OCCULT THEMES
New Age Trend: Indigo Children
and 'Spiritual Cinema'
By Carrie Tomko, Natalie Khorochev,
and Marylin Mai
ASSIST News Service
CBN.com
– HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) -- A growing
phenomenon in today’s cinematic landscape is a genre of
film centered around spiritual—though not biblical—themes.
Recent box office hits indicate that movie audiences are increasingly
interested in films that contain more than the romantic comedy
and action formulas that have come to dominate our screens. Stephen
Simon, producer of Somewhere in Time and What Dreams
May Come, has taken note of this trend and spearheaded a
movement bent on providing more movies in this thread, which Simon
calls “Spiritual Cinema.”
In an interview for The Journal Gazette, Simon indicated that
he “grew disillusioned with the lack of spiritually potent
films being made in Tinseltown.” This disillusionment spurred
Simon to explore and develop his ideas of spiritually-centered
cinema.
Stephen Simon’s most recent project was Indigo,
a movie he produced and directed about a psychic child with the
ability to heal. Released January 29, 2005, Indigo was shown in
AMC theaters and Unity Churches worldwide and received the Audience
Choice Award at the Santa Fe Film Festival this past January.
The cast of Indigo includes New Age luminary Neale Donald Walsch,
who also co-authored the script. Subsequently, Simon and Walsch
are teaming up to make a second spiritual movie based on Walsch’s
bestselling book, Conversations with God.
It is important to understand that “spiritual” in
Simon’s sense of the word does not mean Christian. In an
online review of Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of
the Christ, Simon stated:
I must also say that the entire film seemed like the dying
gasp of an old ultra-religious paradigm that is slowly fading
into oblivion. I had the distinct feeling that I was watching
the symbolic conclusion to 2000 years of human history that,
in the West, has been dominated by the Catholic Church. If,
in fact, that turns out in the future to have been true, then
Gibson has indeed ushered out this chapter of history in a blaze
o’gory.
Rather, Stephen Simon, who is also the co-founder and president
of the Institute for Spiritual Entertainment, has a vision for
using the word “spiritual” to identify this new wave
of entertainment that “nurtures creativity, ignites the
imagination, and awakens the sacred within [and is] focused upon
the rediscovery of inner wisdom and divine power.”
Characteristics of the Indigo Child
In the mid 1970s, while researching the colors of the human aura
and their possible meaning and effects, Nancy Ann Tappe, teacher,
counselor, psychic and synesthetic, identified a deep blue aura
color she coined “Indigo.” By the 1980s it was recognized
in 80% of the children she saw based on a set of human attributes
and behavior patterns that correlated to this particular hue of
their aura.
According to Tappe,
The Indigo phenomenon has been recognized as one of the most
exciting changes in human nature ever documented in society. The
Indigo label describes the energy pattern of human behavior which
exists in over 95% of the children born in the last 10 years.
As small children, Indigo’s are easy to recognize by their
unusually large, clear eyes. Extremely bright, precocious children
with an amazing memory and a strong desire to live instinctively,
these children of the next millennium are sensitive, gifted souls
with an evolved consciousness who have come here to help change
the vibrations of our lives and create one land, one globe and
one species. They are our bridge to the future.
Indigo Children have indeed become the current generation as
described by Wendy Chapman, director of Metagifted.Org, who also
claims to be an Indigo adult:
They are different. They have very unique characteristics that
set them apart from previous generations of children. The name
itself indicates the Life Color they carry in their auras and
is indicative of the Third Eye Chakra, which represents intuition
and psychic ability.
A close look at a website dedicated to “Indigo, The Symbol
of Hope” reveals that the external characteristics of these
children are fairly disruptive in nature. They “get bored
easily with assigned tasks” and “are easily distracted.”
They also “have difficulty with discipline and authority”
and “often express anger outwardly.” Meanwhile, internal
traits are ambiguous, and difficult if not impossible to diagnose
or prove. For instance, children either “have strong empathy
for others or NO empathy,” or “have an obvious sense
of self,” “display strong intuition,” and “know
they belong here.” (I can think of very few children who
are convinced that they belong somewhere else.)
What this concept of Indigo Children seems to do is provide justification
for society’s declining investment and involvement in a
healthy, positive upbringing of our children. It is no coincidence
that many of the disruptive traits outlined here are the same
traits that sociologists have identified in the children of this
generation, who get little positive attention from their parents
and instead demand reparation in the form of gadgets and toys.
Furthermore, it is undeniable that we as a society are failing
to provide children with the moral foundation they need, which
stems from a firm, family-based upbringing. Even sociologists
who decry the “family values” of the 1950s as well
as the concept of Biblical parenting admit that those values have
proven to be more successful than the permissive parenting that
today’s culture insists upon. What the Indigo culture does,
instead of acknowledging these trends, is try to justify this
retrogression by claiming that these disruptive children are not
spoiled, but rather are “here to change the world.”
What is convenient about these ideas, and also works well with
the nebulous descriptions of these children, is that they provide
a tempting ideology for parents to buy into, especially if they
are already experiencing guilt about their child-raising. Now,
instead of confronting the possibility that their lack of investment
in their children has resulted in problematic behavior, they can
believe that their children are simply “extremely bright”
but “misunderstood,” and that they wield power from
an “evolved consciousness.” Not a bad turn of events
for people such as Dr. Chapman, who pulls in a healthy $75 an
hour for a mere phone consultation.
As this Indigo Child movement gains momentum, it becomes clear
that its supporters not only ask people to encourage and magnify
these children, but to allow them a place in our lives as masters.
Twyman features a prayer for the Indigo Children on his website:
We are all the Children of Light, and we offer ourselves to
the greater service of humanity, knowing that Peace Prevails
on Earth through each one of us. We thank the spiritual masters
that we know as our children for having the courage to come
to the planet at this time to offer their gifts, knowing that
we are one with them. As we focus on this oneness, the Light
increases and we initiate a world of compassion and peace. Together
with the children we SEE the world as healed, and we allow this
vision to take root all around us. Bless the children who have
come to lead us into the new world.
It is impossible that any possible good can come from reverencing
our children as gurus and masters, yet that clearly seems to be
the proposal here.
Educating Indigo Children
Those who desire to foster the development of Indigo Children
recommend schools like Montessori, Waldorf, and a number of charter
schools. The Waldorf School system uses the educational methods
pioneered by Rosicrucian clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner. They stress
creativity and downplay regimentation.
However, some background research into the curriculum of the
Waldorf schools reveals that the school and the religion are inseparable.
Roy Wilkinson, in Rudolf Steiner on Education: A Compendium explains:
In the child we have before us [is] a being who has only recently
left the divine world. In due course, still at a tender age,
he comes to school and it is the teacher’s task to help
to guide him into earthly existence. The teacher is therefore
performing a priestly office. He is mediating between heaven
and earth, i.e. seeking to harmonize a soul-spiritual being
with a physical body.
Waldorf schools may not teach the word “anthroposophy,”
but the curriculum is formed out of a worldview that follows its
course. As a result, schools like Waldorf are meant to encourage
these Indigo Children in the pursuit of reincarnation, clairvoyance,
and their supposed divinity.
Overtones of the Occult
Embedded in this ideology formed and proliferated by people such
as Twyman, Simon, Walsh, and Cayce are dangerous leanings toward
the divinity of man and the occult. Chapman, the Indigo Children
counselor, also has interests in tarot, channeling, and psychic
abilities. Furthermore, the Indigo Children Section Index features
an interesting symbol – the Eye of Horus, which traditionally
symbolizes the Egyptian Sun God Ra but has also been associated
with alternate religions ranging from Satanism and the Masonic
Lodge to Mormonism.
Spreading the Word
Since the release in 2005, advocates of the film Indigo and the
Indigo Children movement continue to work toward developing a
wider audience. Indigo has been released to DVD, and the official
website encourages people to host viewings of the movie in areas
where the film is not yet offered.
On January 29, 2005, tens of thousands of people gathered at
100 different AMC theaters and 600 churches and additional venues
to watch screenings of the film, followed by a video segment by
James Twyman and Doreen Virtue. Twyman encouraged those who were
unable to participate in the event to “please set aside
some time during the day to focus on the Indigo Children and send
them your prayers. Many of these children are sensitive enough
to feel the energy we are sending their way, and believe this
will offer them a strong energetic foundation to take their mission
to the next level.”
In Conclusion
Apart from influencing members of the general public, could the
Spiritual Cinema Circle also draw in believing Christians? It
certainly appears to have the potential to do so, since many churches
have already participated in the 700 screening locations offered
for World Indigo Day.
There is an added hook. The temptation for parents to see their
children as “brilliant” and “independent”
is natural, especially if it lessens the pressure and guilt they
are already feeling as they juggle between career and children.
But the certain erosion of their parental authority is a costly
trade-off in this illusory bargain.
The glorification of their children to assuage guilt will prove
disastrous in the end and will show that the Indigo phenomenon
is an especially toxic stream to emerge from the New Age movement.
It can only poison what it touches, starting with the family as
New Agers once again abandon all common sense.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared in the
Spiritual Counterfeits Project Newsletter 29-3. It is reprinted
by permission.
For endnotes and documentation, please see our website at www.scp-inc.org.
About SCP, the Spiritual Counterfeits Project
SCP is one of the foremost apologetics and culture watching organizations
in America, now passing the 30-year mark. In the heart of Berkeley,
California, SCP has garnered over nine EPA awards, four for first
place. To Subscribe: call SCP at 510-540-0300 or visit the SCP
web site with secure ordering at www.scp-inc.org.
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