The ascended typewriter

"The Ballard Saint Germain" is the fifth and apparently concluding pamphlet in Gerald B. Bryan's series of critiques of Guy Ballard's bizarre cult, The Mighty I AM Activity. The Ballard cult was a New Thought-Theosophical-fascistic hybrid that enjoyed a brief spell of popularity in the United States during the Great Depression. Bryan's pamphlet was published in 1938. Today, the cult is more or less forgotten (although it operates a website under a different name), but an off-shot called the Church Universal and Triumphant preaches an almost identical message. The mysterious Saint Germain is an "ascended master" and quasi-divine being with whom Guy Ballard and his wife Edna Ballard claimed to be in daily contact. Indeed, the message of The I AM Activity is to a large extent attributed to this heavenly personage.

"The Ballard Saint Germain" is not as interesting as some of Bryan's other pamphlets, and seems to contain material that for some reason was left over from the rest of the series. That being said, the author has no problems exposing the Ballards as frauds.

Guy Ballard supposedly encountered Saint Germain for the first time in 1930. In reality, Edna was channelling Saint Germain already in 1929. There were also rumours about Guy himself channelling Saint Germain at séances prior to 1930. More damningly, the Ballards have edited several of Saint Germain's "infallible" divine messages. Thus, in an early communication, the ascended master expresses support for Father Divine, a controversial African-American spiritual figure. Later, the Ballards apparently had second thoughts about this, and therefore excised the sympathetic statement from the "infallible" discourse! Another discourse of Saint Germain was subsequently attributed to a previously unknown master, a certain Arcturus. Bryan also wonders why Saint Germain's messages were sometimes written on typewriter and sent out from the Ballard's home address, or why nobody else than the Ballards could hear the master's "audible" communications?

When reading Bryan's critiques of The I AM Movement, I can't help wondering whether Guy Ballard (alias Godfre Ray King) and Edna Ballard (alias Lotus Ray King) had any kind of genuine spiritual experiences at all. I get the impression that they made it all up as a get-rich-quick scheme. However, even the sceptical Bryan admits that *something* spiritual may be behind Ballardism, presumably mediumistic communications. Bryan, although a student of metaphysical teachings, rejects such communications as inferior or worse. In general, however, Bryan's tack is that the Ballard couple simply created their own pet religion by combining or plagiarizing early sources.

Readers interested in the subject can find all of Bryan's books free on-line, including his magnum opus "Psychic Dictatorship in America", reviewed by me elsewhere on this site. Since there are still I AM groups here and there, Bryan's work perhaps deserves to be dusted off and reread.