One of the Comments in response to my recent post on Harry Palmer’s Avatar cult linked to a 2006 briefing in EPC, their in-house on-line publication “for Avatars, Masters, and Wizards” (link no longer working). Sounds like something out of Harry Potter, but this is serious mum. EPC stands for Enlightened Planetary Civilisation (who LOLed? Have some manners!).

The topic of the briefing is ‘Avatar Bashers’. I suppose I qualify as an AB, since I must plead guilty to having had a bit of fun at Harry Potter ‘s – sorry, Palmer’s – expense. Call me twisted and cynical, but mirth and ridicule are my natural responses to Hazza’s float tank revelation that we’re all from a distant planet, “Estro”, and inhabited by inner “entities” from other worlds that are the source of all human woes.

Actually, ‘twisted and cynical’ is but the tip of a particularly dire iceberg of psychopathology, according to EPC’s profile of ABs.

Quote: Psychologically, Avatar Bashers fit one or more of the patterns of diagnostic personality disorders detailed in the [American Psychiatric Association’s] ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’. Most have had unsuccessful treatment for mental illnesses.

Strewth. I did have a few sessions with a shrink 18 years ago. This bozo sat in his leather armchair stroking his beard like fucking Freud and saying nothing and after 3 weeks of shelling out bucks I could’ve spent on good things like beer and dope (I said 18 years ago, remember) I asked him for a label, to which he replied “How about ‘selfish’?”, to which I replied “What?!”, to which he replied, “You throw your tangled mess on the table and expect me to unravel it for you.”

Well, yes, I did think a shrink was supposed to help you work a few things out rather than taking your beer and dope money for the privilege of watching him sit there like a wanker saying nothing while you do your best to fill in the awkward silences with ‘issues’. Yes I did. So, diagnosed “selfish”, I left.

The treatment was evidently unsuccessful: I have been called “selfish” many times since (usually accompanied by the noun “bastard”). Fuck me swingin’ – EPC is right!

But that’s not all. The briefing goes on:
Avatar Basher is not a label that we should use to deflect all criticism or advice. Criticism and advice (regardless of its tenor) should be evaluated against the success of the originating source. Never fail to consider carefully the criticism or advice of successful, productive, or aware people, but (unless your desire is to join them) never pay more than slight regard to the criticism or rumors of losers and psychotics.

So there you go dear readers. As a bona fide AB, I am either “successful, productive, or aware” – or a loser/psychotic. You’ve been warned.

O what a simple black and white world is the world of the cultist. Good or evil. For or against. Right or wrong. Just like a pre-election political campaign strategy. Or fundamentalist religion. Or the mafia.