whatever, you know. And as that kept getting panned out and confirmed, I began to trust this sort of channel or this transmission that was beginning to come. And it wasn't like a voice in the room. It was like a thought that blocks out all other thoughts, that has a very different quality to it. You know, it's like, you know, I wasn't thinking about any billiard all of a sudden, Billy, and you go, Okay, what, what do I do with this? And I started a group that met in my apartment and met for about 18 years where I was sitting with people and you know, taking beginning to channel although I didn't think of it as channeling in those days, I was more interested in the energy that was coming through which was very palpable and very physical, and I liked the experience of that. So that's how it started, but I did the group for eight years I was a college teacher, I taught at NYU and ran a writing program at Goddard college for many, many, many years. And I wasn't looking to be known for this at all. In fact, I finally got a website for clients. But I didn't have my name on it or my photograph, because I didn't want to be outed. And in about 2009, the guides I work with began to dictate through me books. And they've done 10 of them. Now nine are in print. And all of the books are the unedited transcripts of the channeling sessions, you know, it's just really recorded typed up, that's what maybe three words in any book might be corrected, because I mispronounce something. All right, I dropped an s on a word that should have been pluralized, because I was talking so fast. But that's what happened, you know, and that's how I came to do what I do. And I may never understand it truthfully. It's an odd skill. But I'm, I'm interested in it. So I continue. And it's not what I do. I quit my life in academia about five years ago. And that's it.
Alex Ferrari 6:09
Now, I find it fascinating that when you were when you had the, for lack of a better word, the calling to do this, that obviously something was coming through you something was happening, but you were fearful of being out. And as you said, I had a very similar experience just by doing the show because I come from the film industry. So I have I'm very well known in the film industry for the show of talking to Oscar winners, and so on and so forth. And I was afraid of showing this side of my self. So I understand on a smaller scale, the fear you had to how did you break through that fear that you when you just finally said, you know, I gotta go all in on this?
Paul Selig 6:46
Oh, I mean, I still have to butt up against my resistance. And every time I get a little bit more public, I'm challenged by that. I'm a shy person, by nature, you know, and but, you know, every time I've stepped through that resistance, there has been more available to me on the other side. So it's really been a process, but really, from the very beginning, before the books were coming. I was challenged by all of this stuff, you know, my people would sometimes say no, what's the hardest part about being a channel? And I said, Well, it's that I'm the channel. See, if you were channeling this stuff. I could read it say, Oh, this is interesting. This is useful. This is not, but it's like it's kind of like asking the radio to judge the broadcast, you know, and I'm a radio that's really what I do. It's not terribly glamorous, I actually take dictation. That's what I do. The books are all stenography spoken snog, Rafi. So, you know, you work, you work through the resistance. And the other thing is, the culture now is different than it was even 10 years ago. You know, at the time, I just wanted to keep my keep my my paid job at an academic institution that probably would have frowned on it. But by the time I left, they knew what I was doing. And they would you know, celebrate a book when it came out. And I thought, well, that's kind of great. So much of what I feared would happen didn't and truthfully, people are too inquisitive in their in their own crap to worry about mine. You know, it's not about me. And that was a relief. And that's it. Yeah.
Alex Ferrari 8:23
Yeah, generally, that's what I had the same experience with that as well as like the people. The ego loves to like, it's, what are they going to say about me? No one cares. No one cares, pretty much. They got their own problems to deal with. So if for the audience, it can't explain it, you I think you did a pretty good explanation of being a channel or the channeling process is kind of like tuning into a radio, and you're just a speaker, and it just coming through you correct.
Paul Selig 8:49
I work two different ways. So I work as a channel and I work as a psychic or they call me sometimes I can medium for the living. So if you think of me as a radio, and when I'm channeling, I'm just turning the dial up, you know, in just a tiny, tiny bit, and then suddenly the other broadcast is available. Right now I'm just talking on power, but if I want to switch I can go in and and I can access if I'm reading say for you, and you know, you said you know tell me what's going on with my axe or my kid or whoever. And you give I would tune in to you you would be the coordinate, you'd be the radio station so that I can hear you or feel what it's like to be you and then switch the station and tune in to the egg. So it's kind of like a being a switchboard. And it's a funny thing, and I like the work that I do with individuals because, you know, it's provable stuff. You know, it's just like, you know, how do I know what your what your ex is going through, you know, but I do at some level, so the process is far less dense and long when people think it really is just, you know, we, if you can imagine a radio, there's all these stations playing all the time. But if you're not tuned into them, you're not picking them up to broadcast. I'm just wired to pick up these broadcasts and some of what my guides do with their students and through their books is, you know, why are other people up as well to be able to run the energy that they call with them, which they say is always available? We just haven't been told we're allowed to do it.
Alex Ferrari 10:31
Now, who are the guides, you refer to the guides a lot? Who are the guides?
Paul Selig 10:35
Well, I mean, it's a collective of their teachers, you know, the name if the name once in a while they'll speak it. And it's in the book. So I can say it. It's, it's the name Melchizedek, which is, I guess, the priesthood, but I'm truthfully, highly uninterested in the names only because the names tend to carry baggage. And then it gets into ego and stuff like that. The reason they're called the guides is my ex, when my ex found out that I could do this, I used to hear ask the guides this ask the guides that suddenly there was a you know, a psychic in the house, who could answer all the questions. And so that's why they started being called the guides, and it sort of stuck, and they haven't objected to it. So that's what I call them, you know, and, but then they say, you know, we are who you become when you know who you are. That's how they describe themselves.
Alex Ferrari 11:31
Which makes, which makes all the sense in the world, at least to me, it makes all the sense in the world. I always find it interesting when people like who don't believe so much in channeling, and that's fine. You don't have to believe in channeling. But the work speaks for itself, the book speak for itself, that the spirit of the book speak to you, they speak to your work speaks to you, it speaks to the person reading it, I don't care how it got there. It's irrelevant.
Paul Selig 11:53
I'm with you there I didn't believe in channeling or I was suspicious of it. And I still can be with some of what sort of is out there and is being called this. Which feels to me sometimes like it's, you know, the flavor of the minute channeling, you know, I don't think the guides I work with could care less about celebrity culture. And you know, I just doesn't it's not not part of it. I mean, they still call my computer or television, my going to hear from John on the televisions like okay, so I don't think they're watching. You know, the news, but I had read maybe half a Seth book when I was a grad student, and thought it was really fascinating. And what's the Seth? Seth book, Jane, or Jane Roberts was a channel in the 60s 70s, who was channeled an entity called Seth. And that that stuff was pretty amazing. But I only read half the book, but I really do think it impacted me. But I actually don't watch other people who are working. I make a point of it, and I buy everybody's books, and then I don't read them. And I think some of this is about keeping it clean as I can. So that you know what's coming through me is just specific to what they want. And I'm not having to say, well, what are your guides say about so and so's teachings? Because I don't think they know, although they might answer the questions on on a process or a teaching.
Alex Ferrari 13:24
Now the world is going through a major shift right now. I mean, it's something I've never seen before in my lifetime. And even throughout history. I've never seen something globally take humanity like it has had in the last couple years. And it seems to be getting worse. In many ways. It seems like the shift is like people are like it's like I call it the edge of sketching of of humanity. It will What's your opinion what's going on? Why we're going through this right now.
Paul Selig 13:52
In the very first book that guides dictated which was called I Am the word and it was dictated in 2009, published in 10. The guide said humanity is at a time of reckoning. And a reckoning is a facing of oneself, and all of one's creations. And everything that's been created in fear or is rooted in fear, they say is going to have to be received or reknown or recreated in some higher way. Because we can't continue as we have. They said, You know, we're the only I mean, the fact that we think that building a bigger bomb is something that's going to keep us safe. Is is insanity as far as they understand it. But what I hear is going on now is great opportunity. And it's actually sort of necessary and I mean necessary, not that we have to suffer through stuff, but that we have to we have to change. We can't really go on the way we were and so the guides talk about this as sort of a tidal wave of change. And they talk about us being brought to a they call like a high are shorter than we've been on. But we have to go through this process of releasing the known and who we think we are and how we think we're supposed to, to operate. This is all they say, sort of like the last hurrah of separation. It's the belief that we're separate from our source. But also that is the belief that we're separate from one another, you know, and then we should continue that claim. So a lot of the polarity, I suspect that we're experiencing now is this stuff really coming up to be seen, because I don't think anything gets healed when it's hidden. You know, it has to be brought to the light in order to be reclaimed by the light, and we have free will. So I finally see it as positive, the guide started saying maybe about a year ago, which was surprising to me and a bit of a relief. They said, you know, humanity has chosen to collectively we've chosen to move beyond this. So we're gonna make it, I don't know that we're gonna make it without some serious bumps in the road, we may have to experience the futility of war, to understand that there's no point to it, that it's insanity. That may be what happens. I don't know, they don't give predictions. But they have said, We're gonna make it. And I actually trust them, you know, the last couple of years have totally transformed my life. And I'm grateful for the changes. But, you know, I know it's been it's been tough.
Alex Ferrari 16:32
Yeah, I mean, there's been just such a massive shift in the way we look at things, the way life is changed. I mean, this this interview, normally, I would have to fly in to see you, or you would have to fly in to see me for something like this to happen. And the technology was Skypes been around for a long time, but it wasn't normal. And now something like this could happen. Same thing with working remotely. And that was frowned upon before where now? It's demanded, almost like the workforce has finally said, you know, what, I, I have some power here. I'm gonna decide how I want to work. Mm hmm. Yes, that kind of that, that shift. Now, a lot of the things that I mean, most of the problems that we have, and in our life is due to ego, and letting go of, of that. Mee, mee, mee state. And it seems like it's getting worse with social media and, and you know, all that stuff. Why do you feel that it's so difficult to let go of ego? And do you have any advice on letting another very big question? But do you have any advice?
Paul Selig 17:33
You know, what I when I was when I was in my maybe early 30s, and suffering, I heard something in channel im 99%, sure I heard an in channel because I wrote it down on a piece of paper, because I didn't understand it. But I knew it probably made sense. And what I wrote down was, freedom will come when the throne relinquishes its king, and I thought what the hell does that mean, but it really means who the hell was sitting in the throne and running the show. And the guides I work with, say, you know, the small self, which is the personality structure, or the egoic structure, rules, a small kingdom, you know, and that's where everything's supposed to be about them and what they think and you know, in the small self, they say, knows itself through history, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's an aspect of who we are, but we've really put the cart before the horse. So what the guides teach is actually the reclamation of the true self. And they do that through attunement and energetic attunement. And it's really quite simple, because the attunements they work through are done through language that's sort of encoded with vibration. And they're usually very palpable for people when they work with them. So it's a process of really knowing who we are beyond the idea of who we are. So I can say, Yeah, I'm Paul, I live in Maui, I'm this age, this is the color of my skin. This is my background, this is what my parents did. I can do all that. And that's a way of identifying the self. But that's not who I truly am just like it's not anybody truly is. These are ways of knowing the self through sort of cultural agreements. And when we start to move beyond that, to what claim the guides would say, the claim is I know who I am in truth, and they say, to know is to realize I realize I know who I am in proof. And they say in truth, a lie can't be held. To move to that at the cost of the other is the challenge. You see. I still want what I want when I want it, and I'm a curmudgeon, and I get cranky and you know, I get pissed off and things don't go the way I think they should. But I also have let go of an enormous amount of the ideas of who I'm supposed to be in the world. And this work has forced that you know, I had a very different outline for My path and I ended up on
Alex Ferrari 20:04
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.
Paul Selig 20:13
And what I've been given is actually much better. And I think part of the reason we hold on so tightly as we don't trust that if we don't get what we want, we're not going to be met. You know, even in the spiritual community, people are saying, I've got to manifest this I've got to get that get get get get get, it's like the universe is a catalog that everybody's supposed to order from. And the problem with that, because it's not untrue, things are available. But people are claiming what they think they're supposed to have. And that's based on some other menu that's inherited. I'm supposed to be beautiful, wealthy, happy all the time, you know, and have a photographer following me around when I take a walk from my Instagram page. I mean, it's like that kind of stuff. And I don't think it's that. So when you kind of go to the place of reception, and allowing trusting whatever you want to call it, God the universe, it doesn't really matter what you call it to be the source of supply, then you start grabbing it everything or stop trying to tell spirit what you need and how it's supposed to come, which is again, the small cell for the personality structure trying to dictate the rules. It's when we move to a place of reception or surrender allowance, I think that real alchemy begins to happen.
Alex Ferrari 21:34
Isn't it funny, though, if we actually got everything we wanted, what what a horror show our lives would be?
Paul Selig 21:40
Yeah, it's really true. I agree.
Alex Ferrari 21:44
I mean, if I was, if I would have gotten what I wanted at 15, or at 20, or 25, I would have I would, it would have been a horror show because it would have destroyed me. And, and that's but you're right is because it's that small ego that is afraid of letting go and afraid of letting, letting go letting God if you will. And I think for me, at least in my world, I've when I've let go. I've things open up and things start showing up that I never even thought in a million years. If you told me a year ago, that I would be sitting here speaking to you. And I said you're absolutely mad because the show didn't exist a year ago. Yeah. But then once I decided to go full in then guests started showing up out of the woodwork and amazing conversations and things are starting to happen. And it was all because I let go. And also let go of fear, which is my next question. Fear we fear is such a thing that holds us back, not the fear of the Tiger eating you. That's a healthy fear. I'm talking about the fears, the baggage that we carry any advice on how we can break through some of these fears. Because everything we do if you had a fear coming out, I had a fear of doing this show in so many ways. How do you break through these fears?
Paul Selig 23:00
Well, I don't know. Breaking through is the right way of looking at it. The guides that I work with talk a lot about fear and they say the action of fear is to claim more fear. So every choice we make in fear gets us more of the same news. Look at the last choice you made in fear and see what it got you probably you'll see that got you more fear. So a very simple thing is to stop making choice in fear or through fear. And that's different than prudence which is what you're talking about about the tiger eating you it's prudence is healthy, you know, fear is all tigers are evil, you know, that's that's fearful. Don't go to that continent. They haven't Tiger, you know, stay away from the zoos. They have tigers,
Alex Ferrari 23:41
Like, my daughters are terrified of sharks. I'm like, unless they're land sharks and have keys to our house, you're pretty you're pretty good.
Paul Selig 23:49
That's true. It's funny. So um, so that's one thing. The guides say that fear isn't that bright. They say fear is actually fear doesn't transcend because it can't. They say no fear is of God, but doesn't know that it is. And that's its problem. So they say nothing can be outside of God, but you can believe you're not and then have that experience. So they talk about the guides I work with talking about this thing they call it the Upper Room, which they say is the next level of consciousness above the one that we operate in sort of a collective field, they talked about it in terms of music, and octave is comprised of notes high and low, you know, and our reality they say as in tone or vibration as music. And they say about lifting to what they call the Upper Room, which they say is the next octave up. And much of what they teach is the transposition of the vibration or the notes of who we are to be sung or played in a higher way. And the interesting thing about the Upper Room is when you begin to feel it there and the guides take people to that, you know, and they say well, what are you afraid of? There's nothing to beat If you're fearful of at that level, because it doesn't exist. So the level of fear the vibration of fear lives or expresses at one level to rise above it is to move beyond it to understand this. So imagine, here's an easy example. You're living in a basement apartment, in your view out the window is through the transom windows, and you get you know, and somebody says, well, here, go try the 20th floor, and the view is going to be different and you go up, and there's this great apartment on the 20th floor. And you don't have the same darkness, you don't have the same shadow, you don't have the same experience. But what most of us do is we get up to the 20th floor and say, Oh, my God, I left my ex's stuff in the drawer, and oh, my God, there's all those bills down in the basement, I have to run back downstairs, and we go back, and we reclaim what we know, even if it makes us unhappy. So my understanding about, you know, moving through fear is not honoring it. And I don't mean, don't be stupid, don't go walk into traffic. You know, it's not like, I'm fearless. I will walk into traffic, it's not like that. It's about stop taking the bait, stop going into an agreement that we should be afraid, you know, fear is a teacher, and it's just not the best teacher you can learn about not picking up the hot frying pan without scorching your hand on it. There are other ways to learn a lesson. So what I hear
Alex Ferrari 26:30
Now, can you talk a little bit about the about karma and the concept of Karma? Because Karma is a large, large subject matter and has been talked about so many different ways over the over 1000s of years. And from, from the guy's perspective, from your perspective, what is it
Paul Selig 26:45
They said very little, they've said very little, it's an opportunity to learn, it's cause and effect, it's an opportunity to learn it is not punishment, it's opportunity. So you know, we're I hear that we're here to learn, that's part of why we've come and we're going to learn through all of our experiences, every experience is valuable or valid, in terms of learning that karma is really cause and effect. So I understand that if you move to a level of tone or vibration they call the upper room, you can release some of that stuff, because that's very more than the lower dense level, but you're not going to bypass the lessons that you've come to learn. So I think of it simply as opportunity. You know, it's not the opportune that I say I might not want, it might not be a lesson I want to learn it's usually not. But that's really it. I don't know that it's much more complicated, but they don't give a system for burning off your karma. You know, I live on Maui. Now I have all these friends that are hon Oman, devotees, they're chanting the holy names all day. You know, they've been wonderful and I totally am on board. But it's not what the guides are teaching. I almost sometimes think Well, that would be much nicer I could sit and hear tunnel the end have a wonderful time, but they're doing No,
Alex Ferrari 28:04
That's that's not the work that we need to do. In other words, sometimes
Paul Selig 28:07
No somebody or somebody it may be it may be truthfully, it's just not the system, that the guides I work with are teaching. They're talking with guides, I work with her talking about reclamation. And so these aspects of ourselves that have been put in darkness or we've denied need to be brought to the light it's really simple. The guides say it this way, who your dam dams who your dam are what your dam dams your back, and damming is in fingerpointing, it's actually energetic accord. So who you put in darkness calls you to that darkness. You say you can the guide say you can't lift the evil man to the upper room because you have made him evil. You have aligned to him at that level of consciousness or vibration. So it's a it's a challenging teaching, but it's really, really simple. They also say, what you bless blesses you in return and a blessing isn't a sanctioning. Oh, no, it's not condoning something that you don't like. It's putting the presence of the Divine upon that thing, knowing that thing as within God so that the action of the Divine can be present upon it. And it's funny when they first started teaching this, it was at the Esalen Institute in California. They sent people out onto the lawn they're like 10 20 feet apart and they had them claiming the body is divine I know what you are in truth claiming love the divinity of form and you could feel the energy come back to you it was like waves of energy coming back and it's the illustration of what you bless blesses you wouldn't return if you can claim the divine in form you're actually raised are lifted by that what you bless blesses you in return, but your damn damn shoe back, same idea.
Alex Ferrari 29:54
So so as the Beatles say love is the way yeah Many ways.
Paul Selig 30:01
Yeah, it is. It is. I mean, love. You know, it can it feels even in my life, you know, as somebody who's single and complains about it, you know, my idea of love, you know, still is sort of filtered through cultural ideas. And I think true love is not a feeling it's, it's an energy. And it is the energy of source. And so to have that experience is unreal. But it's true love does heal, it changes everything, what it encounters is transformed by absolute true.
Alex Ferrari 30:34
And as opposed to, you know, damming, loving it could maybe raise both of you.
Paul Selig 30:41
Exactly. Exactly. Right. Yeah.
Alex Ferrari 30:44
I think that's one of the that's part one of the reasons why the Beatles are the Beatles.
Paul Selig 30:49
They you know, I agree.
Alex Ferrari 30:52
I'm a bit I'm a Beatles fan is just so interesting to see, like, generation after generation. It's like, I think Paul McCartney says, like, 95% of the songs we wrote, were about love. It's not too bad. So it was really, really interesting. Now, this is another large question consciousness, what is consciousness, your definition of the guys definitions of it?
Paul Selig 31:13
I don't, you know, I they actually set it recently. And I don't remember anything that they said. It wasn't all it was in a lecture. And they sort of defined us and they're defining this. So I don't even want to go there today, if I can help it, because I'll get it wrong. I mean, I hear consciousnesses God expressing is all things, right? So it's all things everything is consciousness. And it's not singular, it's actually collective. And I kind of get that that's where we make our mistakes, you know, the, the people that say, you know, well, you created it, you created your own right, you know, I think what we're contributing to it, but we have a collective field that we're also operating in, that we're all contributing to the reality that we know is the reality that we're in agreement to. And until some of those things change, I don't know that much changes, like they say, you know, you've had war for so long you expect it, you know, you've always been at war, so you expect it to consequently always have it. And until you move to a consciousness where war is not possible, where it's just not doesn't exist, you'll claim it. But that's a radical change in how we experience reality. No, it's just just everything is everything is different, when you shift the consciousness or the tone.
Alex Ferrari 32:32
Now, this thing that we have as souls on on at this level of existence is that disconnection from each other, that disconnection from source disconnection from that we that we somehow have talked ourselves into believing that we are not all connected, I mean, just on a physical level to earn the ecosystem, but yet we feel like we're disconnected. Any advice on how to get that connection back not only on a physical level, but also obviously on a spiritual level, but but even on a physical level, just connection with your fellow man?
Paul Selig 33:09
Well, I mean, you know, I'm an old 12, stepper from way, way back. And they used to tell me early on, I look for the good or the god and everybody. And it works. It's so simple. It doesn't have to be much more complicated than that the guides teach sort of a different system of realization and sort of knowing true knowing, which is palpable and effective. And it's, it really is, Who is the witness, what aspect of you is witnessing your neighbor, you know, what aspect of you the one that wants to be right, or the one that knows and the aspect of you that knows is the aspect of you that loves so when you tune in is the true self is what they call it, you're operating at a different level. But I think you know, the idea of not denying the God in yourself is first and foremost. And then not denying the god and the one you know when you can't stand because that's where you're really going to progress it's easy to see the God and your lover or your kid or champion and it's easy but when you when you're when you're challenged by knowing the presence must be there because you know, the guides say You know, if you if you deny the divine and another you've denied it in yourself automatically. That's how you shut yourself off.
Alex Ferrari 34:30
Now you discussed the Upper Room, can you discuss how you can transcend to go to the upper room? How can we connect to the upper room what what, what tech not techniques, but what do we need to do in order to be raised in that way?
Paul Selig 34:45
The last three books, the guides of deliberative Alban about the upper room and operating from there. Getting there isn't that hard? I mean, you can work with the attunements they offer and you can have an experience And seven, which is, you know, some for many people, palpable, you know, maintaining it seems to be much harder, because I'm still learning and I'm still being buffeted by events in my life that I don't think should be there. And then I go back and I learn, and then I can go home, or go back up. So how one gets to the upper room, you have to first understand that there's an aspect of you already that expresses there, you're not inventing this, there's a part of you, that knows who it is what it is how it serves, and that part of you expresses at a higher octave or a higher level of resonance. And so the very simple claim is I know who I am in truth, I know what I am in truth, I know how I serve in truth, I am free, I am free, I am free, these are all attunements. And they can even work with the energy of them. And people can often feel them, that seems to be prerequisite. And then the claim really very, is really very simple. I am in the upper room, and you feel the energy just shut a wish around you is your lift. And then there's a whole bunch that you can do once there Once there you can move towards what the guides call where your articulation, you know, or reclaiming of who you are in a higher way. So the Upper Room is isn't a destination just to get out of your pain, it's where a lot of other things can really occur, I believe. But this is what they teach. So these are what the books are about.
Alex Ferrari 36:38
So I you know, after doing some studying over the years, and just talking to people like yourself, I keep hearing the same things connected to a higher self, a different words, different phrases, but the concepts all seem to be the same is to transcend fear, transcend yourself, get to a higher place, connect with yourself, love one another. These are this is what Jesus was talking about 1000 years ago, it's very interesting.
Paul Selig 37:05
Truth is truth. Doesn't matter how you package it, you know, I was struggling with concepts that the guides teach when they talk about the true self. And you know, and then I had, you know, Hindu students in my workshops, and they were saying, oh, yeah, this is the Atman. And this is how we talk about this. And I'm going oh, I don't, you know, I'm honestly not all that well read, you know, I don't have a lot of theoretical background, I tried, and I forgot everything. And I'm, you know, lazy, I suppose in some ways, but I think it needs to be truthful. I think it needs to cross, you know, systems. I think if it's true, it's true. I don't know that it matters, what you call it, or what the name was, one gives it are. But I think it's all the same. You know,
Alex Ferrari 37:55
Why do you think that you were chosen? Or that you chose this path? Because it seems like, I mean, you obviously enjoy your work. But from from our conversation alone, I've seen you're just like, you know, it's kind of like work, it's my, it's my job. It's my thing, and I'm having problems with stuff. And it's very human. It's a very human way of looking at your work.
Paul Selig 38:17
Oh, I don't think of myself as terribly special. And I think that's a real trap when you get into this stuff. Yeah. And you think that I have a skill set that's been developed over the years of sitting and showing up the one thing I give myself a lot of credit for, is showing up for this stuff, even when I didn't want to and a lot of times I didn't want to and a lot of times I thought it was nuts. Or that I was nuts for doing it. You know, and I walked away from an academic career, you don't walk away from tenure. That's pretty much why wasn't tenure, it wasn't the issue with everything else was, you know, benefits, retirement, all those things, you know, and I said, Okay, well, I'm doing this now. When I was I mean, I have some information about past life stuff that contributes to this. I think I've been working with these guides longer than this lifetime. When I was studying energy healing, in my early 30s, and I was working with his old Irish lady who was quite something she's no longer living. And she said, Okay, everybody, you're gonna here's a prayer, it's it works. Be really careful how you phrase it, because you're going to get it. And I at the time, I was sort of, in retrospect, I should have asked for a nice apartment or a partner or something. But I was so I'd had enough of an experience of, for lack of a better word God or whatever, whatever I experienced that I knew enough to know that it was real. And I also knew that there was nothing better than that. If I just wanted to be in that experience. So I remember writing this thing down in my stupidity sort of saying, you know, I want to go all the way with this.
Alex Ferrari 40:11
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.
Paul Selig 40:21
And what I believe the books are, are away. And maybe that's why they came through me with the books. Am I the books best student? No, I'm not. You know, I have a challenging relationship with the material because it's coming through me. And I'm not a guru. And I'm not a spiritual teacher. And I have no desire to be either of those things, I really could care less. So that's part of it. When I look back on my life, I was being developed for this without knowing it. You know, I had been a playwright when I was young. And I used to put on music on loop one song on loop for hours and hours and hours and sit there and just write I was inducing trance without knowing what a trance was. And on and on and on. And then I started, I was a college teacher. And about 10 years before I stopped, I found that I couldn't use notes anymore. I couldn't. And I would just sit there and allow it all to come out. And it did. And it was wonderful. And I use I said, for years teaching was my spiritual practice had taught me how to love. Not really did, I didn't know how to love. But teaching I think taught me that in an unconditional way. And I was all sort of being prepared for what I do. And I didn't expect it. And I wasn't asking for it. That I can recall. So that's maybe why maybe I asked the guides once said to somebody who was asking me questions, you know, why isn't Paul, you know, getting what he wants and all this. And the guide said, well, Paul's job is to hold the door open for other people. And I was like, oh, all but then later, when they introduced the upper room, they said, you know, the door is open. They're inviting all their students across this threshold. Everybody, come come and I said, Paul, you get to come now to which was really quite something for me to hear. And that's around the time that everything really began to shift for me. But I realized, perhaps the books are the door that I probably know, but that's my job. The books are a doorway for others. And I agreed to that, you know, until they stopped wanting to dictate books. Until I say no more books. I can't do it anymore. It's been about a book a year. For 10 years.
Alex Ferrari 42:46
Does it take a physical toll on you, doing, these?
Paul Selig 42:48
The books are dictated the first book took two and a half weeks to deliver on edited. So there's no editing, there's no rewriting. And the last book, I think, took a month and a half. And that wasn't I wasn't working every day. But usually I can sit now for half an hour to an hour for dictation. When I'm doing a retreat when I used to do live retreats, and I was with the same people six hours a day, the guides would dictate 80 pages in five days, just in front of people. But there's a physical toll. Yeah, I mean, it's it's, it seems that my nervous system is used. I'm not complaining about it. But you know, it's it's there's there's something arduous but I also work for hours, you know, most people that I know who channel can work for 45 minutes an hour, and I'll do a day. You know, with the books, the books are intense.
Alex Ferrari 43:45
So you would work you'll do a full day of just channeling the entire day.
Paul Selig 43:48
If I only know if I'm doing a work a live workshop. Like a five day or seven day I do those periodically, I try to do them when book dictations are happening because it's a good opportunity to get a lot done. So they might do three or four lectures over the course of one day of lectures, usually 30 to 40 minutes. And then we'll finish the lecture and say this is in the book. This is in the book. This is a new chapter. This is the title of the chapter. It's in the book. When I'm because of COVID and my inability to travel I actually convened a small group of old time students and I would meet with them first thing in the morning. And they would pick the guides would dictate they would choose that there's got to be an audience I can't do this without people listening. So that's how that was done. I can't do it by myself. There's got to be an active listener always has to be
Alex Ferrari 44:41
So you can't have you can't just have a recorder on you have to have somebody else in the room.
Paul Selig 44:44
No I have to have somebody else. The guides have to be speaking to someone I if I don't like what they hear and there's a recorder on I'm probably going to switch Sanwa and talk about this. So I don't want to trust this. But if there's an audience there the rule is I don't get to stop until the guides say Stop now plays, which is how they end their dictations. It's possible, but I haven't tried to do it just in a recorder for a long time. But I, the guides are teachers and they need their students. So that's how I experience it.
Alex Ferrari 45:16
Have the guides ever spoken to you or through you about reincarnation?
Paul Selig 45:22
You know, you're not at length. And I don't know that they've said anything terribly original about the subject. I mean, I get confused at times, because they say that our idea of past lives are sort of more than our ideas of linearity and time, which they say were not understanding, you know, that are they say everything is happening now. There's only now there's the universal now. And the time is a construct that in some ways we've chosen to learn through, you know, and we claim as a reality. So I don't know what that does to past lives. But you know, I know I've had some because I remember some and that's about it.
Alex Ferrari 46:09
Now, you've talked about the concept of the kingdom, can you can you go into that a little bit, what is the kingdom?
Paul Selig 46:15
The kingdoms that kind of guide say that kingdom is the realization of the divine in all things in all manifestation. So the guides have said, there is one note song in the entire universe, one tone, and that note is in manifestation is everything else we say? High, Low and in between. And so the realization, which is the knowing of the inherent divine, which is the divine, that's already there, the realization of that is moving towards the kingdom, the kingdom is seeing God as in in all things. And people get thrown by that, because I can't see God in that person. She's awful, or I can't see God in that thing. But what you're seeing is the source of all things, the amount of the source that has manifested as all things, what we've done with that stuff is something other but can be reclaimed. So yeah, that's the kingdom, it's, you know, I've had tastes of it, maybe in my in my experience. But that's where they're bringing their students that was the title of the last book, The kingdom, which is really, when they begin, when they're doing a book, they're unpacking it, they're unpacking the teaching, that can be applied.
Alex Ferrari 47:31
Can you talk a little bit about the book of freedom, and the concepts behind that book?
Paul Selig 47:35
I don't know, I barely, I don't remember it well, and truthfully, after the audiobook is done, I often don't go back to to reread
Alex Ferrari 47:43
Do you channel the audiobook, or is it just,
Paul Selig 47:45
That's me reading from the transcript of the publisher has, when I'm channeling I'm whispering and repeating it's, it's more challenging to listen to, but the audio book is just, you know, the energy is present. I know in the audio books, but it's not. I have the recordings of the channeling. And maybe one day, we'll get those out there. But they're there, they're harder to listen to, I expect, especially when you're driving a car, on your way to work. The the book of freedom, it's, it's funny, it's very much about over the book of freedom, I'm confused with the Book of Truth. Book of freedom, I think is where they're really preparing us for the upper room, which is the release of the ties to what we believe reality is supposed to be in who were supposed to be in it. So the claim I am free, I am free, I am free, which is his own entailment, which you can work with in a palpable way. It's not just saying a bunch of words like a mantra, it's a claim of truth. And the guides say what is true is always true. So the claim is made by the true self or the monad, or whatever you want to call it, that aspect of you that knows itself as a source. That aspect of you is always free because it cannot be you know, it's not it can't be It can't be other than free. And it's the realization of that aspect of self and manifestation that allows you to release in some ways I suspect the obligations to cultural reality, you know, how we think we were supposed to operate within it.
Alex Ferrari 49:28
I mean, I think I always I always talk about this movies. The first time we ever think about reality as a whole was the matrix, which was that film that made the society and as a general start questioning reality, I mean, as a simulation or not simulation, but the concepts of reality were really truly not question in a mass way prior to that movie. Is that a fair statement?
Paul Selig 49:50
I suppose so. I you know, I didn't see it. I tried to I fell asleep. It was on TV. And that's not to knock the movie. It's just my attention span. And I have friends. It's like their favorite movie. So I mean, not not dismissing it. My understanding that reality wasn't what I thought it was, happened when I began to think that maybe there was something like God, which was not part of the reality that I had experienced or known. And if you think of being in a world where there is such a thing, and there is not such a thing there like being on two different planets, really, you know, it's a totally different way of being an experience. I'm not talking about religion, because I'm not religious. Truthfully, I don't, you know, I'm not, I'm not good at that. Um, so that's how that shifted for me, because I began to think that if there is something like God, or whatever that is, nothing is the way that I thought it was. And that just blew my mind. You know, it really I was 25. God, I was a year I do, I was sober. Everybody I knew was dying around me it was the AIDS epidemic was an awful, crazy time. But suddenly, I was opening up to a very different world. And that was hard. And it wasn't easy. And it wasn't sweetness and light and rainbows and crystals, it was none of that it was like, What the hell is this. Because once you begin to be able to feel energy, everything changes, you've got a tangible experience that there is, there is more than what is seen. And that flipped my world upside down. You know, I didn't expect it to happen. And it was very exciting. But it also meant things were not as I had been taught or told. And I do think that that's happening at a larger level. And not all for the best. You know, I think the guides I work with set in this book book of proof. And this was before the 2016 election, I think, right before that they said a lot in that book, but they said something like, everything that's been buried is about to come to the surface. And this if you if you think it's going to base it, it's going to be like imagine that your backyard is under an archeological excavation, things that were buried five days ago, and 5000 years ago, it's all going to come up. And this isn't coming up. So you can point a finger and say, look how terrible with coming up because nothing gets healed until it's seen. Nothing gets transformed until it's brought to the light. So what you put in the basement, they said, you know, if you've got a dead body in the basement, eventually it's going to stink up the whole house, you know, so it's all coming up. And it's good. So pretty much expect expecting to be a messy time. And it has been and continues to be in some ways. But you know, that's part of it all, I suspect.
Alex Ferrari 52:51
Do you have any advice for people who are coming to that same realization that you came to when you were 25? When you start seeing that the things that you thought were real or not real, the ideas and the concepts that you were taught, have been shifted, your whole perspective on life is changing. I agree with you, it is not an easy process. It's a sledgehammer. It's not a soft hand by any stretch. And it's hard for a lot of people and some people reject it. Some people go deeper deeper into the physical and reject that, that it takes longer to come out. What advice do you have?
Paul Selig 53:26
God, it depends on who the call somebody is, you know, right now spirituality feels, in some ways, like it's become fashionable when people look into visit fashion. And I think, you know, that maybe that's a stage and people move through it into something that's got some more depth, or reality. And I think people come to that, when they have to, I don't think many people I know, come to this because life is going so great. You know, it's usually when you're the trapdoor opens, and you go, Oh, my God, what now and you find yourself in some other experience. What I do suspect is helpful is not to make other people wrong. Don't use it as an opportunity for separation and divisiveness, that sort of low level stuff, which is, you know, when I was coming into this stuff, and I was studying energy healing, you know, I would hear things like, well, the Reiki people are all about this and nobody speaks the Barbara Brennan people don't speak to anybody. And this is always in camps. And then my favorite was about channeling I would hear I lived in New York in those days and oh, there's there's a Gabriel teaching on the Upper West Side, but you really want to go to Brooklyn and hear the Michael because that's the really hot one. And I'm thinking this is ridiculous. You know, it's it's just silly and it's spiritual materialism. So I think that people can get caught up in this Need to be special with this, I don't think that was ever helpful. And I think that, you know, in some ways, a willing heart will carry one far, you know, you don't have to make this a big deal, it is a big deal. So just let yourself be in the process. You know, whatever that is, if you're if you're waking up, you know, it's been asleep a long time, it can be kind of startling, but it doesn't have to be bad. Doesn't have to be scary. You know, it can be quite wonderful.
Alex Ferrari 55:32
Yeah, I mean, the concepts of yoga and meditation and even spirituality, you know, 20 years ago is so different than it is today. Yep. Now, let me ask you, do you meditate?
Paul Selig 55:44
No, I should I do. I mean, I don't. But I do. I've gone through periods where I used to, and not a form of meditation, but I was doing a lot of energy work hours a day back when I was developing, and somebody finally taught me TM this year, and I thought I would do it every day, and I don't. So I don't know, it's me, my, my, my failure, I suppose.
Alex Ferrari 56:10
What I find fascinating about you, Paul, is that the work that comes through you is is very profound, and yet you have personal problems with some of the work that comes through you and you have challenges with own work and, and things that it says like, I have to figure this out myself. Like, it's a really fascinating duality within you that thinks through you. You many times don't agree with or have problems with or have to figure out yourself and like, I don't know what they said. It's a fascinating thing. You're not like I am the all powerful guru I am. I know all that's not who you are at all.
Paul Selig 56:47
No. And if anybody is channeling and saying they are I would question the channeling. Correct. Yeah. I mean, what a channel is really, really true channeling is demography. It's dictation, you know, your, you know, word for word, we don't go back and edit the manuscripts and make them better and take out the words that might be misunderstood or offensive. It's just this is what it is, you know, and that's how it came. And I've been fortunate to have publishers who have agreed with that, that we don't get to go back and tamper with it's that's this is it. But I, you know, I have this odd experience, I have been a writer with the worst writer's block of anybody I've ever met in my life. It was a source of tremendous shame for many, many years. I'm not kidding. Yeah, I know. And now I've got 10 books. In 11 years or something a bit. My name is on the cover that I didn't write. But I'm party to it. I'm participatory to the transmission. And I'm grateful for that. But I don't think of it as my work. I don't, you know, I just I can't. And I don't, you know, I questioned the teachings in the teachings I interrupted dictations. And no guides will say, Paul is interrupting, he has a question. And I do that because I, you know, I don't want to be responsible in some ways. If they said, you know, the moon is made of green cheese, I'm going to say, hey, wait a minute, you know, how, how is that so? And they do unpack the teaching, if I am confused, and I hear that helps the readers, but I'm really doing it for my own sense of security, I suppose. And my own desire not to be. And this is important not to be spreading anything that would be confusing or harmful. I don't want to be party to that.
Alex Ferrari 58:44
But you trust the channel enough to know that whatever comes through you is through them. And it is not negative. But absolutely. But if you're confused, you're gonna ask a question.
Paul Selig 58:55
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, they've been wonderfully, wonderfully consistent through me for all these years, you know, it's just, they don't contradict they, they they're teaching in love, they do not teach fear, and they do not override freewill. And those are things that I think are very important.
Alex Ferrari 59:19
In the concept of freewill so much is when you say that they don't, that's again, something I keep hearing again and again, is the free will. If we do come to this incarnation, we do come to this world. You know, certain things are laid out for us like I'm never going to be an NBA player. It's just not it's, it's not going to be in the books, I might want it. And trust me, I wanted to be a Miami Dolphin when I was a kid too. But it didn't work out. So you can go down those directions. But what I found is that if you start going down those directions, you're just gonna get obstacle, obstacle obstacle, it's going to get harder and harder and harder. But when you start going down your true path, doors start opening a lot easier. Is that your experience as well? We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.
Paul Selig 1:00:10
It's my experience. Yes.
Alex Ferrari 1:00:13
Yeah, it goes, you go. It's the exact same things happened for you as well. It's just because Because everyone's like, well, if I had free, well, then I could go be an astronaut. I'm like, Well, I'll try.
Paul Selig 1:00:24
Yeah, but I think when I understand that there's the guides talk a lot about will and grading the will and lots of stuff that they teach. But really, you're making a choice. If I say I want to do this, that's a use of the will of IMO, I want to open up to my own spiritual nature, that's a use of will and high use of well, I suspect, my guides Won't they don't tell people what to do. You know, I'll often say, you know, if I want to walk into traffic, I can walk into traffic, if I say is a good time to treat, they may say, not wise, which means it's still my choice. What if I going to Wi Fi want to live with the ramifications of a ill made choice? I can I can do that. I'll learn through that. No, it's not right and wrong.
Alex Ferrari 1:01:11
Now, I'm going to ask you a couple questions. Ask all my guests. What is What do you believe your mission is here in this life?
Paul Selig 1:01:18
I don't know.
Alex Ferrari 1:01:22
You just do it. You just walk in the wall. You're you're cutting wood and carrying water?
Paul Selig 1:01:25
Pretty much. Right? I do not know.
Alex Ferrari 1:01:29
And why? Why do you think we're here?
Paul Selig 1:01:32
I don't know either. I would say to learn, to experience, to love, to enjoy to realize all the things that being in a body and with other beings and bodies can afford.
Alex Ferrari 1:01:51
And where can people find out more about you your work and your books?
Paul Selig 1:01:55
My website, which is just my name, it's PaulSelig.com. And the books are online and all booksellers and bookstores.
Alex Ferrari 1:02:05
Well, I appreciate you being on the show. I appreciate the work that you do. And and you are a fascinating soul to say that least my friend so I appreciate everything. I appreciate you my friend.
Paul Selig 1:02:16
Thank you for having me I enjoyed it.
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