Guy Ballard

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Guy Warren Ballard (July 28, 1878 - December 29, 1939) was an American mining engineer who became, with his wife, Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard, the founder of the "I AM" Activity.

Ballard was born in Burlington, Iowa and married his wife in Chicago in 1916. Ballard served in the U.S. Army in World War I, and then became a mining engineer. Allegations of mining-stock fraud were raised against the Ballards, but were never sustained in court. Both Edna and Guy studied theosophy and the occult extensively.

Ballard visited Mt. Shasta, California in 1930, and reported that he encountered there another hiker who identified himself as St. Germain, who offered to tutor him in the wisdom of the Ascended Masters. St. Germain and other adepts, including Venusian "Lords of the Flame" evidently borrowed from Helena P. Blavatsky and Thomas Lake Harris, often gathered in huge hidden caverns within the larger North American mountains. Ballard provided details of his encounters within the caves in a series of books such as Unveiled Mysteries and The Magic Presence, using the pseudonym "Godfre Ray King."

The I AM movement started from public lectures about these alleged encounters and grew rapidly in the 1930s. Ballard lectured frequently in Chicago about St. Germain's mystical teachings, in which the great destiny of America played a key role. By 1938, there were claimed to be about a million followers in the United States. But after Ballard's death, most of his followers left the cult, and his estate was sued for fraud. The case was heard before the United States Supreme Court in 1944, and again in 1946, before being dismissed. Significantly, the court ruled that it was clearly beyond the powers of any court to determine the sincerity or insincerity of a person's religious beliefs, or to require that a believer "prove" his beliefs to be valid.

The similarity between many of the I AM Activity's doctrines, especially regarding the inhabitants of the other solar planets, and the later "cosmic revelations" provided by the earliest 1950s contactees, individuals such as George Adamski, Daniel Fry and Truman Bethurum, who claimed to have met and talked to the crew members of landed flying saucers, has often been noticed by commentators.

The best-known modern spinoff of the I AM Activity is the notorious Church Universal and Triumphant founded by Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her husband Mark.

[edit] References

James R. Lewis, editor, UFOs and Popular Culture (2000)
James R. Lewis, editor, The Gods Have Landed (1995)
J. Gordon Melton, An Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America (1992)
Charles S. Braden, These Also Believe (1949)
Gerald B. Bryan, Psychic Dictatorship in America (1940)
Robert S. Ellwood, "Making New Religions: The Story of the Mighty 'I AM,' " History Today 38 (June, 1988)