Yogi McCaw, meditation teacher

"...taking responsibility for the conscious creation of your own existence."

The Avatar processes involve going really deep inside oneself and seeing what's really there for you. The message is clear -- it's time to take personal responsibility for yourself. If you can't go inside and accept what's there, you won't get very far with creating the reality you say you desire.

Some people just can't accept anything on faith. The question comes: Why should I believe what someone else says?

Eventually, the situation comes to a point: since no one else seems to know anything more than I do, am I going to do whatever it takes to come to some understanding of some very fundamental questions, like "Who am I?" or "What is reality?" or "Am I going to clam up, believe what I'm told to believe and rejoin the Herd?"

For such a person, the desire for some inner understanding becomes all-consuming. They might do seemingly crazy things, like eat lots of LSD to see if it can really cause mystical experiences, or go buy a farm so they can spend all their time chopping wood and carrying water and sitting in Zazen to see if that can cause something called enlightenment, or surprising your wife by replacing her nice dining room table with an isolation tank and then promptly disappearing into it for the better part of the next two months. The search becomes total. It seems that it is this very totality that really makes the difference.

After reading this book, I get the feeling that Harry Palmer has this kind of totality.

I can relate. I have done most of the things mentioned in the above paragraph. I have moved to the country and lived in a tent-like structure called a yurt. I split my wood. I carried my water. I spent a lot of time meditating. Years ago, I logged in more than my equal share of starfleet time on the good ship Acid. I haven't owned an isolation tank yet, but I have wanted one for a long time. I spend a lot of time in our hot tub late at night, with it at just above body temperature, womb-like, breathing into -- whatever's there -- or empty, open space. I have to know -- for myself. Someone else saying, "I have experienced such-and-such, and this is what I believe," just doesn't do anything for me. I haven't done Avatar -- yet. And partly for that reason I was asked to write this review of Harry Palmer's book, Living Deliberately.

Subtitled The Discovery and Development of Avatar, the book is divided into three parts. Part I is autobiographical, Harry on Harry; the hero/crazy person tells his story. I liked it. I liked Harry's authenticity. I liked his willingness to say in print things he thought were true and part of his story, at the risk of offending certain practitioners of other spiritual paths. I liked his honesty.

Part 2 is basically an exposition of a philosophy called Creativism. I hesitate to label it a philosophy, except that Harry himself calls it that at one point. Creativism's basic premise is (surprise!) you create your own reality. Creativism's challenge is for individuals to understand how they create their own reality and to learn to do it consciously, choosing beliefs they want to see materialized and then structuring their lives according to their preferred beliefs.

Harry is not trite about this; it is not simply a matter of mentally affirming, "I believe I'd like so-and-so." The Avatar processes involve going really deep inside oneself and seeing what's really there for you. The message is clear: it's time to take personal responsibility for yourself. If you can't go inside and accept what's there, you won't get very far with creating the reality you say you desire.

Avatar is deceptively simple. The techniques are easy to do, but Harry warns us that it takes courage and exceptional self-honesty. Avatar is not for people who cop out when the reality check comes. Already we have a lot of beliefs that we don't even see about ourselves. We operate on automatic, we create unconsciously. "Stuff" seems to happen to us, and we feel like victims of a world we cannot understand. Some of these beliefs we don't want to admit we have, and some of them we are willing to defend to the death rather than let go of. Like I said, the quality of totality makes the difference. Harry has that totality. Does each of us have it for ourselves?

Part 3 is an interesting splicing together of two events in such a way as to give a feel of how Avatar is growing in the world. The first is Harry's own rendition of his introductory talk given just before the first West Coast Avatar Course was delivered. It was in a friend's living room after an uncomfortable plane flight. It gives the feeling of what it must have been like to be there when something that is going to takeoff was just starting to sprout wings: Juicy, exciting. Harry in sweaty clothes, tired, on the spot to somehow communicate that he has stumbled onto something very real to some people who've probably already seen a lot of New Age spiritual quick-fixes. It also serves the purpose of giving the introductory talk to the reader. It is very interesting material on the Avatar techniques themselves, which space does not allow me to go into more deeply here.

The second event zips us three years ahead to Nice, France, where Harry talks to an assembly of new Avatar graduates. It strikes the reader: just three years from somebody's living room to a scenario where 250 people are taking the course at once at a big, juicy training in Europe. Avatar is spreading like wildfire.

Harry's message to the new Avatars? Higher consciousness brings with it a heightened sense of personal responsibility. He is quick to point out that "save the world" crusades have consistently produced one single result over the past two thousand years -- failure. I feel to quote Harry directly here, to give you some flavor of the man's own integrity:

"This is the path you do not stand for. It is better that you denounce Avatar a thousand times than to use it even once to justify your actions. You champion no cause above personal responsibility."

I found myself inwardly cheering him on. Yes, Harry! I agree, full of love and sadness and joy and music, and with our personal challenges, and our planetary challenges, and all the other things that make us so, so -- well, human. And I personally feel that our humanity is one thing we cannot afford to compromise.

I recommend this book not only to people who are considering doing Avatar, but to anyone who is interested in exploring consciousness, especially their own. It is made clear in the book: Harry may have discovered Avatar, but Avatar is not about Harry. It is about the person who wants the freedom of, and is ready to take responsibility for the conscious creation of their own existence.

Linda Decker, the Village Wordsmith

"...a foothold from which you can launch your own explorations."

If you're through with the psychobabble-du-jour bunch and are tired of esoteric incantations that only the initiated can mumble or pretend to understand, boy are you in the right place! You'll love this fast-paced, provocative new gem of a book by consciousness researcher Harry Palmer.

With a clarity attainable only by someone with an absolute command of his subject matter, Palmer masterfully takes what could easily have become a dry, complex drone of philosophic musings and turns it into a ringingly clear, engaging and usable book. You'll see yourself on nearly every page -- Palmer calls you by name and warmly invites you into his exploration.

It's been a busy nine years for Palmer and his staff. In 1986, he released the Avatar Course for the first time. Since then, his work has been translated into 14 languages, while more than 44,000 people in 61 countries have experienced the speed and effectiveness of the course. Now, at last, he has released this chronicle of his own search for an operating manual for life -- the journey that led him to create Avatar.

The book begins with the story of Harry's days as a hippie seeker in the sixties, and tells of his various encounters of a familiar kind with institutions of higher indoctrination, as well as his explorations of the belief systems of those who were supposed to have "the answers." He learned that for those in search of more evolved states of consciousness and freedom, any number of storytelling impostors are ready to tie disciples' hands and point them towards a "new, improved" movie screen. Sadly, what's playing is a different set of assertions for the student to believe. Palmer determinedly walks out of the theater, ready to do his own research. Off we go with him into sensory deprivation tank experiments and the formative stages of his new technology. And we are there for the first demonstration of its awesome power.

Part two of the book presents the principles that illustrate the structure of belief systems, the effect of one's perspective on experience, the anatomy of honesty and the relationship between belief and reality. Here, you're bound to find questions for all of your answers and a fresh enthusiasm for considering new viewpoints -- most notably, your own.

In the last Section of the book, Palmer describes the initial spread of Avatar and takes us through an overview of the kinds of experiences that await in the confidential procedures of Sections II and III of the course. The Course equips people with the tools to explore consciousness to its very limits -- from the most fixed, opinionated reality to the broad expansiveness of source awareness. With these very practical tools, one can create the reality he or she prefers--moment to moment.

The availability of Living Deliberately has caused a sharp up-tick in the growth of the Avatar network, because it gives the curious a secure foothold from which they can launch their own explorations, free of indoctrination. Do yourself a favor and savor Living Deliberately, as well as its companion workbook, ReSurfacing®. Both are available from the publisher, as are referrals to licensed Avatar instructors.

Click here to order your copy of Living Deliberately.