SEL : A Spiritual Transformation
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) claims to be a system which helps students develop the skills they need to achieve success in school, career, family and civic life. This sounds like something that would be celebrated everywhere but on the contrary SEL is causing confusion and conflict all across America. Among the SEL controversies are the teachings of gender ideology, sexual preference, critical race theory and spiritual practices.
SEL proponents say it is a way to teach children to regulate their emotions, learn empathy and build relationships. SEL critics argue it is a smokescreen for ushering in radical ideology and government overreach. The question people should be asking is; by whose standards are these skills being taught and for what purpose?
A closer look at how SEL began provides validation to the movement of removing it from the public education system. The term Social Emotional Learning was crafted along with its housing organization the Collaborative for Academic Social Emotional Learning (CASEL) at the Fetzer Institute. The religious and spiritual development non-profit institute was founded by John Fetzer. SEL is used in over 90% of America's public school districts to teach what they call the “whole child” i.e. mind, body spirit.
The Fetzer institute was designed to promote John Fetzers spiritual vision for a global transformation which he called the “new age”. Their mission is “to help build the spiritual foundation for a loving world.” Brian Wilson, professor of comparative religion at Western Michigan University, spent a year studying Fetzers life through the Fetzer Library. The library was created to “preserve John E. Fetzer’s life-long inquiry into the interconnectedness between science and spirituality for the transformation of self and society.” Wilson authored the book John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age and in an interview about the book states “I really focus on the things that people used to call cults and sects, and of course today, we call them new religious movements.” Wilson explains John Fetzer’s spiritual evolution with “Upon graduation from college, John Fetzer made a fateful decision: he left the Seventh-day Adventist Church and largely abandoned institutional Christianity. He turned instead to a lifetime exploration of a variety of metaphysical religions. Although something of a misnomer, “metaphysical religion” refers to those traditions based on a monistic rather than dualistic cosmology, that is, a belief that all is one, including God, as opposed to the radical separation of God and the cosmos that forms the basis for the Abrahamic traditions. In such monistic systems, the conception of God shifts from being transcendent and personal to immanent and impersonal, which tends to have major effects on the way one relates to the world.”
Fetzer was inspired through his exploration of freemasonry, parapsychology, Buddhism, Theosophy and UFOology to use his Institute as a way to advance these spiritual practices universally. He employed meditation, psychic consultants, pendulums, water dowsing and other “occult” practices regularly in his decision making. He was also a zealous supporter of Alice Bailey, the controversial occultist who founded the Lucifer Publishing Company (now known as the Lucis Trust). Bailey believed in using education to achieve a one world order with a global religion. She wrote in her book Education in the New Age, “Our problem is to attain the kind of overall synthesis that Marxism and neo-Scholasticism provide for their followers, but to get this by the freely chosen cooperative methods that (John) Dewey advocated.”
The use of mindfulness practices in social emotional learning is no surprise when you trace SEL back to its roots. New Age Religion uses meditation as a way to seek a heightened spiritual consciousness to create a social transformation that would result from the massive spiritual awakening of the general population. In the Fetzer Institutes Theory of Change it states, “Our goal is more profound than simply changing beliefs, or even behaviors. It is a fundamental transformation of our very way of being from ego-centered to all-centered, from separation and fear to wholeness and love.” Additionally it states their goal “is catalyzing and supporting the spiritual transformation of a critical mass of persons around the world.”
The Theory of Change acknowledges the deception of people to support SEL even though it is a spiritual thought reform experiment “it will be particularly important to support the positive spiritual and moral development of children and adolescents. Many organizations are using secular approaches to support individuals of all ages in developing increased mindfulness, empathy, compassion, and awareness, as well as a more deeply grounded sense of life purpose. By providing a non-spiritual point of entry, such programs may reach many people who would be put off by an invitation framed in explicitly spiritual terms. Further, it seems likely that these secular invitations to engage in serious and sustained inner work will lead many individuals to the deep questions of existence and the human condition that are at the heart of the spiritual journey. This will create the opportunity for us and other spiritually grounded organizations to help these individuals deepen their spiritual search.”
Since 2015, the Institute has provided over $6.4 million in grants to advance the global spiritual vision of New Age occultist John Fetzer. In 2017, they gave over $1.2 million in partnership with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors to fund a project called The Collaborative for Spirituality in Education Project which expands on the SEL movement. The Collaborative for Spirituality in Education website exclaims it is the “next wave of whole child education”.
The purpose of SEL in education has been deceptive from the beginning. The reality of its attempt to spiritually transform our children for social change is a constitutional violation and it deliberately undermines parental rights.
Contact me to learn how I can help arm your community in fighting this insidious anti-American SEL program.
