Paul Selig – The Book of Knowing and Worth
Jill Mangino: When did you know you had a gift as a channel and an empath?
Paul Selig: I was volunteering at a place called The Manhattan Center for Living in the early 90’s – I had studied a form of energy healing to gain a context for the stuff I was beginning to experience – and found that I could feel in my own body and energy field what was going on in the bodies of my clients. I soon began to “hear” for them, and, as I began to trust the information that was coming through me, I began to open up more. I can’t say that I knew that I was channeling until it was actually happening. I had been a playwright for many years, so the idea of opening up to other voices was not entirely strange to me. However, what was surprising to me was how accurate the transmissions I was receiving were, and how consistent the information and teachings were.
Jill Mangino: You’ve worked in academia for many years. Was it hard for you to come of the metaphysical “closet”?
Paul Selig: A few months ago, my work as a psychic was profiled in New York Magazine. The article led with the line “Paul Selig lives a double life. When he’s not transcending the ordinary plane of perception in order to read other people’s thoughts, he teaches playwriting at NYU.” I’d kept a very low profile at NYU for over 25 years, and was expecting some kind of backlash, which actually never came. I think the world is very different than it was when I first began my work – people are generally more accepting and the reality is, there’s video of me channeling all over the Internet at this point, and not too much I can do about that. Goddard College, where I run the MFA in Creative Writing has known about my metaphysical work since I began teaching there nearly 20 years ago – they’ve been wonderfully supportive, but that’s a school that has an amazing legacy of experimentation and inclusiveness. I think their support, in many ways, was instrumental in my moving my work out into the world.
