In the mid-70s, a supernatural idea was born from a self-proclaimed synesthete (someone who reads people’s auras to tell them of their personalities) named Nancy Ann Toppe called “indigo children.” According to her, this was a new wave of highly spiritually evolved souls reincarnating on Earth born with the purpose of starting a spiritual evolution for all humans. She identified them through their indigo aura, which she observed more and more child clients having. The concept was further developed by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, and then gained some mainstream popularity in the 2000s by a popular psychic Doreen Virtue in her book The Care and Feeding of Indigo Children. Some celebrities began to use the phrase to describe themselves or their children, like Will Smith’s children for example. So what are the unique traits differentiating indigo children from their ordinary counterparts? The first chapter of Doreen’s book lays it out with a list of indigo symptoms: strong-willed, born in 1978 or later, headstrong, creative, prone to addictions, an “old soul”, intuitive or psychic, tendency to isolate, independent and proud, possesses a deep desire to help the world in a big way, wavers between low self-esteem and grandiosity, easily bored, diagnosed with ADD, prone to insomnia or nightmares, history of depression, looks for real friendships only, and easily bonds with other non-human living things (Virtue, p. 22). If somebody checks off at least 14 of the above 17 characteristics, then that person is in fact an indigo. This claim is certainly extraordinary because if proven to be true then it would change the fabric of understanding how the universe works. For one, that would prove that there is more beyond this Earthly plane and that souls do exist. The term “indigo” came from the indigo-like auras around these children, as purported by Nancy Ann Tappe. Indigo is the color of the third-eye chakra, which deals with all other abilities beyond the ordinary – psychic intuition, clairvoyance and out-of-body experiences. It is not the responsibility of the nonbeliever to convince us that such auras exist and that there is a color trend among a particular group of children to young adults. The burden of proof is on these parents and the respective authority figures of indigo children literature.

To Doreen Virtue’s benefit, she did include scientific research in her book to back some of her claims. For example, talking about the belief that indigo children have psychic abilities,  she actually cites an Ohio State sociology professor’s research – “William MacDonald at the University of Ohio [presumably she meant OSU] found that children had the highest number of verifiable psychic experiences, compared to other age groups” (Virtue, p. 34). It does turn out that this was a legitimate survey done by him in 1995. She mentions a lot about what she sees as the correlation between attention deficit issues and being spiritually evolved. A Washington Post article does state that there has been a significant increase in children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD – about a ten percent rise in the last 20 years. However, one explanation of this could be that the criteria for ADD has changed or at least been more well known in the last two decades. A young girl who could have had ADD symptoms in 1975 may not have been targeted by her teachers or parents to investigate it, due to lack of knowledge it. Today, ADD/ADHD is commonly spoken of on mainstream television and between parents or schools. Even with these scientific studies that Doreen purports to go with her views, none of them give definitive proof of the existence of indigo children or more precisely that these children who exhibit these certain traits all have indigo auras. The scientific evidence to work against belief hardly exists because there isn’t really a clear way of falsifying this belief. That said, like Carl’s Dragon, this belief may not be a belief at all since it can’t be argued against. There are definitely societal contributions to this belief system. The biggest one I see here is the apparent disdain or at least distrust of the pharmaceutical and food industries in regards to what products children are ingesting. The perceived uniqueness of indigo children and the concept’s approach of straying from medications to treat autism and ADHD have created narratives in which “Big Pharma” is seen as a conspiring giant to create disorders and harm children further with their damaging vaccinations and harmful, body-altering medications. These parents are not wrong to think that greed and shadiness may play a role in prescriptions getting on the market with biased supportive research. Same goes from the food industry, where genetically-modified foods have been shown to bring about new allergies or illnesses to those that eat them.

This belief system of indigo children may very well have transpired and taken off in popularity from the amount of overly concerned parents are to protect their children from what they perceive as evil, opposing forces. Although there isn’t one cohesive group in person or online that each follower is a part of, there are large enough Facebook groups dedicated to the cause of raising an indigo children such as the “Indigo Children Group” with 95 likes or the “Indigo, Crystal, Rainbows, Starseeds, lightworker support group” which has over 12,000 likes. Looking at those group pages, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of activism or any specific concerns reported. Rather, a lot of the content is inspirational quotes and guides for healing, etc. I’m sure if I looked more extensively though I would find community posts about the dangers of GMO foods or why vaccination is wrong. All in all, there are 17 characteristics of an indigo set out by Doreen Virtue, wherein if a child has 14 of them then they are an indigo. Believers think these children were sent here in this carnation on Earth to bring about spiritual evolution to all humans, through dismantling current power structures that are harmful from government to medicine to the food industry. These children are special because they possess personalities and psychic abilities that are unusual but uplifting. These specific traits can be misconstrued in the eyes of medical professionals as having ADHD or autism. Parents’ believe indigo children do not need medication or even to be diagnosed because they are instead simply made of things beyond this Earthly plane and should be treated as extraordinarily.

Works Cited
Strauss, Valerie. “The Huge Issue That Most Autism Research Funding Ignores.” The
Washington Post, WP Company, 14 Dec. 2018,
www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/12/13/huge-issue-that-most-funding-autism-researchignores/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.94b20611aa3e.
Virtue, Doreen. The Care and Feeding of Indigo Children. Hay House, 2006.

The second belief I chose to investigate is the spiritual phenomenon “Abraham Hicks”. It’s not so much one belief as a set of core beliefs. It all came about when a women named Esther Hicks began meditation and supposedly began to be possessed by a spirit known as Abraham Hicks. With her husband dictating what the spirit said, Abraham Hicks began to speak on the wonders of the universe and their main laws. The first law, and arguably the most popular, is the Law of Attraction. According to this law, simply how you are feeling or thinking most strongly is what you attract. For example, if you worry that you will get sick and you put majority of your energy in this fear, you will attract sickness. The second law is this Science of Deliberate Creation, in which what you give thought to be what you believe and therefore should expect to show up in your life. Similar to the first law, it says that every person can deliberately alter their lives by their wishes with enough gusto of mind. The third law is the Art of Allowing, in which the saying “I am that which I am, and I am willing to allow all others to be that which they are” comes into play. It seems this law would lead someone to treat others fairly and without competition, because it is the belief that everyone is entitled to be allowed to do as they wish.

Esther Hicks has wrote a series of books in her time since channeling this interdimensional angelic entity known as Abraham Hicks. Their first book, “Ask and It Is Given”, was first published in 2004. This is a relatively new phenomenon then by other’s standards, but nevertheless these ideas have picked up momentum in these two decades. One effort that brought this book into a larger audience was through the documentary “The Secret” that came out in 2006. Esther Hicks appeared in it channeling Abraham and discussed how to manifest material abundance via their principles. This spiritual phenomenon has definitely gained access to mainstream platforms, such as celebrities sharing its views on their social media pages or interviews. Abraham Hicks is extraordinary on multiple levels – first, one would need to believe that Esther is in fact channeling an interdimensional spiritual entity and if that’s the case then one would need to believe in other planes of existence, followed finally by the extraordinary beliefs that one can wholly create their reality through their mind.

Honestly, the only evidence that the Abraham Hicks phenomenon is real is the supports who testify that following its principles did alter their lives. A surprising personal account of this would be Jim Carrey. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, he stated that when he was still a broke comedian, he wrote out a check for a million dollars and put it in his wallet. He then from that day onward used it as part of a visualization technique to manifest for those million dollars in his real life. He would drive by the homes of Beverly Hills, imaging that one day he will catch his break by a movie producer. He dated the check for 5 years and supposedly it took that amount of years for him to land his first movie deal for… you guessed it … a million dollars (and then some)!

The most obvious evidence against these beliefs is that it all could just be the power of the placebo effect. These people want to believe that their lives will improve and so, through self-fulfilling prophecy, they set out to do just that. Or if not, then they accredit it with not believing hard enough. A core component of the Abraham Hicks ideology is that one can never be in a bad mood, for that frets with their creative energies to improve their present. But, according to a study mentioned on skepdic.com’s entry on Abraham Hicks, workers in a ‘negative mood’ tended to work harder and longer than their happier counterparts.

As I previously mentioned, it could be said that those who believe that Abraham Hicks’ laws improved their lives were actually just subject to their own made up self-fulfilling prophecies. So, in this sense, they did create their futures through their beliefs. But, it wasn’t because of a spiritual force doing the work but rather themselves. There is power in positive thinking, to a certain extent (lest we forgot about gambling.) Because there is no scientific process for them to go off of, I don’t think it’s possible for these believes to be misinterpreting any evidence or misinformation. These people reject materialism for their solipsism.

These laws came at a perfect time when New Age Thought was continuing to progress and gain followers since its inception at the end of the 19th century. The New Age Thought Movement is all about how love conquers all and through the acts of positive thinking one can manifest the reality they want. It is not that there is this wrathful, singular Supreme Being in the sky known as God that is looking downcast on its sufferers. Rather, New Age takes the view that we are all coconspirators with God on our life path. Another social influence I think has sustained these followers belief in Abraham Hicks is the celebrities that support it and how other areas of spirituality, such as yoga and meditation, can be infused with these beliefs. Yoga has maintained if not increased its popularity within the last decade and I don’t see it slowing down any time soon. I say yoga and meditation are related to Abraham Hicks beliefs because it does appear that those who believe in New Age thoughts tend to practice more eastern spiritual methods.

In conclusion, there is no substantial evidence to support Abraham Hicks beyond the numerous testimonies set forth by their followers throughout the world – famous and not. Abraham Hicks is an interdimensional being channeled through an ordinary woman, Esther Hicks that has spoken about three core laws in the universe that controls everyone’s reality. The first is the Law of Attraction, followed by the Science of Deliberate Creation and then the Art of Allowing. Through the dedicated following of these rules, anyone can manifest a better reality for themselves. And if they don’t, well, it’s their fault.

Sources Cited
“‘Abraham’ (Esther and Jerry Hicks).” Abraham-Hicks,

Esther Hicks – The Skeptic’s Dictionary –
Skepdic.com, skepdic.com/hicks.html.