Age of Magical Thinking

By Trish & Leila Briggs

The “magical thinking” age of children usually occurs between six to twelve years of age. This is the period where children believe in magic and the unseen. “Instead of honoring the power and value of this very real magic and its scientific basis, we have viewed it as an age-related phenomenon in need of being suppressed” (Atwater, 2005, p.80).

Atwater continues by sharing how the Indigenous cultures believe that this is the best time to teach children about the powers of their psychic experiences. The type of experiences being taught are fire walking, spoon bending, cooperative fishing with dolphins, remote viewing, telepathic communication with animals, nature, each other, angels, and other skills (Atwater, 2005). The children are ready to believe and experience because their minds believe anything is possible.

We agree that today’s children, who are by far more sensitive or intuitive, then past generations, need to have a meaningful education controlling, developing, and directing their intuitive skills. However, there is certain care that needs to be taken. Because children are so open, it is easy to overwhelm and inundate their intuitive systems. (Thus the spiritual world becomes a world of chaos verses a world of curiosity and enjoyment.)

Turning their attention to the skills of intuitive discernment and subtle energy techniques will be skills they can apply to their spiritual senses as their abilities naturally evolve. This ensures the children do not suppress the ‘magic’ while guaranteeing a door is not opened they are not naturally ready for.  We would like to propose that this is the perfect time to start teaching children the right and preferred ways to work with energy.

If we can instill in the children how to use and work with subtle energy in responsible ways, it is only going to benefit them as their abilities expand and grow.

I am referring to simple things like knowing that you don’t access or tap into another person’s energy without permission, as well as advanced application of quantum principles.

It is also the perfect time to start talking about responsibility and accountability for consequences of one’s choices and actions energetically. Just as your physical actions have consequences, your energetic actions have consequences. You may not be able to see the energetic consequences with your physical eyes, but they are there. Taking responsibility and accountability allows the child to get a handle on the rippling effect of energy throughout the universe and lays the foundation for eventually having free choice as well as free will.

Additional note from Trish: As a child with intuitive abilities myself, I didn’t have the language or understanding of energy to teach my children these skills. I didn’t suppress their abilities, but neither did I encourage or validate their intuitive experiences until they were adults. Today, I have the understanding and vocabulary. We had to learn the hard way together, through experiences and the awareness that the experiences gave us.

Thankfully, we live in an era where this information is readily available from many different sources, so the hard way is no longer the only way. These early discussions are more crucial today than in previous generations because it is evident that we are parents of spiritual beings in physical bodies, and we need to approach their upbringing from both the energetic and physical perspectives. This ‘magic thinking’ age is the perfect place to start the process so that our children evolve into caring and responsible intuitive adults.  

Resource: Atwater (2005), Beyond the Indigo Children, Bear & Company, Division of Inner Traditions International, VT: Rochester.