Avatarism had its start at the Burning Man festival,  but its roots are deep in the ancient sanskrit idea of “Avatara.” Loosely translated it means gods inhabiting human bodies and walking the earth, but that is a narrow explanation. Avatarism is how a group of people, all over the world, seem to have developed or learned God-like or superhero-like confidence, the ability to accomplish their dreams and goals with ease, and the ability to live out their highly personal vision that they themselves have envisioned. Encouraging and supporting the individual honing of the will through focused play and persistence, and the upholding of others on the journey is at the heart of this movement. Avatarism encourages people to begin to design in great detail, new and carefully chosen skill sets, characteristics, goals, and aspects of themselves. As the game is played, the player crafts a new and richly  embodied personality and finds themselves permanently up-leveled. Seeking and embodying gurus, teachers, archetypes from history and fantasy may be involved; the warrior, the poet, the god Pan, Rainbow Bright, Batman, Buddha, Jesus, James Dean, Kermit The Frog, Kali, Tara, Tesla, Dr. Who, Conan the Barbarian, Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Leonardo DiCaprio and Leonardo the Ninja Turtle to name a few. 

The process of skill collection, archetype embodiment and the other ideas that comprise Avatarism don’t have to be taken seriously, but they are important. Avatarism is a dance towards personal excellence more than it is a march towards perfectionism. Avatarism is an open source game/philosophy for people attracted to radically changing themselves away from the current life/brain programs they may be running. We are, all of us, collections of moments and memories wet wired to a heart mind and body. You are not some stoic and frozen being unable to change!  It is your birthright to be changeable and modifiable. 

Avatarism is a great philosophical model for rebellious souls, hardcore gamers, fantasy players, festival goers, hopeless romantics, seekers of truth, lovers of beauty and anyone attracted to the idea that life is a game, meant to be played. The game of conscious character creation is easy to start and hard to stop, Simple to begin and hard to master. Think about how tough it is to change a habit or learn a complicated new skill. Usually people undertake to change themselves for a health reason or to learn a new skill to make more money. While playing the game may correct bad habits, and allow you the confidence to make more money Avatarism is not a means to an end. This game is a life-long pursuit in the direction of the betterment of self,  for the good of self and the rest of mankind. This game has no end. The ongoing goal is to consciously create a personally fermented culture of awesome, and never stop. 

Avatarism is the game that we have been playing since the beginning of our history and it is not just a Burning Man or a festival thing. Because we feel free to enact these alternate character traits at these events, there is a powerful and indelible change that happens in individuals when they do. If you decide that you want to play the game, you will experience this too. The change that happens to us when we go to an event and embody our avatar(s)or even just put on a costume and feel the change in ourselves is something the greeks understood long ago. Cosmetics, costumes, cos-play all have their root in the word, Cosmos. The ancients knew that embodiment lead to a kind of cosmic or higher consciousness. 

What can Avatarism do for society?

Look deep within yourself at the dreams and hopes that you have failed to put into action as of now. Who would you be if you reversed that pattern and began to embody those dreams with the kind of zeal usually reserved for zealots? How would the remainder of your life be played if you lost your fear? What is keeping you from starting now? If we were all confident and free to enact our dreams in an unashamed way, how fast could we cause change in society?

Wars, protests, and fights change the culture very little and very slowly. But when individuals begin to change the culture from the inside……..a groundswell happens. Because that kind of energy is infectious and viral, the culture moves fast and furious. The revolution is within, this is a revolution of spirit.  So while the patriarchal model of change may be  fight, fight, fight. The Avataristic model is Embody, Up-Level, Uphold. 

EMBODY the highest vision you can create for yourself. Use the Avatar Character Sheet or any other means of design to collect physical, emotional, magical, and wisdom based skill sets. 

UP-LEVEL  your current character away from the mundane and degenerate programs that no longer serve you and that you did not wholly choose.Use focus, study, ritual, emulation of archetypes and role models to impress your nervous system and turn on your deep memory circuits so that you can get the data in for good. 

UPHOLD yourself to your self created  model while communicating  to your tribe, your friends and groups of influence what those changes are. In this way, the people around you can uphold you and remind you of who you are creating yourself to be and not who you have been in the past. 

We don’t need to exert our power upon the world as much as we need to become powerfully inspired and confident individuals. Only from that standpoint can we hope to change the world for good.

“You can’t fake a phenomenon.”

— “Burning Dan” Gordon Levitt 1974-2010

Thanks for reading the Avatarism Blog! I sincerely hope we meet soon, down the dusty road, living our dreams in the glorious future. 

Onward and upwards, forever endeavor,

iRev. Alexander Polinsky, Founder of Avatarism