This is the second Indigo Children book we have published, but it really isn't a sequel to the last one. In other words, we are changing gears at bit, and are going to present some information from the parents along with some more profound wisdom from teachers and professionals. Whereas the first book was an explanation and revelation of the Indigo subject, this book is less intensely academic, and more fun. That means expect some humor.
Jan and I would like to believe that everyone who picks this book up has read the original Indigo Child book called The Indigo Children, published by the same organization that is publishing this one (Hay House). Click Here if you wish to see it.
We can't assume that, however, so if you are reading this and asking, “What is an Indigo Child,” we will reprise the message of the original 1999 bestselling Indigo book in just a few sentences.
A REVIEW: Jan and I are national self-help lecturers and authors. When you are councilors and you spend close personal time with people dealing with humanistic attributes, there are often patterns of human behavior which emerge that are not necessarily obvious to those who don't deal with “the big picture.”
As we said in the last book, we started hearing more and more about a new kind of child, or at least a new kind of problem for the parent. The difficulties were odd in nature, in that they represented an interchange between adult and child that was unexpected and seemingly atypical of what our generation had experienced or even the one after ours.
Many parents were exasperated and at their it's end. Day-care workers all over the nation, some of whom had worked in their profession for over thirty years, were also telling us the same kind of stories… about how things were somehow different with the kids.
We realized that this wasn't limited to American children, since in our world travels we spoke to many parents with identical issues. Even the Asian culture, which seemed in the past to produce children who grew up to honor and respect their parents through cultural training, were beginning to exhibit the same behavior anomalies. (See Chapter Eight)
So we wrote The Indigo Children and had tremendous help from notable authors, high degreed, academic contributors, day-care workers, Ph.D. and MDs, and those who deal professionally with children daily.
We stepped out on a limb, giving the best information we could about what we observed on a subject which we knew might be controversial. After all, who were we to tap society on the shoulder and say, “excuse us, but we think that humankind is evolving, and the kids are the proof?”
Well, we were right—the subject was indeed controversial, and we got a combination of hate mail and a plethora of thanks for saving children's lives, all in the same mail bag! What do you do with that? The answer is simple: throw away the ones you don't like and only print the nice ones on your web page! (Author humor)
The one factor that gave us confidence, however, was that the book was accepted so well. It was distributed around the world within months, was translated into many foreign languages, and outsold any book we had ever written before. To us, this meant that people were resounding with the message. That, or they were lining a bunch of bird cages for giant parrots somewhere.
Bookstores all over America started carrying the books and had a marketing quandary (A fun one): Where to put the book in the store? We found it on the shelves of Barnes and Noble under “Parenting,” and then again under “New Age.” Some also told us that certain stores put it into the Children's section. We thought that was odd, since we wrote the book for adults, not kids. We found out later that some children were demanding that the parents purchase the book and read it to them! Somehow they related to the subject, just by hearing the name (we're getting weird now).
We also found it in Cost-Co, a discount chain store where you buy paper goods and drinks by the truckload—you know the kind? In some other states, it's a chain called Sams. We didn't know if this is was a complement to the book or not, but now we have decided it is a good thing. In our town, the Indigo books are right by the 80-pound paper clip boxes. Now when folks go there, they pass our Indigo books on their way to buy toilet paper by the ton.
We eventually set up a web site [www.indigochild.com], which thousands of people visited within the first eight months of the book’s release. Many professionals now carry the book in their offices, and some require it to be read as part of their work. We also knew of several school principles who obtained the books by the case-load, and put one on the desk of every teacher in the school!
Indeed, the book sparked an amazing response in the last year, and Jan and I found ourselves giving interviews regarding the subject from the very controlled studios of Singapore Radio (in Singapore), to the coast-to-coast “anything goes,” Dreamland (formerly Art Bell, now Whitley Steiber) radio show in the United States (we were on two times). So where do we go from here?
Some accused us of being biased in our spiritual belief system (metaphysics), and of promoting a cult of kids (these were very angry letters). Our response was that we simply couldn't leave God out of this picture. If people were looking for an empirical study using kids as lab rats, they were disappointed by our research. This was about life, and about profound situations developing all over the nation and around the world. Our spiritual “take” on the subject turned out to be one that also made it into some other current books written about the same phenomena (discussed below).
We were not subscribing to any church or religion, but rather reporting on the spiritual aspects of certain Indigo behaviors. It turns out that many of these children are often interested in church, and their own spirituality. The church is their own choice (of course). So if the kids want to talk about God, we're going to let you know. Many of the kids see angels! Some parents think this is a problem and want to call Ghostbusters or run to the exorcists (honest!), so we want to assure them that the kids are okay. In fact, we think they're more than okay.
If you want a hoot, go to Amazon dot com [www.amazon.com] on the internet and read the reviews. They are either five-star, or one-star. Those who hated it didn't understand what we were trying to point out. Some, it didn't help at all, and some it helped greatly. Some actually concluded that we were promoting the fact that these new children on earth were space aliens! We were not, but we were telling people that we felt this was a new kind of evolution of humanity. Regardless of the mixed reviews, after two years the first book is still in the top 1500 of Amazon's sales.
This is important: We don't own the Indigo subject. We just introduced and reported what we knew and what we saw. We also knew that more information would follow as the phenomena was recognized. We didn't know how quickly, however. At the same time we published The Indigo Children, two other mainstream books were released about the same subject. Take a look at the titles. We wonder if they got angry religious letters too... or people thought the kids were from outer space.
Children of the New Millennium (Children's near death experiences and the Evolution of Humankind) by P.M.H. Atwater2, and Old Souls (The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives) by Tom Shroder3. Both of them were about Indigo Children. They just didn't call them Indigos.
We are still the kings of books about evolving kids in the “megga store,” however. We don't see either of these other books next to ours when we go to buy napkins by the bushel, or the one-jar, 5-year peanut butter supply. We like that.
THE GOAL OF THIS BOOK:
As we said in the first sentence, this really isn't a sequel to our last book. There will by many good writers who will pick up the ball and give the “how to’s” regarding parenting the Indigos. We instead wish to depart a bit from academia for this book, and turn partially to a celebration of the Indigo experience. We want a soft read, a breath of fresh air, laughter, fun, and some tears. We also want to broach a couple of subjects that we didn't get to in the first book about those who feel they were Indigo Children, but who are way too old to fit the age parameters we gave. Along the way we will present some solid information too—some of it very serious, about children killing children, what to do to help our teens, and the importance of Inner Child work for the adults—but in general we wanted to warn you that it also might get fun in parts.
Many parents wrote us with their Indigo stories. The stories were heartwarming, enlightening, and some were sad. But all of them were about life with the Indigos . . . an exceptional group of children growing up on earth who are wise, smart, and don't respond at all like children of the past generations.
So the goal of the book is FUN as well as intellectual and educational. We want this book to give you insights into real experiences and also entertain you with the things children have said and done, as reported by parents.
So when appropriate in the book, take off your academic hat and put on the party hat. Celebrations are fun and we give you permission to laugh, cry, gasp, yell and say, “Hey, my kid does that too!” Then, if you didn't read the first book, you might go get it to see what this is all about. Go to your local “megga store,” and get a truck load of paper towels while you're at it. They are right up the isle from the Indigo book stack, next to the one-year supply of raisins.
ORGANIZATION:
Okay... about organization. We'd like to yell the words, “THERE ISN'T ANY!” That's our Inner Kids, wishing that we didn't have to have chapters, footnotes, or any of that boring stuff (See Chapter Five for more on the Inner Child). So there wont be much organization (yeah!).
The first part of the book is a series of stories submitted by adults and some children. Some are very short, and others are not. We will intersperse them with sayings by children, and perhaps even some poetry.
As we mentioned, we also have a short chapter honoring the older Indigos, and again (as in the last book), some letters from the Indigos themselves. We also have a second interview with Nancy Tappe, our expert “color” lady, and some items of wisdom by a number of contributors as well. We have a chapter on finding the Inner Child, which we believe is critical for good parenting, and finally a wrap-up of what we have learned regarding parenting Indigos in the last two years from educators, parents, the news, and society in general.
THE CONTRIBUTORS: Each time we introduce a story, we will try to give you the name of the contributing adult (or child in some cases). Some adults didn't want their real names given because they didn't want to embarrass their children when the kids grew up and read this book! Some children who wrote didn't want the real names of their parents given.... kind of tells you about some relationships, doesn't it? So we have honored these specific requests. If you happen to find your story in here—one you gave us in a letter a long time ago—and you have moved or changed your Email address in the meantime, it explains why your full name was not credited. In those cases, only first names have been used.
THE INTERNET - THE NEW PUBLISHING PUZZLE
We also feature something new in publishing that we wish to discuss. It's about how to give credit to unknown sources that suddenly are all around us as never before. We speak of what we have gleaned on-line from anonymous sources for this book, or items which were Emailed to us without any writer's credits given.
Many of our children's sayings have come from the Internet, that vast and ever-growing network of Humans who are contacting each other and giving out information worldwide.
In publishing, you are supposed to have sources, or give credit to whatever is not your own writing. In this case, what do we do? We wish to give you the information that we got in a public venue, but we realize that someone had to have written it. Just because it was on the Internet does not mean that it had no author. In addition, some items might have also been previously published. Do we simply ignore some great stuff (and very funny things), or publish them? There is an integrity issue here.
Here is what we choose to do: In this book we have published the Internet jewels we found. At the start of each one, you will see the words “author unknown.” If you read anything in this book that you feel is yours, or you recognize it as having been published and you know where it came from, please contact us right away. In publishing there are opportunities to change copy within multiple reprints. We will then include the corrected credits where due. Simply write us and give us copyright information or some proof of ownership and we will put the correct name to the reported quotations. In addition, we will publish the credit corrections on our web-site, so that it is known before the reprints. There is actually precedent for this in some other popular books of the day, and we have decided to emulate what they have done.
HAVE FUN!!
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