2013-06-20T07:00:50-04:00 Nikki Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=nikki-harper Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Nikki Harper Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2029365 2012-10-30T19:00:00-04:00 2012-12-30T05:12:01-05:00

Nikki Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-harper/
Please.

Let's have some common sense around this issue. The hysteria surrounding ouija boards is a mixture of Hollywood fabrication, urban legend and religious paranoia, and very well they've done the job too. Let's not forget the origins of the ouija board - it was first introduced by Hasbro as a board game. That's a board game. You know, those harmless, fun things? And indeed from its introduction in 1890 until well past the second world war, it was universally considered just that - a game. Alas for Amazon, when they tried to introduce a pink ouija board for girls a couple of years ago, the masses had got their way and the company was roundly denounced from all corners.

Extensive research by better people than me has turned up not one single documented case of someone being harmed that can be directly attributed to a ouija board. Of course there are rumours, of course there are urban legends. Of course there are people who have frightened themselves badly - but that's not the 'fault' of the board. Of course there are people who can report 'bad things' happening to them on the night they used the board or in the days afterwards - these things are called coincidences, people. If something bad happened in my life two hours after I'd bought a bouquet of flowers, I wouldn't condemn flowers as the tool of the devil and take to internet forums to warn others away from them.

An appropriate, non-hysterical response to a ouija board depends on your original standpoint. If you are a skeptic about these things, then you'll consider the ouija board to be merely a demonstration of the ideomotor effect, and you'll consider that the participants are either knowingly or unconsciously moving the planchette. If you are a spiritualist - a real spiritualist, who has studied spiritualism and understands the basic tenets of the faith - then you will consider that all of spirit is love, that there is nothing in the spirit world that can harm you, and that you can therefore proceed to use a ouija board as a tool in complete safety just as you might use tarot cards, crystal, dowsing rods or a piece of jewellery in psychometry.

These two positions are really all there is to it. If you're a casual user, wanting to dabble with a ouija board, pick your stance from the above and stick to it. If you absolutely must, then go for the wishy-washy middle ground, the there-might-be-something-in-it-so-I'd-better-use-some-kind-of-protection thing. Personally, I don't believe in the need for spiritual or psychic protection - however, if it makes you feel better to imagine a bubble of white light or a cloak of light or some other form of psychic protection, by all means do.

My husband uses ouija boards extensively in his paranormal investigation work. Sometimes, nothing happens at all. Sometimes, words are spelled out. Sometimes - relatively rarely, it has to be said - words are spelled out which make sense in context. As spiritual tools go, ouija boards are just not especially efficient - but they're certainly not something to be feared.

Any (honest) medium will tell you that it takes years of dedication to achieve a reliable link with spirit. And that connection can be lost in a heartbeat. So what on earth makes people think that a random lump of wood or cardboard suddenly enables spirit to latch onto someone with no mediumship training, with great force, and to refuse to leave them, and to generally create chaos? If that really happened, then talented mediums up and down the country would be having their lives ruined on a daily basis because (whisper it) not all mediums do use bubble of lights or angelic invocation or any other form of psychic protection in their daily work. If evil entities existed, why would they need to wait for a lump of wood to be used? Why not latch on to someone through tarot cards, or through their dreams, or indeed just while they're sat thinking about what to have for tea?

The self-styled demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren once rather ludicrously stated that "ouija boards are as dangerous as drugs". Well, they would, wouldn't they? Half of their income and fame disappears at a stroke if people are educated out of their ouija paranoia. And paranoia it is, and it spreads far and wide. Even apparently intelligent and self-proclaimed atheists are not immune, with the atheists in particular deserving a slap on the wrist or worse. If you don't believe in the spirit world, what on earth do you think could possibly harm you through a ouija board? Bizarre.

The one warning I always do give to people who are considering using a ouija board is this: don't do it if it makes you feel uncomfortable, worried or unhappy. Which is the same advice I'd give about *anything* which makes you feel uncomfy or unhappy. I say this not because ouija boards are dangerous, or because a ouija board can harm you in any way whatsoever - but because your fear is a powerful psychological thing. For those who are extremely frightened by the idea, the fear of a ouija board can truly cause problems and damage. People who are vulnerable psychologically should not put themselves in a position where they are likely to make themselves worse. That's common sense. And it has absolutely nothing to do evil entities - you have far more to fear from what's inside your own head than you could ever have to fear from a ouija board.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1866754 2012-09-08T06:15:06-04:00 2012-11-08T05:12:02-05:00

Nikki Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-harper/
In years gone by, I've had rules for spiders. Below a certain size (and we're talking money spider = OK, anything bigger = not OK) I'm happy to "let the spider run alive". In rooms other than the bedroom, the rules concern how far away from me the spider is, and whether it's resident or passing through. Far enough away and resident, I pretend not to notice. Passing through and it's a problem. And in the bedroom - well, this is one area of life where I'm sure we can all agree that size really matters and the position has to be right too. Anywhere near my bed, over my bed or indeed anywhere in the room where it could reach my bed (that's anywhere in the room, then) and I'm afraid it's the hoover if it's lucky or the newspaper if it's not.

This year, I'm opting for a change of policy. In keeping with my efforts to live a more spiritual life, I'm going to try and leave spiders alone - and even be grateful for their presence. When you think about it, there are at least five things we humans can learn from our far-too-many-legged friends. Before reaching for the hoover, paper or husband next time I see that ominous dark, scuttling shape out of the corner of my eye, I'm going to count to five and count my spidery blessings thus:


Life is Fragile but Beautiful

A spider's web looks incredibly delicate and fragile, but it's a lot stronger than you think. It's also, even I must admit, rather a thing of beauty (when the spider's not in it). How strange that something so...shudder inducing...can create something so pretty. Let's learn that the most unpleasant things in life can sometimes give birth to some amazing experiences - and let's also learn that we're all stronger than we look and certainly more resilient than we think we are.

All Things are Interconnected

Many mythologies include spiders. In Greek mythology, the princess Arachne is a skilled but prideful weaver who angers the goddess Athena; Athena later brought Arachne back to life as a spider. In Navajo myth, Grandmother Spider wove all creation using her silken threads. I think I prefer the African legends of the spider as Anasi, a trickster God, but the most common mythical spider theme is the weaving one, and the interconnectedness of creation and life. Everything in this world depends on everything else, and even the smallest of acts can have huge consequences, both for good and for ill. Let's learn to be mindful of what we're doing, and how it might affect others.

Perseverance and Patience Matter

It takes a garden spider roughly an hour to spin its web, but it usually must repair it or start from scratch again every day. Every single day, or more when we thoughtless humans crash through it at dawn (ughh...memories). Do they throw (all of) their hands up in the air, declare it a rum job and take off down the pub? No. Tenacious little creatures, they persevere, they stick at it, they get the job done. To be fair, they have very little choice, being spiders, but the spiritual message is the same. Let's learn some patience, people.

Don't Seek Approval

No matter how much vitriol I direct towards a spider, no matter how much I curse its existence and wish it wasn't there, it really doesn't care. It needs nobody's approval or affection in order to live its life - and while some, like me, might find it skin crawlingly horrid, others find it intriguing, mysterious, even beautiful. But the spider remains supremely indifferent to both hatred and flattery and just does its own spider thing, and very well it does it too. Next time we're feeling down because we haven't got the praise we think we deserve, or because someone hasn't boosted our ego that day - let's learn to just get on with it and be ourselves. Someone, somewhere does love us, and most of us are blessed to know who exactly that is, but we don't need to seek approval in order to just be.

Begin!

Although I'm certain that spiders seek me out just to be annoying, there's no evidence that they spend any time surveying the land to find just the right spot to crawl about or to build those webs. Instinct takes over and the spider does what the spider needs to do, without making a list, taking a vote with family members or buying six self help books and a bottle of wine. Let's learn that too, when we have important projects on the go. Just start. Begin. Do it. It doesn't matter where, or how you start, so long as you start. Today!]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1692144 2012-07-23T19:00:00-04:00 2012-09-22T05:12:05-04:00

Nikki Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-harper/
I also wrote the Metro daily horoscopes for a few years, and lots and lots of others too - I wrote baby horoscopes for a supermarket chain, beauty horoscopes for a major US beauty company, wedding horoscopes for numerous places, financial horoscopes for an insurance chain, more teen ones, monthly this time, for two exotic clients in Denmark and Finland... the list went on and on. I also wrote numerous 'one off' new year or valentine type horoscope features for big name women's mags - until one of them decided to use my work but give it a by-line of a very famous astrologer instead of using my own name. That all turned very nasty, that last one, and I try to forget. *Shudder*

You might think that this was a track record to be proud of. My husband, bless him, certainly thought so and would waste no time in telling people proudly about my various clients while I smiled through gritted teeth and quickly changed the subject. I wasn't particularly proud; not ashamed either, exactly, but, well, embarrassed. You see, as a professional astrologer. I know better than anyone that sun sign horoscopes are by their very nature generalisations at best and at worst a load of tosh. Telling someone that I was writing them made it sound as though I - and worse, every other member of my profession - truly believed that all Scorpios were going to win the lottery on Thursday, but not before their Leo partners had ditched them for the next door neighbour and run off to start a new life on the Costa del Sol. Bracing myself for the "but you don't actually believe all that stuff, do you?" question, it was easier to just move off the subject than try to defend *real* astrology and point out that I was just writing horoscopes because it paid well.

Recently I discovered an interesting article in a back issue of The Journalist magazine. It's all about the downturn in opportunities for freelance horoscope columnists, and I discovered that not only was I not alone in feeling faintly embarrassed about writing these things, but that I also wasn't alone in seeing many of my contracts be cut back or just cut all together over the last eighteen months. It's easy enough to see why, and it's not just because I personally upset all those editors. Well, not all of them. The article reports on junior office staff being sent for a quick day's training so that they can write the horoscopes themselves. There are also plenty of free horoscopes on offer out on the web, with no particular guarantee about the expertise of who has written them. And big names syndicate the same thing, over and over and over and over again, for peanuts as far as individual clients are concerned. Or there's always the DIY option - I have actually been told by one former client that the staff will just make them up from now on, without even any attempt to do it properly. After all, can the general public tell the difference? To an astrologer, reading that today mercury is opposite Leo or that Jupiter is in Venus (I'm not making this up) is kinda red flag material, but does Joe Public really know or care whether they're being fed rubbish?

Perhaps it doesn't matter. After all, it's all "for entertainment purposes only". On the other hand, to find yourself suddenly dropped in favour of something cobbled together in the intern's coffee break can be irritating. Properly calculated and written with some thought, horoscopes can be very hard work, as anyone who writes or has written them will know. It's a lot of words and a constant demand; it's heavily time consuming and frankly a pain the bum to keep coming up with new and fresh ways of saying the same old thing, day in, day out. But you know, it's a steady income if you build up a good portfolio of clients. And it does mean that you can focus on your consultancy work or your other writing without the big pressure to make so much money from that; if horoscopes are paying the bills, it's easier to indulge your higher intentions elsewhere.

I still get regular enquiries from potential clients about horoscope writing. Only trouble is that the calibre of the enquiries has sunk through the floor. Nowadays most come from someone who clearly has no budget whatsoever or wants to pay £10 a week for exclusive daily horoscopes. Think I'll pass on those. Now that most of my old, comfy clients have gone, do I miss writing the dratted things? No. I miss the income, sure. And I miss writing for teens, because a lot of the feedback from that audience was very endearing - although my teen astrology book "Moon Surfing" is due out in October and will replace (says she hopefully) some of that buzz. But I don't miss the hard slog, or the vague discomfort of feeling that either the general public thinks you're a nutcase or that fellow astrologers think you're selling out. Am I still embarrassed about my track record? Do you know, I think I'm not. There are some beautifully written and professionally done horoscopes out there, from real astrologers, who work incredibly hard on them. It may be entertainment rather than 'serious astrology', but it's entertainment that takes a good deal of flair and skill to get right. I rather think, that now the dust has settled and I can look back with a rosy glow, I'm quite proud to have been in such good company.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I've just read my horoscope in the local rag, and apparently that tall, dark, handsome stranger is on his way towards all us Virgos, so I'd better powder my nose.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1622031 2012-06-24T19:00:00-04:00 2012-08-24T05:12:03-04:00

Nikki Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-harper/
In the "Seven Lesson Schoolteacher", Gatto talked about being paid to teach confusion, class position, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, provisional self esteem and the notion that one can't hide from the system. Britain's school system, like America's, has not deviated much from those seven lessons in the last 21 years. A few hours spent in a school, in the company of schooled children, or even hanging around on education forums will amply prove that.

As a home educator, I see things rather differently. Inspired by Gatto's speech, I believe there are seven lessons that most home educators teach their children, almost by default. I went to excellent schools and I shone academically. I didn't, however, learn any of what follows; in fact, I didn't learn some of these lessons myself until we took our six year old daughter out of school, eight years ago, and turned our backs on the damaging education system. I wonder how many adults reading this can truly say that their schooling embraced these seven principles, rather than the seven Gatto so eloquently described?

1. Intellectual Freedom

The first and probably most important lesson I teach is intellectual freedom. My teen daughter is more than capable of deciding where her interests and talents lie; at six, she was perfectly able, as all six years old are, to say which topic she was most interested in at any given time, even if that changed by the day or by the hour. Why should that not be respected? It has been estimated that it takes at most 100 hours to teach children the basics of reading, writing and maths. During the rest of their 'compulsory school years', who cares if they prefer to learn about ancient Japan instead of volcanoes, or about neuroscience instead of crude oil? There are millions of things worth learning about, of course - and the national curriculum does not include most of them. Home educators cannot cover everything either - but that's my point. We don't have to. What most of us do do, however, is to listen to what our children want to learn and take steps to facilitate that within whatever kind of educational philosophy we have - instead of insisting that they spend hours studying something of no interest to them. My daughter's intellectual freedom is important and will be respected.

2. Passion

If my daughter is absorbed in something, why would I force her to stop doing that at a set time and move on to something completely different? There are no school bells and timetables in our home. She may work on something for ten minutes. She may work on it, pretty much non stop, for ten days. If it's important enough to her, she'll pour her heart and soul and passion into it, and I will join in rather than interrupt. The regimented routines of the school day teach children that things are not important enough to be done properly, however much they might be enjoying them. The second lesson I teach, on the other hand, is that following a passion can never be wrong and should never be cut short to fit someone else's idea of what you should be doing.

3. Context

Everything relates to everything else in this beautiful, complex world of ours. Studying a topic or subject in isolation, or out of kilter with related areas, inhibits true understanding and learning. A schooled child will learn facts. Those facts are all too often underpinned by only the vaguest understanding of the wider issues. Particularly in the humanities subjects and perhaps most particularly of all in history, you cannot hope to make sense of a given area without exploring and understanding what happened before, what happened afterwards, and what was happening simultaneously elsewhere in the world. School doesn't do that, for all the fine words about cross-curricular teaching. Most home educated children, on the other hand, learn in a more organic way and cannot help but pick up background, extended and related knowledge around the topic in hand. The third lesson I teach is that everything has a context and that exploring that context is a productive thing to do.

4. Self Respect

My daughter's self respect is not dependent on the behaviour of bullies, the whim of a teacher having a bad day, ticks on a piece of paper, badges, stickers, reward charts, applause in assembly, notes home from the school, grades in an exam or the termly school report. She does not have to judge herself based on what an unknown, unrelated, uninterested 'expert' says about her, and she knows that we do not judge her either. She is not constantly tested, evaluated and examined, to be either found wanting and expected to try harder or to be found adequate and to give up in boredom. Instead, she measures her self-worth by her own standards and thereby sets up healthy self-esteem habits for life. She knows whether she has tried her best or not, and she is proud of her work or slightly abashed accordingly. She knows that she is free to set her own ambitions and that we will help her work towards them, rather than imposing our own ambitions onto her. The fourth lesson I teach is that only she can judge herself, and that when she does, it's okay to do so kindly. Related to self respect, I also teach one of the hardest lessons for non home educators to grasp: that the 'teacher' does not always know best, and does not always have the answer - and that (whisper it) it's by no means inconceivable that you might know more about a subject than your teacher does. And that this is a good thing.

5. Reality

When was the last time you had to ask to go to the toilet, put up with abuse because it was 'character building' or limit yourself to mixing with people born within the same particular 12 months? School does not prepare children for anything other than life in school. Home education takes place in the real world, in real life, with all its ups, downs and glories. Home educated children mix with people of all ages and, by and large, enjoy far greater freedoms than schooled children do. The fifth and often overlooked lesson I teach is that we all live in the real world - and here it is, right around you. You don't have to wait until you're 18 to join it.

6. Individuality

From uniforms and hair requirements to bullying of anyone 'different' and petty rules designed to ensure control and compliance, schools are not very friendly places for those who refuse to subdue their individuality. My daughter has the freedom to be who she is, all day, every day, not just at weekends and during holidays. Aged seven, she spent a whole year living in a Harry Potter related fantasy world. Aged eight, she dyed her hair a gorgeous bright green. Aged thirteen, she favours Victorian fashions, despises pop culture, rides every day and is passionate about law, politics and psychology. She has been picked on by the few schooled children we know for speaking properly and for being able to spell and use correct grammar, she's never seen an episode of Glee and she has no idea (or desire to know) who, what or where TOWIE is. She's slightly eccentric - 'odd', I'm sure some would say in derisory tones - and completely herself. She's never had to 'fit in', and why should she? The sixth lesson I teach is that individuality is a wonderful thing. Should it be lost at school, like mine was, it can take half a lifetime to get it back.

7. Insubordination

Such a negative word - but actually, it just means the opposite of subordination. My daughter is not subordinate to anyone, nor are we - nor are you. Yet the system teaches you that you are, and teaches you to accept authority without question. I on the other hand, teach, as my seventh lesson, the wisdom of disobedience. This involves learning to question, question, question. Wise disobedience also involves, of course, understanding when rules are a good idea, and when it's sensible, healthy or just 'right' to follow them and to toe the line. A healthy mistrust of authority, as opposed to a blind mistrust, is a very good thing, provided one has a clear understanding of morality, ethics and personal conduct. Wherever she chooses to carve out her future, my daughter will never be cannon fodder, factory fodder or 21st century wage-slave fodder, and she will never accept injustice, untruths or misinformation. The seventh lesson I teach is perhaps the very opposite of what the school system teaches - indeed, the opposite of what the school system is designed to teach.

That schools teach such miserable lessons is not necessarily the fault of the teachers. Many recognise the faults in the system and do their best to overcome them, within the limitations of their employment. It's not the fault of the parents, many of whom, as Gatto points out, have learnt the seven school lessons so well themselves that they're unable to envisage anything different. Most people involved in the education of young people do not deliberately or even consciously teach the lessons Gatto describes - and yet, only a minority of schooled children will also learn the seven more positive lessons I describe above, if they are very fortunate, and have strong-minded, passionate parents. For those lucky few who do, it will be despite their school education, not because of it.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1538723 2012-05-23T08:02:23-04:00 2012-07-23T05:12:05-04:00

Nikki Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-harper/
I'm preparing to take Lincolnshire County Council to judicial review over their ultra vires home education policy, pending the outcome of a formal complaint, but Lincolnshire is not alone. Across the UK, home educators report hostile local authorities enforcing policies which sometimes bear only the vaguest resemblance to the law, particularly with regard to monitoring.

Statutory government guidelines to local authorities are explicit about the ongoing monitoring of home educating families - it is not required. Having established that a child is home educated, a LA has no further duty with respect to that child's education - unless and until it has cause to believe that an education is no longer taking place. Since the education of a child is the legal duty of her parents, not the LA, to demand information on a regular basis without any actual suspicion of a crime is to consider parents guilty until proven innocent.

Whether one 'supports' or 'believes in' home education or not, most people would agree that a local authority must act within the law. Yet council after council insists to parents that they must allow home visits (no), that they must allow their child to be interviewed (still no), that they must follow a set curriculum (nope, wrong again), or that they must provide regular proof of their child's education (um - no). Dozens of examples are easily found on local authority websites. LA staff enforcing these policies often have little understanding of home education law, much less of the wide variety of educational methods and philosophies families may use.

To add insult to injury, many LAs justify their monitoring policies with the "safeguarding" myth - despite statistics showing that home educated children are a third less likely to suffer abuse than schooled children. Shall we send inspectors into the homes of school-using families to check for abuse taking place in the evenings, weekends and school holidays? Of course not, because families are considered innocent until proven guilty - unless they home educate.

Some local authorities go so far as to routinely refer all home educating families to social services, despite clear government guidance that home education is not a safeguarding concern. In doing so, they not only cause great distress to innocent families, but they also, unforgivably, take time, attention and resources away from those children who really do need protection. We all deplore hoax 999 calls - yet here we have local authorities effectively doing a similar thing.

Where there is evidence that a child is not receiving an education, or where there are genuine safeguarding concerns, local authorities do, rightly, have ample powers to intervene. Why then do so many LAs persist with ultra vires policies? Perhaps every child truly does have a price on their head, and must be pursued and barcoded within "the system" at all costs. Families who refuse to comply are branded as "uncooperative and hostile", with something to hide. Some LAs even consider "the use of deliberate silence" to be threatening behaviour by a parent. It's perhaps little wonder that local authorities face increasing numbers of parents who simply won't play. Breakdown in cooperation is inevitable where authorities routinely insult the families they are there to serve. And what does cooperation bring home educating families in any case? Nothing. There is no funding, and promises of practical assistance tend to evaporate - as one parent reported, promises of an exam centre for home educated children quickly vanished when parents actually wanted it.

I've been asked a lot recently why I'm challenging this issue, and why it matters - and why, if I have nothing to hide, I object to monitoring. Well, I object to my family facing discrimination and bias. I object to my child's privacy being invaded on a regular basis for no good reason. I object that unnecessary demands on my family take away resources from children who do need help. I object to being branded a criminal. Wouldn't you?

It should matter to each of us, home educator or not, when a local authority actively chooses to ignore legislation in order to further agendas based on funding or staff ideologies. It should matter to all of us that an authority can break the law with impunity simply because it finds it "unsustainable", as Lincolnshire told me. It should most certainly matter to every single one of us that local authorities can brand an entire section of the community as guilty until proven innocent. It's home educators at the moment. Who might it be next?]]>