Avatar (course)

Avatar, also called the Avatar Course, is a self-help course created in the United States by Harry Palmer. It is owned and run by one business, Star's Edge Inc., the company Palmer founded, which promotes and administers the course. The course materials are protected by copyright, and students and instructors must agree to keep their contents confidential. For readers in Australia, the key point is that Avatar is one company's course. Its instructors are trained and licensed to teach it, and Star's Edge can suspend that licence.

Description

Beliefs and experience

The course rests on the idea that what a person believes creates the reality they live in. It aims to make students aware of their beliefs and to teach them to create or "discreate" those beliefs at will. Palmer took the name from a word for gods who take on bodily form. The BBC explains that the word comes from Hindu mythology.

Palmer told the BBC in 2018 that the core teaching is simply that beliefs have consequences in a person's life, and that the course promotes no particular philosophy beyond that and has students of every religion. He gave the Tampa Bay Times a similar account in 2000, saying the course shows people how their experiences link to their beliefs and how to change them if they wish. The organisation describes its own goal as an "enlightened planetary society".

Course structure

A United States appeals court described the course in 2002 as taught in sections by trained, licensed instructors called "Masters":

• Section I is a two-day seminar built on a published manual, ReSurfacing: Techniques for Exploring Consciousness, which is available to the public.
• Section II (The Exercises) uses a short manual. Near its end, students say aloud short phrases from a list, notice whatever thoughts each phrase brings up, then repeat, exaggerate and let go of those thoughts until they can say every phrase without them.
• Section III (The Procedures) uses meditation to teach a technique called the "Creation Handling Procedure", for dissolving unwanted beliefs. Students work first on beliefs about the body, then on limitations, identities and beliefs that persist. The course calls the state it aims for being "at source", which it presents as enlightenment.
• Further sections train students to become Masters who can teach the course (Section IV), and offer the Wizards Course (Section V).

A district court in 2001 recorded that Sections II and III together were taught over six to nine days. Students sign a confidentiality agreement before taking these sections and hand the manuals back at the end. Palmer told the court that this was partly so that a trained Master would always guide the student, and partly to protect the course's value.

In 2000 the Tampa Bay Times reported three levels in the beginning program: graduates of the first are called Avatars, of the second Masters, and of the highest Avatar Wizards. According to the BBC, Masters and Wizards may run their own courses, and part of the income goes back to the organisation's headquarters.

Introductions and courses

A Herald on Sunday reporter who attended a free one-hour introduction in Auckland in 2014 described a filmed talk by Palmer, two Masters taking turns to read an introduction, and a "Compassion Exercise" of five steps printed on a card. The courses offered there were a nine-day programme and a two-day workshop called ReSurfacing. In 2018 the BBC reported prices from US$500 for a five-day "Integrity Course" to US$7,500 for the thirteen-day Wizards Course.

Scope

What it includes

• A two-day introductory seminar (ReSurfacing), followed by sections taught from confidential manuals
• Spoken exercises and a meditation procedure aimed at finding and changing one's own beliefs
• Training and licensing of Masters to teach the course

What it is not

• Palmer describes Avatar as a self-development program, not a religion, and says it has no scriptures.
• Its central idea is not new. The 2002 appeals court accepted that the notion that beliefs shape how people experience their lives has been discussed for a very long time, and noted that an idea of that kind can't be owned through copyright.
• A psychology lecturer at the University of Otago, interviewed by the Herald on Sunday, said that in his opinion the programme has no real scientific credibility.
• It is not presented as medical care. Avatar's Dutch branch told the Dutch public broadcaster NOS in 2018 that its courses are not meant to replace medical treatment.

Traditions and lineage

Palmer was a member of the Church of Scientology for many years and left it in 1982, according to the 2002 appeals court. He told the Tampa Bay Times that he was in Scientology from 1972 to 1982, that he developed Avatar between 1984 and 1988, and that he regarded Scientology's influence on it as small. The paper reported that he saw Avatar as drawing on his wider religious and spiritual experience, including Sakya Buddhism, yoga and the Methodist church, and that he developed it for people wanting a cheaper and shorter route to self-enlightenment than Scientology offers. The BBC gives 1986 as the year Avatar was created. Court records differ on these early dates: the 2001 district court judgment says Palmer left Scientology in 1986 and introduced the course in 1987.

According to the BBC, much of Avatar's philosophy is shared with Scientology, and the course draws on elements of Scientology, shamanism, Hinduism and New Age thought. It adds that many of the original course materials used Scientology terms, and that some, such as "rundown", are still used.

Figures for the course's reach come from Palmer himself or from unattributed estimates. He told the Tampa Bay Times in 2000 that 55,000 people in 65 countries had done the program since 1988, and that its world headquarters was his home near Orlando, Florida. In 2014 the Herald on Sunday said the organisation was believed to have over 100,000 followers in more than 50 countries, and reported that it had just begun running courses in New Zealand; one of the Masters at the Auckland introduction was Australian. In 2018 Palmer told the BBC that there were almost a million graduates worldwide.

The company has defended its ownership of the course materials in court. When a former Avatar Master published a competing course that drew on Avatar's exercises, Palmer and Star's Edge sued for copyright infringement. In 2004 the Eleventh Circuit upheld a judgment in their favour, agreeing with the trial court that the competing course had copied Palmer's original explanations, metaphors, analogies and advice.

Context

Within Spiritualism

Spiritfold has found no published source linking Avatar with Spiritualism.

In Australian Spiritualism

Spiritfold has found no published source linking Avatar with Spiritualism in Australia.

A Spiritualist perspective

Avatar sits well outside Spiritualism. As described above, it is a privately owned course about beliefs and how a person might change them, and nothing in the accounts above connects it with mediumship or the continuing life of the spirit, which are at the heart of Spiritualist teaching. A Spiritualist would treat it as a separate path that some people choose for their own personal development, and would respect that choice.

The questions a thoughtful Spiritualist would ask of any paid course apply here too. Be clear about what you are being offered and what it costs before you commit, and don't feel pressed to keep signing up for the next level. Keep any course and your health care separate: no course takes the place of a registered health practitioner. If a course asks you to keep its contents secret, take time to decide whether that sits comfortably with you.

Safety and good practice

Avatar's own Dutch branch has said publicly that its courses are not intended to replace medical treatment.

The 2014 Herald on Sunday report recorded concerns from critics, which Avatar's New Zealand organiser rejected:

• Critics overseas had alleged that Avatar uses layered marketing to recruit young newcomers, many of whom then spend thousands of dollars on courses around the world.
• The New Zealand organiser said Avatar doesn't recruit people, isn't multilevel marketing, and doesn't require anyone to take all its courses.
• The director of Cultwatch advised people to be wary of any organisation that encourages them to keep taking further self-improvement courses.

In the Netherlands in 2018, Sektesignaal, a reporting point set up by the Ministry of Justice and Security, said it would raise television and newspaper reports about Avatar ideas in schools with the Dutch Education Inspectorate. The schools named denied the reports. The Inspectorate said it knew of the matter but was not opening an investigation, explaining that it does not investigate schools because of a philosophy of life, only where teaching quality, the rule of law or pupils' safety is at stake.

Common questions

Who runs the Avatar Course?

Star's Edge Inc., the company founded by Harry Palmer, promotes and administers it. The course itself is taught by Masters who have been trained and licensed to teach it.

Is Avatar a religion?

Palmer has said it is a self-development program rather than a religion, with no scriptures. The BBC notes that it shares much of its philosophy with Scientology and borrows from several religious and New Age sources.

Why are the course materials kept secret?

Students sign a confidentiality agreement and must give back the manuals for Sections II and III when they finish. Palmer's reasons, as a court recorded them, were that the material needs a trained Master to explain it and that secrecy keeps the course valuable to future students.

How much does the Avatar Course cost?

Prices reported by the BBC in 2018 ranged from US$500 for a five-day course to US$7,500 for the thirteen-day Wizards Course.

Related modalities

• Meditation

Further reading

• Blackstock, Russell. "We'd like to welcome you to 'enlightenment'". Herald on Sunday, 17 August 2014. A reporter's first-hand account of an introductory session, with interviews.
• Grant, Tim. "Avatar draws on wide sources to provide path to self-fulfillment". Tampa Bay Times archive, 31 December 2000. Largely based on an interview with Harry Palmer.
• Holligan, Anna. "Avatar: Scientology-style sect causes concern in Netherlands". BBC News, 31 March 2018.
• NOS. "Meldpunt Sektesignaal buigt zich over verspreiding Avatar-ideeën op scholen" (in Dutch). NOS Nieuws, 27 March 2018.
• United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Palmer v. Braun, 287 F.3d 1325 (2002) and Palmer v. Braun, 376 F.3d 1254 (2004).