Scientology Origins
Palmer and his partner, Avra-Honey Smith, ran the Elmira Church of Scientology officially for over 10 years, until 1984, when he ceased to make payments and was sued by the Church of Scientology for trademark infringement. As a result of this lawsuit, Palmer renamed his "Church of Scientology, Mission of Elmira, Inc." to "the Center for Creative Learning" in 1987.
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 (RTC), 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 (in a court case he lost against former employees before the State Labor Board) 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 today, such as "Rundown", "Identities", "handling"; and Avatar offers similar courses of the same names ("Integrity Course" and "Professional Course").
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.
Read more about this topic: Avatar Course
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)