Because of their semi-autonomous nature, charter schools are a tempting means to impose religious beliefs on children at government expense. Often lacking the specialized personnel and procedures that help other public schools recognize and screen out unlawful religious instruction, charter schools administrators may deliberately or accidentally allow indoctrination. Parents may not know what is going on until they hear it from their children.

A lawsuit was recently filed by parents of charter school children in Sandpoint, Idaho alleging that the school had improperly presented a New Age book, "Mutant Messages Down Under," as religious truth. The parents allege that the text equates God with the forces of nature and supports the worship of many gods. They further allege that a teacher vouched for the book's religious truth. The parents also allege that another teacher invited a student to accompany him on a New Age "vision quest." The parents have sued the teachers and the Lake Pend Oreille School District. (Associated Press, July 28, 2003.)

While reports of such incidents are cause for alarm, they are also cause for optimism. The public is increasingly recognizing and blocking the spread of New Age, occult, shaman, neo-pagan, pantheist, eco-spiritual, and environmental religion in state schools. The Idaho school has now withdrawn doctrinal use of "Mutant Messages" and is being held to account.

In June, 2003 the Utah State Board of Education (USBE) refused to authorize a proposed charter school for Grand County that was to be based on a Waldorf curriculum. The Waldorf curriculum encourages student learning through body, mind and spirit -- also called "anthroposophy." ("Grand, Carbon Districts Oppose Charter Schools," Salt Lake Tribune, November 1, 2002.) Anthroposophy "is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe." Anthroposophy assumes that human intellect has the ability to contact spirit worlds, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. The Grand County School District superintendent and local citizens flagged the occult nature of the curriculum and successfully blocked the proposed school. Although this Institute advised the USBE of its intent to sue if the school were approved, the credit goes to the local public school district and citizens who caught the problem in advance. (Ironically, the Institute has in the past harshly criticized the Grand School District for sponsoring Tantric Buddhist ceremonies.)

The public needs to hold charter schools to especially close scruitiny. Does your community have a charter school dedicated to an "environmental" or "environmental arts" curriculum? If so, the odds are that pantheism and eco-spiritualism have unlawfully been incorporated into the curriculum. And watch out for liberal curricula that incorporate the occult and eastern mysticism.

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