THE NEW MOSES
Guy Ballard and “I AM”
Guy and Edna Ballard (Photo: the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University)
In the summer of 1930, in the midst of the Great Depression, a 52-year-old mining engineer named Guy Ballard hiked up Mount Shasta in northern California. Ballard was on government business in a nearby town, heard stories about divine men on the mountain and decided to investigate. According to his account, on one of his hikes Ballard stopped to fill his cup at a mountain spring when he felt an electrical charge through his body. He turned to see a young man behind him, Ballard wrote later, “a Magnificent God-like figure in a white-jeweled robe,” who lectured him about love, desire and the Eternal Law of Life. That figure, Ballard wrote, was an ascended Master named Saint Germain.
The meeting was similar to the Biblical account of Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai when God declared “I AM THAT I AM.” Ballard would become a new Moses and spread his teachings, drawing as many as a million followers to his “I AM” movement. Mount Shasta, a snow-capped volcanic mountain, had long been rumored to be the sanctuary of Masters from the lost continent of Lemuria who lived under the mountain. The Comte de Saint Germain was an 18th century French sorcerer, alchemist and mystic who claimed to be several centuries old.
Ballard was born in Newton, Kansas, served in the U.S. Army in World War I and became a mining engineer. He married Edna Anne Wheeler in 1916 and their son Donald was born in 1918. They lived in Chicago on Ballard’s small income. Ballard had studied spiritualism for years and frequently visited an occult library in Los Angeles.
After his revelation with Saint Germain, Ballard returned to Chicago where he and his wife established the Saint Germain Foundation. In 1934, the Foundation published Unveiled Mysteries, the first of 20 books that detailed Ballard’s communications with the Masters and explained the “I AM” movement. Thousands of followers attended gatherings to receive messages from the Masters and join in guided prayers. They also practiced “decreeing,” publicly declaring their happiness, health and love. As much of the nation struggled with poverty and unemployment, Ballard spread hope for a coming golden age.
Ballard also promoted American patriotism, at one point saying he had received messages from Master Lady Liberty who, he said, inspired the Statue of Liberty. The movement held its national meetings on July 4.
Ballard died in Los Angeles in December 1939 and his wife soon announced he had ascended at the Grand Teton Mountain in Wyoming, where Masters train their disciples, according to I AM mythology.
Ballard’s wife and son Donald continued to lead the movement. But the Los Angeles state attorney rejected I AM’s tax-exempt status and charged them with mail fraud. Their teachings, the state attorney said, were literally unbelievable. The Ballards were convicted in a jury trial but, on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark 5-4 decision in 1944, ruled that the First Amendment does not allow courts to inquire into the truth or falsity of religious beliefs. Justice William O. Douglas, writing for the majority, argued that the constitution’s framers “envisaged the widest possible toleration of conflicting views.” The views of the I AM movement “might seem incredible, if not preposterous” to some, he wrote, but if a jury inquired into the truth of their views, the same must apply for other sects because “[t]he First Amendment does not select any one group or any one type or religion for preferred treatment.” Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone dissented, accusing the majority of granting constitutional immunity in cases of fraud based on religious statement.
The Ballards were tried again in 1946 but acquitted, although they had to apply to regain their use of the postal system and their tax-exempt status. The process took more than 10 years.
The movement remains active today. It sponsors meetings at hundreds of sanctuaries throughout the United States and around the world. According to the Saint Germain website:
We as individuals, can give great help and service to mankind by joining together, in “I AM” Group Meetings. The main purpose of coming together and decreeing is to offer up our energy to Beloved Saint Germain and the Ascended Masters so They may take up the energy, amplify it, and return It to bless and protect and act in all activities which They know need the assistance. There is greater power in numbers, and greater energy is released when the power of many decreeing can be offered as One Flame.
The movement also holds a summer program at Mount Shasta every August. It includes classes, religious services, a patriotic play, a pageant of angels and a ritual enactment of “the life of Beloved Jesus, focusing on His Miracles of Truth and Healing.”
Sources:
“The I AM Activity,” Tim Rudbøg, in The Handbook of the Theosophical Current, Brill (2013)
A Republic of Mind and Spirit, Catherine L. Albanese, Yale University Press (2007), pp. 467-471
United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944)