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Diaryland
Special Children and New Age Movements March 14, 2006 @ 2:19 p.m.
----Original Message Follows----
Hi David,
Thanks for sending the article on Indigo Children. I read it all. I am
curious what you thought about it?
_________________________________
Hello Bob. Somebody posted a bunch of stuff about Indigo children on my web
group a couple of years ago, so I had some familiarity with it before
reading the article. It is a much more widespread phenomenon and movement
now than it was then. I have not seen the movies or read any of the books
about it. In my opinion, there is some truth to a lot of what they say.
There is a kind of evolution going on, though not in a traditional Darwinian
sense. More of the evolution now is in people's perceptions, philosophies
and the way they respond to things, although there may be some physiological
evolution which would equip people better for a more holistic society going
on as well. Along with these changes, there are major differences in
perspective and outlook with the incoming generations - and as they said,
one of the big things is they are much more holistically minded (not
necessarily in a traditional, institutionally religious way though, or in a
New Age, spiritually fluffy manner either).
That being said, I have major concerns about these various organizations and
enterprises and their approach to said changes. It reminds me a lot of the
kind of misguided thinking I saw when I was in Novus Spiritus. The first
major mistake is that they are already beginning to idolize these kids,
which is really unhealthy both for the followers and leaders of these
movements and for the kids themselves. Yes, I do think parents can always
learn things from their children, and that often kids have a wisdom which
their parents lack, have forgotten or have suppressed. However, the kids
need the parental support and discipline too!
Having your parents be made impotent in your eyes and told you are superior
to them can have drastically negative effects on a kid's psychology. I know
this from my own experience - my dad often told me when I and his brothers
(my uncles) were smarter than he ever would be and that we could accomplish
a lot more than him. He may have been trying to compliment and inspire me,
but it bewildered and even hurt me in a way that's difficult to explain. It
was kind of like he undercut my faith in him and in his love, support and
wisdom. I notice, thinking back now, that for most of my childhood I didn't
take him very seriously in many ways because of this - I got to
unconsciously thinking that unless I wanted to talk science, politics or
scouting, or I needed money for something, there was no reason to spend time
with him. It may even have had an effect on my own way of relating and being
intimate with others now that I think about it, but I don't want to blame my
dad too much. In my opinion, one of the injustices of life on Earth is that
parents, no matter how good their intentions, have far too much power and
oppertunity to affect their children. In the past, I've been told by fundies
to blame my sexual orientation on my parents, and I dont' think that's fair.
If there is a behavioral component to what forms such things, than I am as
much to blame for avoiding and writing off my parents as they are for their
roles. And in fact, for a long time I did blame myself for somehow having
'perverted' my own desires.
Anyway, getting back to the 'indigo brats', inappropriately sticking them on
a stool can create a lot of problems for them. In addition to the examples
above from my own life, they can be spoiled on many levels and exhibit
arrogance and conceit. Worse yet, they may become quite cruel in punishing
those who won't given them their "due honors". And on an internal level,
like myself, they can become perfectionists, fearing to make mistakes and
beating themselves up when they do because the gigantic expectations others
have of them (which they internalize) are unreasonable.
The parents and other followers who get wrapped up in these movements do so
because they directly address deep and continuing problems that have become
holes in their lives, which no one else has been able to deal with. The
problem is that such group and philosophies provide deceptively easy answers
to such situations, and the inevitable result is dogma which will provide
pain and ostracism when the answers given turn out not to be sufficient. The
parents and the children will have invested so much emotion and spirit into
the philosophies and lifestyles of the group that when problems do arise,
they will not be properly equipped to handle them and will painfully
suppress inner and outer dissertion in order to cling to the identity and
security of the group.
The leaders of such movements are not immune either. Like the kids, they
develop big egos, and they are also prone to fiscal spoiling and martyr
complexes. For example, they may say and teach a message of transcendence
and salvation, but when it comes to the bottom line they will fall back to
old patterns. One thing I notice is that with such New Age groups, their
desire to reach out to lots of people and be somewhat evangelical ends up
corrupting them, because they begin to prefer quantity to quality. Having to
reach the maximum number of people and distill the message as far as
possible (without providing everything else necessary for spiritual
maturation that comes AFTER the 'good news'), they will begin to be
corrupted by political and economic forces. They will inevitably develop a
hierarchical leadership (being that such dictatorships are the most
efficient for crusades, regardless of whether they are military or
ideological) and an overdependence on material resources like money. Because
as many people as possible have to hear the message, as many people as
involved will have to pay enormous sums of money to receive anything more
than the very basics of the teachings. Eventually, these groups will either
become ingrained and petrified institutions that have lost the soul of their
teachings, or they will starve from lack of support. This has been going on
for thousands of years - its an old story.
With the Indigo Children movement specifically, I think the article was very
insightful in drawing the connection to the problem of attention with
children and the barbaric way we deal with them in this country. Its very
interesting to me that at the same time this story is coming out, we are
hearing more outcry about Ritalinizing our kids than ever before. There were
several articles that came out this week about the political battles
starting to be waged, and also about science beginning to discover the
negative effects of the drugs on the kids that weren't anticipated. And of
course, the underlying problem with this whole ADD/ADHD thing is that we
have crappy schools that can neither inspire, teach or discipline the kids.
Of course, that will probably be acknowledged last because no one wants to
face the music when it comes to the fact that there are a lot of sick and
elitist philosophies justifying the current poverty in the public school
system.
Phew... see what happens when you ask for my opinion? :) I'll talk to you
more later.
David
"Details in the Fabric" - May 31, 2009
Not So Quick Questions - April 6, 2009
The Morning Stars - Lords of the 15 - April 9, 2009
Sincerity and Faith in Magic - April 10, 2009
Not So Quick Questions (2) - April 14, 2009
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