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| Periodical: | Bright Horizons |
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From Pat Deveney's database:
Bridge to Freedom, The. The first volume (April 1952-March 1953), called simply The Bridge, was printed and distributed in sheet format in Havana, Cuba, because its "one man staff" (Frank/Francisco C. Pita) lived there. It moved to Philadelphia in 1953 because of "political disturbances" and published in journal format as The Bridge to Freedom, with Pita still as General Manager. These early issues were scarce and when it became desirable to reprint copies their content was reproduced and from an audio tape of their content and retyped. The journal and the Bridge to Freedom Activity of which it was the organ reflected the contact of Geraldine Innocente (1917-1961) with the Ascended Masters of Guy and Edna Ballard's "I AM" movement, which had fallen on hard times and been reduced to fewer than 200 active members after the death of Guy in 1939 and the six-year legal struggle of Edna against the fraud charges brought by the federal government. Innocente was a member of a small I AM group on Long Island in 1944 when, as Alice Schutz (Alice Beulah Schutz Booras, "A.D.K. Luk," 1905-1994), recounted: "One night in 1944, Geraldine Innocente and her mother were sitting in their home before the fire in the fire place (which the Master Morya likes). Suddenly Geraldine was aware of a Presence in the room which startled her for a bit. Then she realized it was Master Morya. She said to her mother (who was not aware of His Presence), ‘Master Morya is here.'. . . In 1945, Morya told Geraldine that the Lord Maha Chohan would like to give a series of Discourses thru her. She thought it over and consented to do it. He came to the group of 13, known as the Inner Circle, once a week to give instruction in an endeavor to awaken their (sleeping) consciousness; and from then on they were in continuous communication with the Masters." Soon Innocente, Schutz and Mildred Myneta Taylor Boos ("Mary Myneta," 1903-1983), the Group Director of the New York I AM movement, "formed the triangle at the top of this New Endeavor" and in March 1952 they were given permission from the Masters to make known this new revelation to the world. Florence A. Kurz Ekey (1899-1968), who had been head of the Philadelphia I AM group and been indicted alone with Edna Ballard, joined Innocente's work reluctantly in 1951 after Master El Morya interceded with the Karmic Board to bring her in, and she became the associate editor of the journal as assistant to "Thomas Printz," the pseudonym of Master El Morya. The journal was not originally intended to replace Edna Ballard's Voice of the "I AM," but to supplement it, but Ballard still dismissed it as "psychic" and plagiarism, and excommunicated all of her students who chose the Bridge to Freedom over her own movement. It took a letter from the Master El Morya himself to Mrs. Ballard before the journal could be published, but she never approved the new revelations. The Bridge to Freedom movement continued the Ballards' claim that this was a New Age, one in which for the first time since the sinking of Atlantis, the Masters could begin to make public the real nature of cosmic reality and its structure under the Great White Brotherhood, and the path to ascension through the Violet Ray that erases karma. The Masters' communications here and in innumerable offshoots of the Bridge Activity were a bewildering labyrinth that would require a scorecard to unravel and keep track of: the arrays of colors, qualities, activities of the seven open and five secret Rays, the Seven Elohim, the Seven Archangels, various Chohans, the Angelic Host, devas, vibrational frequencies, Violet Flame Cauldrons, Cherubim, Seraphim, secret Retreats, Sacred Fire, Flames, Elemental Beings, planets, Suns, Spheres or Realms, World Teachers, Manus, Ascended Masters, the Karmic Board, root races, Sanat Kumar, Lord Gautama, etc. and et al., all with detailed descriptions of which ray, color of flame and musical keynote belonged to each, together with the degree of initiation each has passed or is awaiting, which is the "twin-ray" of which, and most importantly, in a display of one-upmanship, which Messenger or Accredited Messenger credits which of them in the grand hierarchies of the universe. Nor are these celestial personages and entities static: Gautama Buddha replaces Sanat Kumara as Lord of this world while Lord Maitreya takes Buddha's place; Jesus and Koot Hoomi, once Chohans of the Sixth and Second Rays respectably now function as World Teacher; and Saint Germain (now proclaiming himself Eolia and radiating the Golden Liquid Snow of Eolian Consciousness and Light of the Central Sun) continues to direct the Seventh Ray while Godfre-Ray King and Lotus King (Guy and Edna Ballard) become Chohan of the Seventh Ray The journal had as occasional companion publications Thomas Printz' Private Journal (1952-1961), a weekly newsletter of the "Esoteric Teachings from Our Lord Maha Chohan), and Hope/Hope Magazine (1953-1961?), a dollars-want-me bimonthly journal under the direction of Master Serapis (HOPE=health, opulence, peace, enlightenment). After Innocente's death in 1961, ruled a suicide from an overdose of drugs, the Bridge to Freedom continued until 1979, with Lucy Latham Wilson Bennett Littlejohn (1901-1995), Innocente's amanuensis and perhaps partner, as Messenger. She brought Peter Leach-Lewis into the movement in 1971 and he assumed control of it 1979-1986 and transformed it into the New Age Church of the Christ with Hope/Hope Magazine as its organ, December 1979-1990. It also published the weekly Shamballa Letter (1979-1989) with further discourses by various masters. After his departure the movement took up the name Bridge to Spiritual Freedom and moved to Payson, Arizona, where it published the Bridge Journal (1991-2004) and City of Light (2005-2015). Numerous groups branched from the Bridge to Freedom and started their own organizations, usually with their own journals. Frances Ekey started the Lighthouse of Freedom in Philadelphia in 1954 (the beginning of a new cycle under a new Chohan) and brought in as messenger Mark L. Prophet (1918-1973), a staff member of Bridge to Freedom who had met Master El Morya on the Soo Line Railroad. He broke away from Ekey in turn in 1958 to start the Summit Lighthouse with the weekly Pearls of Wisdom (1958-current) as its organ. He married Elizabeth Clare Wulf Prophet (1939-2009) in 1961 and after his death the organization became the Church Universal and Triumphant, which continues today. Alice Schutz had been an early member of I AM and had traveled with the Ballards and helped arrange their teachings, and then become Geraldine Innocente's amanuensis and the editor of Thomas Printz's Private Bulletin. She was the repository of decades of printed and circulated material on the Masters' revelations and went on to become the messenger of the Law of Life teachings, publishing the Law of Life Enlightener/Enlightener (1979-1995) under the name A.D.K. Luk (Alice Djwal Kul Luk) from Oakland, Florida and then Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She also supplied the impetus and material for Annette and Werner Schroeder to start the Ascended Master Teaching Foundation (AMTF) whose goal was to republish the original Bridge to Freedom and I AM material from Mount Shasta, California. They published the monthly The Spiritual Caravan, begun in 1980, on their activities, with occasional messages from the Masters. Schutz's collections and her received messages also were used as the basis for Theodore ("Ted") M. Pierce's Temple Notes published in Yarnell, Arizona. Mary Myneta, the last of the original three foundation stones of the Bridge to Freedom, moved on in 1958 to take part of Mark Prophet's Summit Lighthouse, and then formed the Sanctuary of the Master's Presence in New York and began issuing The Mentor, published for her by Wayne H. Taylor in Florida and then by her from Scarsdale, New York. Taylor was the president of Sologa, Inc. and published its organ, Solograph (1961-1973), before moving to New Mexico to start the City of the Sun commune and publish its journal, The Golden Dawn (1971-1992?). Myneta then became a regular contributor and editor of The Father's House (1969-1979?) and a messenger of the Masters for Ruby Focus (1963-1977?). Master El Morya returned the favor by praising Myneta's work: "Then came My project, The BRIDGE TO FREEDOM, which still stands on the Holy Grounds of Long Island. Beloved Mary Myneta is one of the flourishing seeds of LOVE from these days. She is THE MENTOR. Oh, how We love her! " Hamilton College; LOC; University of Sydney. On the diaspora of the Bridge to Freedom impetus, see IAPSOP's standing exhibit on The Bridge to Freedom Activity. Here is a list of journals associated with the movement:
I AM
Bridge to Freedom
Offshoots
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