I've been going down this rabbit hole and the concept fascinates me. It seems to have caught on in the 70s, popularized in the 90s, and the topic kind of peetered out of the public's eye. I came across many lists and quizzes to determine if you are one of these, and I can't help but notice that many of these traits align with neurodivergence. Is there any basis to these indigo/crystal children, or was it entirely made up so parents could make their kids feel better?
Personally I think it became not so much about parents making their kids feel better, and more about parents band-wagoning an idea to make them feel like their children are special. Human nature leads parents to be heavily focused on vicarious living. Especially how parents feel the achievements (or failings) and qualities of their children somehow define reflect on them.
In a nutshell, good and accomplished kids means good and accomplished parents. Rebellious, flawed, or 'weak' children means the parents -must- have something wring with them too. They have failed somehow. So parents will leap onto ideas and crowbar ways to associate their children with a thing that is seen as 'good' and 'positive' not for the child's benefit, but for their own. Which gives birth to bending interpretations and meanings to make reasons to validate their ideas and 'legitimize' them.
Now.
This is not to put down the idea, presence, or idea of indigo and star-children. Merely to attempt to hit a big glowing red nuclear-strength reset button on the idea and put forward where it actually comes from. Having grown up during the height of the new-age movement in general and having watched the birth, growth, fandom/bandwagon and fade off I'm both proud of how it was and salty about how things got twisted about by turning to mainstream and marketing. ....It probably shows.
To get things back to basics, An indigo child is another way of saying that the child is an old-soul with wisdom and spiritual connection well beyond their physical years. It comes from aura/energy colors where indigo is related to an energy-state of being close to ascension/no longer feeling a need to incarnate;
White souls are very young. Pure and without direction. Just as white is all colors white-souls are all potentials. Red souls just discovering themselves, focused on the "I" and forming identity.
Yellow souls are discovering their surroundings (with the orange spectrums being the transitions between).
Blue is about being 'open to the sky' or where a soul is looking upwards to the spiritual. ...The shades of green again being the transitional period of growth and discovery.
And then violet. In the colour spectrum violet is where the blues of our visible band start being effectively the reds of the next 'level' of spectrums. And so violet in new-age spirituality is associated with ascension from physical incarnation to spiritually focused existence. IE joining the levels of other ascended beings like guides and ascended masters, to start learning and growing there as the next 'stage' of growth as a soul. Just as violet passes from visible to invisible spectrum. And indigo is that transitional 'wise person' period between blue seeker and indigo ascension.
A Starchild is someone who is similarly wise beyond their years, but their perspective and understanding also is somehow sourced from also being a soul from somewhere other than earth. Usually it is associated with the pleiadians/being a pleiadian soul or walk-in. In a weird, sideways kind of irony a Starchild could be rephrase nowadays as an indigo otherkin. It would at least fit within that umbrella anyways.
'Crystal children' is a facet (pun intended) of this movement that I didn't experience much. I tend to view it as the idea of an indigo but translated through the idea of spirit being a form of 'crystalized' light. Energy, light, and consciousness being a binding latticework of identity and purified 'form'.
I think where the trouble and mis-interpretations started was when causalities somehow got reversed. Because indigo(etc) children -do- tend to exhibit varying traits born from the benefits and also challenges of living a physical life with physical survival and responsibilities but having a much stronger personal focus of spiritual growth and connection. Physical things as simple as personal care (eating, sleeping, homework, jobs, bills, etc) are a challenge to see as important and worthwhile. And social relations are difficult because even as a child they are thinking on a totally different 'wavelength', making them weird, freaky, disconnected, and overall different from their peers. With predictable consequences.
But the trouble is the mis-interpretation became "if being an indigo(etc) child can cause (x, y, z,) issues, then if -my- child has (x, y, z) issues that must mean they are indigo too!". So what started as people putting out lists as tools to help others prepare and adjust in how they can help their potentially indigo child deal with and adapt to known issues it became a bandwagon checklist to validate the assumptions of insecure parents.
Such children were (and are still) around. And being born still. They have always been around. But the number of genuine indigo (etc) children is far, far smaller than the masses of people titled as such over those years. I feel that what has happened to calm the fad and made the idea (and conversation) fade into relative obscurity is that those children who were identified by their parents have since grown up and found their own identities. Assumedly with many dropping that title/identity as they grow into seeing themselves in a perspective they have chosen rather than through one that was chosen for them. And whether or not they are indigo, they have learned/adapted to their situation in one way or another.
And, finally, how it relates to neurodivergence. Considering that the term itself simply means a person's mental landscape is, literally, anything that is outside of the common average then yes indigo are neurodivergent. However in personal opinion that expression casts such a huge shadow it is utterly meaningless as a term and should be discarded. I would much rather describe that indigo children have a different set of predispositions and inclinations from the average person which is significant enough for them to stand out as unusual by their peers. With a bias towards introspection, situational insight, and dismissal of 'material'-related concerns.
It's always a joy seeing your lengthy and informative responses to questions like these. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to answer me.
So the "legitimate" roots of the indigo/star children movement relate to one's soul and their origins, putting a new name on an old concept. Old souls aren't new, but it was possibly rephrased to make it more appealing to those unfamiliar with the concept. It caught on with parents during the new-age movement in an attempt to make their "rebellious" children feel special, associating negative traits with a positive origin (i.e. "Indigoes have these issues, and my child has them too, therefore my child must be an indigo and they're special").
When I say neurodivergent, I mean things such as ADHD and autism. One indigo child trait list I found in particular listed sensory issues/discomforts that strongly reminded me of the latter, and led me to believe that the indigo child movement was a way to make parents feel better about their child experiencing these struggles. Your explanation disproves my belief, and I thank you for that, but I wanted to explain where I got the idea from.
Re: Indigo/Crystal/Star child By: Lark Moderator / Adept
Post # 4 Dec 09, 2023
In my opinion there are no "legitimate" roots to the idea of Indigo Child, Star Child, etc. The whole concept was created by Nancy Ann Tappe (a self-proclaimed psychic) in the 1970's and then hyped by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober. But the whole idea really caught on in the 1990's when Tober and Carroll made a heap of money peddling the idea through seminars, books, etc.
Interestingly, the idea was grabbed by the general public in the early 1980's about the time that doctors also started prescribing lots and lots of medication to "manage" neurodivergent children. (Over-prescribing in many cases, in my opinion) As you noted, Indigo Children have many if not all of the symptoms of ADHD and/or the autism spectrum. But parents didn't want their children to be "abnormal" as that was a stigma on the parents in that they had a "defective" child. This went hand in hand with the growing number of anti-vaxxers and anti-medication folks out there who were unwilling to accept a medical diagnosis and treatment.
And so the whole idea of the " Indigo Child " caught on. A concept totally without scientific proof or basis and created whole cloth by one person who had no medical or psychological training and hyped by a few more who used the idea to get rich. Here's a couple of useful articles:
(Note that one person pushing this concept was the New Age author, Doreen Virtue, who has since renounced the whole idea of Indigo Children as ridiculous.)
Then in the 1990's, the concept of being an Indigo Child became too common place for some parents or young people. And along came writers trying to cash in on the New Age movement telling parents that their kids were " Star Seeds", "Rainbow Children", or "Crystal Children ". (Actually they have symptoms remarkable identical to Indigo Children) But more money was made by those pushing this concept and more parents grabbed on to the idea that their child was "special".
The sad result of this is that there are a plethora of children who were not appropriately diagnosed and treated in ways that would help them deal with living in our society.
One hint that the idea of " Indigo Children " may be flawed is that part of identifying them is that they have an " indigo aura ". Our auras are not fixed colors but rather change with our moods and our life situations. Indigo supposedly indicates that one is embarking on a life-changing spiritual experience. So at one time or another, anyone might have an indigo aura. Nothing related to being special from the moment of birth.
Thanks for the added details Lark, I probably should have realized how far into personal Gnosis I went with my own thoughts on the fad. Having some genuine origins and sources definitely helps paint a more solid picture.
I suppose like any other overblown concept, it starts as a grain of truth that gets stretched into a mountain of illusions. Like an impossibly over-inflated ball or giant soap bubble, it might appear to be great and huge but what holds it together is paper-thin and primed to burst. Mostly insubstantial empty space. Though, hopefully, when that bubble pops the little grain has something left of it to take away.
Behold! -more- personal gnosis!
I find the concept of old-souls and people being wise beyond their years is a valid one for many. But such souls are very rare as they are ones who are experienced enough that incarnation for them is essentially optional as they are ready to 'move forward'. Most do. Only a very, very few continue to return and it is usually to a specific purpose. (I would estimate that those who would fall under this category within the entirety of the human population could be mostly-counted by the fingers of your hands)
Also, people who become heavily spiritually focused, especially at an early age, do commonly have troubles keeping that 'one foot in the ocean, one foot on land' balance of responsibility and attentiveness versus awareness and exploration. However this is an inclination of old and young souls alike. Learning and keeping that balance is a constant (and common) challenge. It isn't special or unique but more a natural function of what happens when people discover any new thing and excitedly immerse themselves into it. Heh, this very site and the others like it all over the internet demonstrates that on a regular basis.
And color as it relates to energy and soul is just as easy to cherry-pick or misinterpret. As Lark very correctly stated it was associated at the time with these children having an indigo aura from birth/early in life. And Auras are themselves very fluid in their form and expression.
Perhaps it is just a me-thing, but I have come to see an expansion of nuances to that idea as I've come across ideas of there being layers to what is expressed. For example a part of the aura reflective of the physical state of being, another expressive layer of the mental/emotional, and a broader and less active(but still present) reflection of spiritual state and attention.
I also have an additional use of color to reflect the state of one's soul over and above the expression of aura. ...That latter idea being where I tend to take reference when I consider Indigo(etc) people. And one's 'color' in general. An attachment of color in reference to vibratory state overall. And usually experienced/expressed in a soul-state between lives.
If memory serves, I picked up the idea from Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls- a couple books written to tell of case-histories recorded from between-life regressions. Something I click with far more than the prevailing '5D', '6D' etcetera dimensions people talk about more recently.
