In Part One (“Parents: Watch what your children are being taught,” September 1991, Mrs. Pemberton dealt with the Impressions series.

To refresh our readers memory about the series, the following is an excerpt form an article by Margie Mountain which appeared in the Ottawa bi-monthly, The Orator (September/October 1991)

If your child is in Grade 1 to 7, in one of the many public or separate schools across the U.S. and every province in Canada except Newfoundland, he would be sitting in a circle composing and chanting magic spells, or listening to the gruesome and violent stories.

Liberal Arts

“Impossible” you say, “I sent him school to be educated in the liberal arts and to be grounded in the Judeo-Christian ethic – not to be introduced to native spirituality and steeped in the occult.”  But a close scrutiny shows the Reading Series, Impressions, published by Holt Rinehard & Winston (HBJ-Holt Canada) is doing exactly that.

Behind the slick, brightly coloured covers and fanciful titles such as Catch a Rainbow, (Grade 1), East of the Sun (Grade 2), West of the Moon (Grade 2), Over the Mountains (Grade 3), Cross the Golden River (Grade 4), lies some dark and dangerous literature.  Keeping in mind that there is a strong emphasis on imagery, setting the mood, and “Experiencing the selection” (Teacher Resource Book, any grade level) let’s look at some of the material our children experience.

Mashed worms

In How I Wonder (Grade 1), the students are asked, “Would you rather be made to eat spider stew, slug dumpling, mashed worms or drink snail pop?  Would you rather be crushed by a snake, swallowed by a fish, eaten by a crocodile or sat on by a rhinoceros?” (pp. 65-67)

In a Grade 2 text, a monster sits atop a child’s head: “Oh what is growling long and low

And please has it been fed?

I think I’d really better know

It’s sitting on my head.”

(West of the Moon, p.8)

In the second article Maryanne Pemberton, discusses the sources of series like Impressions.

* * * *

Barbara Meister Vitale, author of Unicorns Are Real, spoke at the 1990 Annual National Catholic Education Association’s conference in Toronto.

In her talk, “Education: Mind, Body and Spirit,” Ms. Vitale told thousand of teachers and principals from Canada and the U.S. about the various miraculous, spontaneous healings she had performed.

These she credited not to God but to her ability to get in touch with her lymphatic system.  This is a New Age belief whereby we are said to be gods and co-creators with the power within to heal or to cause anything we can imagine to come into existence in the physical world.  One of her alleged healings was a third degree burn which healed in minutes.

Vitale also described an occult practice based on colour-based therapies.  This is said to treat disorders with colours believed to have corresponding vibrations.

She presented a teaching vehicle called Visualization/Guided Imagery.

This technique claims that the external world can be transformed through mental imagery.

It is a dangerous practice.  In the classroom, some children merely relax and follow the teacher’s lead.  Others may progress into altered states of consciousness, including trance or an out-of-body experience.  Worst of all, some may connect with a ‘spirit guide.’

All the climax of her presentation, Ms. Vitale told her audience that their ‘fifth brain’ is located approximately six inches from the top of the head.  She then took them on a visualization tour where they were to see the ‘light’ and become one with the universe.  This particular teaching is part of Transcendental Meditation, the occult Hinduism, and the New Age philosophy.

Ms. Vitale is not alone in her teachings.  Other educators not only make the conference circuit, but also indoctrinate executives from the ‘Fortune 500’ companies such as IBM and Bell Canada.

Ontario

Teachers from across Ontario have attended workshops run by Lynda Pogue, former president of the Ontario Association for Junior Education.  At present she is a consultant with the North York Board of Education.

Ms. Pogue is the author of “Ages 4-8: The Years of Enchantment.”  This document covers all grades in the Primary division.  Once approved, this document will be received by every French and English elementary teacher in Ontario.

Ms. Pogue stresses that teachers must reach the child’s heart as well as his head.  “The whole idea is to get at their spirit: imagination, creative output, visualization and rhythm.”

“That is the credo in Ontario in active learning” she states.

British Columbia

One can identify with the fight of a dozen Surrey, B.C., parents against the “Year 2000” program in that province.  They are fighting the implementation of a new curriculum which encourages teachers to guide their students into trances, using techniques similar to those employed by psychic healers and ‘soul-travelers.’

“I have a problem with teachers delving into my children’s minds.  I don’t like the tendency for the occult.  New Age and out-of-body experiences to creep in,” one mother says.

The curriculum contains imaging exercises which closely resemble hypnosis. Dr. Brian DeFreitas, a psychiatrist with the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, B.C., describes these exercises as “most dangerous.”

He maintains they can lead children to self-hypnosis.  This has been implicated in the past as a possible cause of dissociate disorders such as multiple personalities.