Vol. 7, No. 7, 1990

Articles on the New Age

Tom Forehand

"Card reading" - you expect it at the county fair. Would you expect to find this mystical, occultic activity in your child's public classroom?

Neither did Bill Gordon who is involved in counter-cult ministry with the Interfaith Witness Department of the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board.

But one day, his sixth grade son found this occultic activity in his own classroom being conducted by his own teacher. He was excused from his class so that he would not have to participate in what was considered by his family to be an objectionable religious activity.

According to The Equal Access Act (Public Law NO. 98-377) it seems that any such student has a legal right to remove himself from the activity. If not allowed to, that student may sue!

The sixth grade teacher said that she was teaching "culture" and not religion. She claimed that she would never teach about a Supreme Being.

However, one of the books which she was using as a reference for this sixth grade class activity was Stars, Spells, Secrets and Sorcery by Barbara Haislip.

This book contained the following sections: Applying the Occult to Man's Affairs, Palmistry, Cartomancy: It's in the Cards, Dice Divination, Candle Power (Candles and the Occult, The Chinese Book of Changes, Spells, Charms and Incantations, Talismans and Stones, The Psychic Side of the Occult, ESP: The Threefold Path, Psychic Messages, Crystal-Gazing, The Ouija Board, The Pendulum, Ghosts, Apparitions, Gnomes....

One wonders how many other New Age religions activities like these have been sublty wedged there into the public classroom and the Federal Government under the guise of "cultural" studies? A plethora of other similar activities are finding a public platform and are being practiced in connection with our public school system. And by the way, your tax dollar is paying for it.

What Can You Do?

Craig Branch, the Alabama Director of Watchman Fellowship, has helped to get the Mountain Brook public school system in Birmingham to establish a policy, "which ... governs their teachers, prohibiting their using any New Age techniques."

Maybe you can do the same. Remember, even the Christian squeaky wheel can get oiled if it is noisy enough.