Why are Atheists the only ones protesting Indianapolis Schools blocking of Alternative Spirituality Sites?

When I describe my efforts to spark a revival of the New Age movement, some of my California friends say we don’t need a label for alternative spirituality because, they say, “The New Age is mainstream now.” Guess they didn’t get that memo at the Indianapolis Public Schools.

In November, word got out that the school system was blocking web sites with “inappropriate content” such as sites on alcohol and illegal drugs, tobacco, gambling, pornography, violence and hate, and “alternative spirituality/beliefs.” They helpfully explain this category to include such notions as Wicca and “Occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals and or any other forms of mysticism.” Never mind the odd lumping together of contradictory beliefs. The point was clear: anything other than traditional religion is not acceptable, and possibly dangerous to young minds.

Now what is most interesting is that the blogosphere ran with this only because an atheist organization decided to send the school system a letter of protest.  (Interesting note:  in the fanfare announcing the letter, the atheistic  Freedom From Religion Foundation linked to a ARIS report that says 14 percent of Americans are “non-religious.”  But this puts the actual number of athiests and agnostics at a total of only 1.6 percent of the population, meaning they are using the “spiritual but not religious” numbers to bolster their argument.) And from that one letter, atheist sites and blogs everywhere joined in the outrage over the censorship. I eventually found a few comments from pagan organizations as well.

But by and large, voices that represent alternative and holistic spirituality, or the cultural creative contingent, were conspicuously absent. Of course, that is partly because there are no “alternative spirituality” organizations. It would be impossible to organize such a thing since most people who practice alternative spirituality prefer to do so without a label — perhaps the better to avoid getting pelted with tomatoes like the one just launched by Indianapolis schools.

Sadly, the result of this label avoidance, besides the freedom to hunker down anonymously, is that the religious intolerance against alternative spirituality flourishes unchecked. The mainstream continues to literally block us out of existence in the culture, as the Indianapolis schools just did.

This means the ideas we hold, ideas the world desperately needs right now, stay hidden at the fringes of society. We have no social capital, no voice, no ability to stand up and make ourselves heard on issues that matter.  This is a ridiculous state of affairs when according to Newsweek, 30 percent of Americans now consider themselves “spiritual but not religious,” and most of these presumably practice some form of alternative spirituality.

I grow weary of being misjudged and misunderstood and powerless. I want young people to be able to discover a strong and definite alternative to the failing paradigm that is destroying their future, not just sort of mushy nameless blocked whatevers. I want a strong and proud New Age back.  www.newagepride.org

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Tags: alternative spirituality, atheism, censorship, cultural creatives, holistic spirituality, new age movement, religious intolerance, spiritual but not religious

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