Pagan Religions Taught In Public Schools

In classrooms throughout the country, Judeo-Christian beliefs are often cast aside or ridiculed. Multiculturalism studies, environmental propaganda, and Save-the-Earth classes now indoctrinate children with New-Age religious beliefs, often without parents' knowledge. Public schools sometimes try to sneak offensive pagan or new-age religions into their curriculum without parents' knowledge under the guise of multiculturalism studies.

In January, 2003, a group of parents sued a Sacramento Unified School District because certain teachers at their local elementary school were aggressively, and secretly, teaching anthroposophy, a religion that combines traditional Western religion with astrology and New Age religion. Pacific Justice Institute lawyers representing the parents indicated that many other public schools in California are now adding New Age and Eastern religions, including Islam, to their curricula.

Below is only a small sample of the flood of "spiritual" sessions taking place in classrooms throughout the country (examples are from Berit Kjos's book, "Brave New Schools"):

1. Altered states of consciousness: Teaching students to alter their consciousness through centering exercises, guided imagery, and visualizations has become standard practice in self-esteem, multicultural, and arts programs. They often encourage contact with spirit guides.

2. Dreams and visions: After studying a pagan myth, students are often asked to imagine or visualize a dream or vision, then describe it in a journal or lesson assignment.

3. Astrology: Countless teachers across the country require students to document their daily horoscopes. Others help students discover their powers and personalities through Aztec calendars and Chinese.

4. Other forms of divination: Through palmistry, I Ching, tarot cards and horoscopes, students learn to experience other cultures and tap into secret sources of wisdom. Students in Texas were told to create a vision in their minds and "describe in your best soothsayer tones the details of your vision."

5. Spiritism: While pagan myths and crafts show students how to contact ancestral, nature, and other spirits, classroom rituals actually invoke their presence. California third-graders had to alter their consciousness through guided imagery, invoke or "see" their personal animal spirits, write about their experience . . . and create their own magical medicine shields to represent their spirit helper.

6. Magic, spells, and sorcery: Many parents consider magic and spell-casting too bizarre and alien to pose a threat, yet gullible students from coast to coast are learning the ancient formulas and occult techniques.

Parents, is this what you want your children taught in public schools, the same public schools that are now forbidden from teaching kids the Ten Commandments?

Joel Turtel is an education policy analyst, and author of "Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children."

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Article Copyrighted © 2005 by Joel Turtel
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