Books Club Magazine

I AM movement, theosophical movement founded in Chicago in the early 1930s by Guy W. Ballard (1878–1939), a mining engineer, and his wife, Edna W. Ballard (1886–1971). The name of the movement is a reference to the Bible verse in which God replies to Moses, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14). Despite legal and public relations difficulties, the movement thrived and inspired a number of subsequent movements based on its teachings.

Ballard claimed that in 1930 during a visit to Mount Shasta (a dormant volcano in northern California), he was contacted by St. Germain, one of the Ascended Masters of the Great White Brotherhood. Many occultists believe that this order of spiritual beings guides the overall destiny of humankind and speaks through human messengers. The first modern contact with the Masters was allegedly made in the 19th century by Madame Helena Blavatsky (1831–91), one of the founders of the Theosophical Society.

Writing under the name Godfrey Ray King, Ballard compiled his experiences in a book, Unveiled Mysteries, published in 1934, and he afterward claimed to receive regular messages, termed “discourses,” from St. Germain and other Masters.

Because one of the Masters from whom Ballard received dictations was Jesus, members of the I AM movement consider themselves Christian. The Ballards claimed to have received more than 3,000 messages, which formed the body of the movement’s teachings.

The Ballards incorporated the I AM movement in 1932. Following Guy Ballard’s death, Edna Ballard became the movement’s leader and revealed the messages she had received from St. Germain. With her death in 1971, the Board of Directors, which had been established at the movement’s incorporation in 1932, took control of the movement. Since then, no further dictations from the Masters have been received, because no new messenger has been appointed to succeed the Ballards.

One of their books is The Magic Presence by Godfré Ray King that I am presently reading.

Facsimile of 1935 Edition. This volume contains the author's second group of experiences with Saint Germain. These experiences were the result of his applying the knowledge he had previously learned, as described in Unveiled Mysteries. "I LEFT you, my reader, at the end of Unveiled Mysteries, with the Great Ascended Master Lanto sending forth His Blessing to America and mankind from the Retreat in the Royal Teton. In this book I shall describe another group of important and wonderful experiences which I was privileged to have during those months of association with our Beloved Ascended Master Saint Germain." Herein the author continues his conversation with St. Germain, an Ascended Master, who is able to manipulate the fabric of reality. In Unveiled Mysteries the author,

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Guy Ballard, using the pen name Godfré Ray King, describes a series of astral trips in time and space with St. Germain.

They travelled to lost civilizations in South America and the Sahara, as well as wellstocked bunkers of the ancients in the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Mount Shasta. The author and St. Germain revisit past lives as citizens of Atlantis and Mu, and they turn out to be relatives. A final chapter mentions encounters with entities from Venus.