Pseudoscience: Indigo Children

The theory of indigo children is a belief that we are currently witnessing the creation of the next step of evolution in our present generation of young children. Select members of this generation are believed to have innate abilities that subtly separate these children from the course of human evolution, such as an uncanny sense of intuition, empathy and sense of entitlement. One of the founders of this theory claims to have observed an unusual magenta aura permeating the bodies of these children's which is the source of the popular name of the belief, indigo children. Critics of the theory often put forth that the movement is simply taking advantage of a parent's natural instinct to believe that their child is a particularly special individual that has a purpose on earth that is greater than that of the average individual. Others believe that most of the traits that are attributed to indigo children are simply the symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a controversial diagnosis that is not without critics of its own.

The concept of indigo children originated during the 1970's through the writings of parapsychologist and synetheste Nancy Anne Tappe. Tappe initially explained that she had noticed the unusual indigo auras on children that were born during the 1960's through color synthesia, an involuntary perception of color caused by the stimulation of a non-visual sensory or cognitive pathway. As the interest in indigo children progressed, these young people were observed to have a very specific set of characteristics, including a particularly strong will and sense of self, clear sense of purpose in the world, high amount of intelligence and a certain sense of deserving to exist. Proponents of the indigo children theory argued that such children were and are the next step in the evolution of mankind and that their unique characteristics made them particularly unsuitable for education in a traditional reward versus punishment academic setting.

Later, Tappe and Lee Carroll authored a book titled The Indigo Children that put forth the argument that young individuals who were diagnosed with ADHD were actually members of the genetically supercharged indigo children generation. While this assertion garnered the attention of many parents and other individuals who had misgivings of the mass prescriptions of psychoactive pharmaceuticals to school age children for a condition that has symptoms so closely resembling that of childhood itself, many others pointed out that the indigo children theory seemed a particularly convenient response to an unfortunate diagnosis of a mental condition that few parents would be comfortable with accepting. As Carroll stated in response to the controversy "who wouldn't rather believe their children and special for some high mission rather than they have a mental disorder."

Sources:

http://www.indigochild.com/

http://www.innerself.com/Parenting/indigo_children.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_children

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia