Origins
The term "indigo children" originated with parapsychologist and self-described synesthete and psychic Nancy Ann Tappe, who developed the concept in the 1970s. Tappe published the book Understanding Your Life Through Color in 1982 describing the concept, stating that during the mid 1960s she began noticing that many children were being born with "indigo" auras (in other publications Tappe said the color indigo came from the "life colors" of the children which she acquired through her synesthesia). The idea was later popularized by the 1998 book The Indigo Children: The New Kids Have Arrived, written by husband and wife self-help lecturers Lee Carroll and Jan Tober. In 2002, an international conference on indigo children was held in Hawaii, drawing 600 attendees, with subsequent conferences the following years in Florida and Oregon. Several films have also been produced on the subject, including two English feature films in 2003 and 2005, and a documentary in 2005 (both the latter were directed by James Twyman, a New Age writer). A 2008 film was released in Russia as well.
Sarah W. Whedon suggests in an 2009 article in Nova Religio that the social construction of indigo children is a response to an "apparent crisis of American childhood" in the form of increased youth violence and diagnoses of attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Whedon believes parents label their children as "indigo" to provide an alternative explanation for their children's improper behavior stemming from ADD and ADHD.
Read more about this topic: Indigo Children
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