Avatar Course


The Avatar Course, often simply called Avatar, is a series of LGAT self-development courses founded in 1986 by Harry Palmer and run by his privately held company, Star's Edge, Inc., which trains and licenses Avatar Masters to deliver the Avatar Course globally.

Structure

The first version of The Avatar Course was released on 15 October 1986. the course had five sections: licensed Avatar "Masters" teach the first three; Star's Edge, Inc. teaches the two advanced sections.
The Avatar course in essence claims to identify and remove limiting beliefs so that students can become more effective in life.

Scientology origins

In 1975 the Elmira Mission incorporated under the name the Elmira Mission of the Church of Scientology and the following year it gained a license to use all Scientology trademarks and service marks held and controlled by L. Ron Hubbard. In exchange for that right, Palmer paid 10% of the Mission's income as a tithe to Scientology. Six years later Hubbard assigned his rights in all Scientology trademarks to Religious Technology Center, which the Church of Scientology had organized especially to own and protect all Scientology trademarks. RTC immediately increased the licensing fee. On September 9, 1982 Palmer signed a new License Agreement requiring the Elmira Mission to pay 15% of its income as well as additional fees to RTC in order to continue using the Scientology trademarks. When in November 1984 Palmer ceased making any payments to the Church of Scientology, the Church filed a lawsuit against Palmer and the Elmira Mission for trademark infringement.
The Church won on appeal and the court sealed details of the settlement.
About this time Palmer produced the first of the Avatar-related materials, including the Thoughtstorm Manual.
On 28 February 1998 Palmer mentioned the renaming of "the Church of Scientology, Mission of Elmira, Inc. on March 11, 1987, pursuant to Federal Court Order, the Center for Creative Learning".
The original Avatar materials made extensive use of Scientology terminology. Harry Palmer sold them to other Scientologists, claiming that they achieved "end of case" and "cover the entire Scientology Bridge, the Buddhic path and beyond." Many of the terms continue in use in Avatar, such as "Rundown", "Identities", and "handling"; and Avatar offers similar courses of the same names.
In addition to this history, similarities to Scientology in policies, structure, secrecy, and doctrine taught in higher levels have caused European news articles to refer to Palmer's Avatar Courses as "Scientology-Lite", picking up a term originally coined by Texas columnist Roahn Wynar.

Galactic confederacy

At the first Wizards Course in 1991, Harry Palmer introduced the story about the history of consciousness in the Milky Way galaxy. The tale includes his version of Scientology's Galactic Confederacy: picturing Earth as one of the planets seeded with life, and suggesting that humanity risks destroying itself through a "blight bomb" that stops photosynthesis.
Other references to Palmer's claimed extraterrestrial knowledge and experience occur rarely, but exist in other speeches and texts, such as an excerpt from "The Translurian Record"
and his claim to have read firsthand the equivalent of the "Prime Directive" of Star Trek.

Controversy over credentials

From a 1991 issue of the Avatar Journal, company literature and associated websites started portraying Harry Palmer as an Educational Psychologist, including claims that he received a master's in educational psychology from Elmira College. In his book Living Deliberately, Palmer claims to have majored in Educational Psychology as part of the Triplum Program at Ithaca College. In fact, he received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Ithaca College in 1969 and a master's in education from Elmira College in 1971, and gained certification to teach English in secondary schools. Neither Ithaca College nor Elmira College ever offered a major or minor course of study in Educational Psychology; and Educational Psychology never formed part of the Ithaca Plan.
The Florida Department of Health investigated the academic credentials of Harry Palmer in 2005/2006. The Department found that he used the term "psychologist" illegally and made him sign a cease-and-desist agreement.
The biography on Palmer's website calls him a "lifelong educator" though he was only a teacher between 1969 and 1972, which is consistent with previous biographies published by his company.

Legal actions

In 2000, Harry Palmer sued Eldon Braun, a former Avatar licensee and Palmer critic, for copyright and trademark infringement, unfair competition, breach of contract, intentional interference with a business relationship, and libel. In 2005, the court awarded Palmer $36,000 in damages for copyright infringement, $20,000 for libel damages, and $364,527.68 in attorney’s fees, with all other claims dropped or dismissed.
The copyright claim related to a self-study course Braun developed called The Source Course, which Braun billed as "an analog of the Avatar Course", "a refresher" for the Avatar Course, "a take-home manual" for graduates of the Avatar Course, and the "equivalent" of the Avatar Course materials. A preliminary injunction against the work failed, but the appeal concluded against Braun.

Published works

Star's Edge, Inc has published all the works attributed to Palmer :
These and other course instructions and workbooks are collectively known as "the Avatar materials".