Here's a fascinating interview conducted by Andy Zaremba of Vancouver Real with Paul Selig, who has learned to listen to the voice or voices of what he calls "the Guides" and to convey the message of what he hears for the benefit of others.
Below is an audio version of the same interview, if you prefer (as I often do) to listen while driving, while taking a walk, or while doing a task such as washing dishes:
As you listen to the interview, you will at times hear Paul beginning to hear the Guides and repeating their message verbally, with the words sometimes coming through so rapidly that it is almost impossible to distinguish the words, which he will then repeat at a more conversational rate for the benefit of the listener.
Where are these messages coming from?
It would seem that the words are coming so fast and yet with a meaning so coherent that it is difficult to imagine that they are the product of Paul's conscious mind. Having listened to the interview more than once, I would suggest that Paul has either become capable of hearing and repeating messages from his subconscious mind or capable of hearing and repeating messages from outside of his own mind entirely (from what the world's ancient myths and sacred stories refer to in various ways, as the Other Realm, the Invisible Realm, the realm of the gods).
Does it matter whether these messages are coming from the subconscious or from another realm?
I would argue that this distinction is actually not very meaningful, since we don't really even know "where" the concept we call "mind" actually resides.
The question of whether these messages are coming from "within" Paul's mind or from "outside" of it will primarily be of interest to those individuals who want to deny the possibility of the existence of anything outside of the material plane of existence, those committed (at an ideological level) to the categorical rejection of even the possibility that anything might exist outside of the realm of matter.
Those committed to such a dogmatic position will reflexively deny any explanation which leaves open the possibility of anything which operates beyond the laws of physics which help us to explain the operation of matter in the physical universe. Those committed to the doctrines of materialism to such a degree will often claim that even the barest admission of the possibility that anything could operate on a non-physical level would undermine everything we know about physics and shatter any scientific progress that has been made in understanding the way matter operates, which is actually false and quite an illogical position to take.
It is particularly illogical in light of the fact that overwhelming evidence has demonstrated that the phenomenon we refer to as "consciousness" cannot be explained as being generated by physical, chemical, mechanical interactions in the structures of the body alone, and indeed overwhelming evidence suggesting that consciousness appears to operate and reside in some sense "outside of" or "beyond" the physical structures of the body. Two previous posts touching on just a tiny sliver of the evidence for the ability of consciousness or "mind" to transcend the physical limitations of the body include "The ideology of materialism" and "Crazy for the Storm, and the inner connection to the Infinite."
Even if we want to argue that the messages Paul is receiving are coming from his subconscious mind, we should by no means discount the power of the subconscious to perceive and to know things which completely escape our conscious mind -- and the ability to listen to what is already present in our subconscious would be potent and life-changing.
In addition, our subconscious (if that's what we want to call it) seems to at times have the ability to tap into knowledge which, by the strict laws of physics, would be beyond what could be gathered through the five physical senses of sight, hearing, taste, scent, and touch -- such as when we receive a premonition regarding a family member or loved one who is far away (a phenomenon which has been documented so many times that it cannot be dismissed as simply a coincidence or an illusion).
Thus, I would argue that whether we want to say these messages are coming from "the subconscious" or from "the realm of the gods" is actually immaterial. It might be more accurate to say that we make contact with the realm of the gods through our subconscious -- and that any technique or practice which enables us to tap into that source of information, whether that technique is clairaudience, meditation, or any of the numerous ways of entering into a shamanic trance state which have been practiced in all cultures around the globe for millennia, should be considered valid, particularly if it provides access to the unbelievable power of the subconscious mind, and through it the divine realm.
While I am convinced that certain individuals appear to have a specific gift giving them special levels of access to the hidden realm, the Other Realm, it is also quite certain that every one of us has a subconscious -- and thus access to realms of knowing that are beyond what we normally perceive with our conscious mind. I myself have had many occasions while thinking about a particular myth when I went to bed thinking about a certain question or problem, and woke up with the solution the next morning (insights into a myth and its meaning often far beyond where I had finished the night before) -- a solution which clearly could not have been delivered to me by my conscious mind (which was not operating while I was asleep) but rather by the subconscious.
So, I myself don't really get hung up over the question of whether the Guides that Paul is channeling are "outside of" his own mind or not: I certainly do not think the channeled messages are the product of his conscious mind, and if we want to say that they are coming from his subconscious mind, I would say that the subconscious mind is incredibly powerful and that the subconscious mind appears to have access to information beyond what can even be gathered by the physical senses -- which means that it appears to be in contact with the realm of the gods, and to be a channel through which the gods can make contact with men and women.
Materialist science at this point cannot even tell us where consciousness resides or how it arises, and thus if a materialist feels more comfortable saying that these messages come from the subconscious mind, that's pretty much the same thing as saying that they come from the realm of the gods, in my opinion.
Wherever the messages are coming from, the things Paul is relaying in some of the things he has heard, and which he discusses in the above interview, appear to me to be very much in accordance with many of the central themes of the messages conveyed by the world's ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories -- such as the reality and existence of a Higher Self (or, as Paul refers to it, "the True Self") with whom we can become more attuned during this incarnate life, helping to free ourselves from our own self-imposed (or societally-imposed) limitations on what we can actually accomplish and what we should be accomplishing.
Beginning at approximately the 0:59:00 mark in the interview, in response to a question from Andy about how we can go into the unknown if we don't know what's possible, Paul says:
Well that's because the "small self" knows itself through history. And the Guides say again and again, you know, nothing can be claimed until it's first a possibility. So the example that they've used fairly often, you know, when they teach, is that we're always "ordering off of the menu of what we think we can have." Now, you know: clairaudience wasn't on my menu when it showed up -- it really didn't exist: I didn't think in those terms -- it was an odd thing, and I had to understand it, through the experience with it in an ongoing way. But it exists! And it can be had. And there are people who come to the workshop sometimes, and they're opening up psychically after the fact, and perhaps only because, you know, they're with somebody who says, "You know, this is possible." And suddenly it "becomes" possible. It's always been possible, but it's been unclaimed. So imagine, you know, you're going to the Thai restaurant, and all of a sudden you want the pasta, you know, you want the meatballs. You assume you can't have it. But you don't know: I mean, there may be a whole other menu that's available to you, and to all of us, of potential, that we haven't begun to claim.A little while later in this same part of the discussion, Andy asks if it is when we begin to align with our True Self that other possibilities begin to open up for us?
Paul responds:
I get: "Yes!" Absolutely: because you're not limiting yourself to what you've had.This would appear to be some very important wisdom to contemplate carefully.
An example from ancient myth which comes to mind (to me) might be the situation we see in the Odyssey, Book Five -- when we are first introduced to Odysseus in person, and find him languishing on the island of Ogygia, in the middle of a trackless ocean, a prisoner of the nymph Calypso. He is stuck in the same place that he has been stuck for many years, seemingly unable to move forward or to go back, tormented by the knowledge that he has something else he should be doing (namely, being a husband to his wife Penelope, and being a father to his son Telemachos, as well as civic responsibilities he should be performing as the king of the island of Ithaca).
What changes?
A message comes from the gods, delivered by divine Hermes, and Calypso releases Odysseus and tells him he can go home. In other words, the ancient myths themselves illustrate to us a situation in which breaking out of being stuck takes place as a message from the divine realm "puts an option on the menu" which previously seemed impossible.
Thus begin the memorable adventures of Odysseus on his journey home recounted in that ancient epic, during which time and time again Odysseus himself admits that he would certainly have perished, had he not been attuned at certain critical points to the voice of the gods (particularly the goddess Athena, and also on occasion Hermes). Indeed, it can be argued that one of the things which distinguishes Odysseus from all others in that epic is his willingness to be attuned to the messages from the divine realm and to listen to what they are saying to him.
Thus, the Odyssey can quite convincingly be argued to show to us that each and every one of us needs to be attuned, like Odysseus, to the messages from the gods (or, if you prefer, from the subconscious, which I personally would argue is a conduit for the divine realm, but which at the very least has access to information and knowledge far deeper than that available at the superficial levels on which we usually operate and upon which we often base our decisions and our actions).
How can we listen more regularly to our subconscious -- and perhaps to messages coming from that realm of the gods to which Odysseus was listening?
I would suggest that one way is through regular practices which help us to tune down the constant scurrying and chattering of the conscious mind and to spend time with our subconscious, such as through various types of meditation, or through shamanic drumming, or the repetition of mantras, or chanting, or through many of the other disciplines which men and women have used for millennia for this very purpose.
I would also recommend considering the important concepts Peter Kingsley explores in his amazing book In the Dark Places of Wisdom, some of which I discuss in a recent video here.
And, if you want to learn more about Paul Selig and his means of listening to the messages from the Guides, you can check out one of his workshops, one of which is coming up in Vancouver on February 23 and 24.
Finally, I would suggest regularly spending time with the world's ancient myths, which by their very nature (as stories) speak more directly to our subconscious than to our conscious mind -- and may well have been designed to help us to see beyond the menu of what we previously believed possible.
