Feature

Mystical City

Mark Seltman

A Hands-On Approach

Handy Man: Mark Seltman knows palms.

Mark Seltman looks like a wizard: He’s tall and lanky with a gray ponytail and beard, and although he doesn’t dress up for consultations, he’s not above the occasional purple robe and pointy hat for the public readings he gives at parties and corporate events for people like Martha Stewart (“People don’t realize how hard you work, Martha!”) and the ladies of The View. He actually started out as a successful industrial designer, but he gave up that career to pursue hand reading, which he’d been studying for 25 years. “I was sick of depleting the planet and polluting the environment,” he explains. “I got some consciousness.” His greatest accomplishment occurred when his daughter was born. Her short index finger indicated a tendency toward low self-esteem. Seltman decided on the spot that he would work only from home in order to give her the extra support she would need, and he feels that now, nine years later, she has avoided this fate and the topography of her palm has actually changed.

Philosophy: “I like to think I’m fast-forwarding my clients toward self-awareness. You still have to do the work.”

What to expect: Private readings are held in Seltman’s incredibly tidy East Village railroad apartment, where the organic foods and world-music cassettes are alphabetized neatly in shelves reaching to the ceiling. Don’t look for prophesies; Seltman doesn’t believe in them. He just likes to help his clients understand themselves better.

111 East 7th Street, No. 72 (212-777-0540)

Cost: $250 for a reading.