Little Boy Blue

Today, Twyman stands at the top of a small but growing New Age empire. His two films, Indigo and Indigo Evolution, have grossed more than $1 million. On his Web site, he sells books, movies, CDs, and New Age-inspired clothing and jewelry. He is not as wealthy as some of his counterparts, like best-selling author Neale Donald Walsh, but he has learned how to spin a good story into a healthy business.

A handicapped girl called Grandma Chandra, for example, presents psychic readings at Beloved Community conferences using an alphabet board or mental telepathy for a fee, according to Anderson. A similar service is offered through a handicapped boy from Japan named Koya, Anderson says.

Twyman's not the only one making money off indigos, Anderson says, and he's not the only one who may have used misleading tactics to do so. Doreen Virtue, the California-based psychotherapist who wrote The Care and Feeding of Indigos and has known Twyman for 10 years, claims to have a Ph.D., but the school she got it from, California Coast University, was not accredited when she attended and is widely considered a diploma mill, meaning it has no physical campus and offers degrees for a flat fee. Virtue also says she worked at two psychiatric hospitals, one in Tennessee and the other in the Bay Area, but both hospitals have been closed for years, making it difficult to verify her claims.

"I notice that many New Age believers respond to misrepresentations as Oprah did when she first heard about James Frey's fictionalized memoir--the message 'resonated' with her deeply and rang true, and that made it OK," Anderson says. "Still, just like Oprah came around to value honesty, hearing about fabrications among leaders of the new child movement will turn off at least some believers, as well as people who just don't know what to make of it all."

What worries Anderson most is that Twyman's ideas are spreading. The Beloved Community now offers a seminary program that can be completed over three months through Internet classes and conference calls or in one month through intensive study at the Beloved Community. Tuition starts at $3,000. Once seminarians are ordained they can go on to pursue a master's degree or a doctorate in divinity for an additional fee. Upon graduation, Twyman suggests ministers can work with indigo and psychic children.

One of the 100 or so people enrolled in the seminary is Karla Bass, the woman who first recognized the indigo traits in Dusk.

Ultimately, the amount of money people like Twyman and Virtue make from the indigo phenomenon, and the possibly deceptive means they use to do it, might not matter. What is truly dangerous about the indigo theory, experts say, is its implications for children, especially those with ADD or ADHD. Parents who buy into it could be putting their kids at risk, delaying proper diagnosis and treatment.

"All of us would prefer not to have our kids labeled with a psychiatric disorder, but in this case it's a sham diagnosis," Russell Barkley, a research professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center, recently told The New York Times. "There's no science behind it. There are no studies."

The traits attributed to indigo children, Barkley said, are so general they "could describe most of the people most of the time." In Virtue's book, for example, 17 traits common to indigos are listed. Children who respond positively to at least 14 of them are likely indigo. Listed traits include a strong will, creativity and a desire "to help the world in a big way." Indigos are also proud, independent, look for lasting friendships and bore easily.

Such a broad definition, Barkley told the Times, reminded him of an academic exercise called "Barnum statements," after P.T. Barnum, in which a person becomes convinced a list of generic psychological characteristics apply especially to him or her.