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About the Movie "Indigo"
by P.M.H. Atwater
During the last week of January 2005, the movie Indigo was the 17th highest grossing
film in America. A "home-grown," low-budget flick, it is part of a new
movement throughout our country for Spiritual Cinema, movies that extol and uplift
the human spirit in positive, transformative ways. There have been other such films,
like The Notebook, but this is the first from the collaborative effort of James Twyman,
Neale Donald Walsch and Stephen Simon -- all luminaries in the publishing and entertainment
industries.
I enjoyed the film. Many did not, complaining about the poor acting and trite script,
and the over-blown self-promotion of Twyman/Walsch/Simon in a lengthy clip that preceded
the movie. True. But what the complainers miss is the message that underlies the
film: that children today are different; that their desire for peace and reconciliation
are worth listening to. This message, in a world gripped by terrorists and war, drug
lords and earth changes of biblical proportions, strikes at the heart of each person
and each family.
Where I fault the film is the sensationalization of the label "Indigo."
The new children have been variously described as Indigos (because of the supposed
color of their auras), Star Kids (because of their purported origination from other
worlds), Crystal Children (because some say they are highly developed), and so forth.
None of these claims hold up as stated with research, whether through scientific
observation or by studying mystical/esoteric traditions or through summarizing visionary
revelations. The label "Indigo," plus the others, are now subject to serious
challenge.
Professionals in the field of child development and education, parents and even the
kids themselves are having problems with the idea that certain character traits are
the province of so-called "Indigos," when, in fact, the majority of today's
children match those traits -- without evidencing anything like a purple aura, being
a hybrid from another planet or possessing "god-like" wisdom.
Children born since 1982 really are different, like no other generation of record.
If the movie "Indigo" makes this point and no other, it has done the world
a favor. Hopefully it will help to engender an overall transformation in how we regard
and teach children. Surely it will inspire a forum whereby the children themselves
can speak and be heard...for our youngest citizens truly have something important
to say that is worth hearing.
Already, though, I'm seeing the opposite, the "bandwagon" approach to sales
and marketing: books extolling what respected mystics and psychics once had to say
about "Indigos," when nothing of that sort was ever uttered; music just
for Indigos; and Indigo camps, schools, literature, classes, toys, websites and business
logos. The hype is already deafening and it's just started. Far too many people,
most of them well-meaning, are exploiting the very children we seek to celebrate.
Claims that have been proven false are now accepted as gospel by an adoring public
unwilling to question or verify. The affect this has on children is unfortunate.
We can learn something here from psychologists: There are so many learning disorders
present today in the younger population that professionals no longer use labels to
describe them -- the various disorders are simply called "quirks" and the
youngsters who have them, "quirky kids." I suggest that we call those born
since 1982 the "new" children. That's generic enough, and it covers the
territory without going to extremes or creating exclusive "clubs" of specialness.
In my research of near-death experiencers than spans over 26 years, I've discovered
that the new children are a lot like any child who has had a near-death experience.
We can take a clue from this -- refer to The New Children and Near-Death Experiences
(Inner Traditions). Other excellent books about the new children are: The Biology
of Transcendence, by Joseph Chilton Pearce (Park Street Press), The Secret Spiritual
World of Children, by Tobin Hart, Ph.D. (Inner Ocean Publishing) and Upside-Down
Brilliance, by Linda Kreger Silverman (Deleon Publishing)
My study of these children in relation to our changing world and the tradition of
prophecy comes out this fall from Inner Traditions, entitled Beyond the Indigo Children:
The New Children and the Coming of The Fifth World.
P.M.H. Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D. (Hon.) is an international authority on near-death
states, as well as a near-death experiencer. She is one of the original researchers
in the field of near-death studies, having begun her work in 1978. Her first two
books, Coming Back to Life and Beyond the Light, are deemed "the bibles"
of the near-death experience by thousands of experiencers. She also authored five
other books on near-death experiences: Future Memory, Children of the New Millennium,
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Near-Death Experiences (with David Morgan), The New
Children and Near-Death Experiences, and her latest book, We Live Forever: The Real
Truth About Death (due for release May 2004). Visit www.pmhatwater.com or e-mail
atwater@cinemind.com
Copyright © 2005 P.M.H. Atwater. All rights reserved. |
| May 2005 |
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