Voice of The "I AM," The.
1936--1997? Monthly
Los Angeles, CA. Publisher: Sindelar Studios. Editor: Guy W. Ballard and Edna Wheeler Ballard ("By the Ascended Masters and their Accredited Messengers Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Ballard and son, Donald")
1/1, February 1936-1997(?) $2.50-$3.00 a year, 38-48 pp.

This was the organ of the "I Am" movement of Guy Warren Ballard ("Godfre Ray King," 1878-1939) and his wife, Edna Wheeler Ballard ("Little Dynamite," "Lotus Ray," 1886-1971), which propagated the teachings of the Ascended Master Saint Germain and a variety of other Ascended Masters and Lady Masters of the Great White Brotherhood for whom the Ballards were the Accredited Messengers. Ballard was a small town boy from Kansas who tried his hand as a medium and wallpaper hanger and then, after his service in World War One, as a mining engineer. In 1930 while on a hike on Mount Shasta he first encountered the Master Saint Germain, who proceeded to begin to teach him a rather hackneyed mixture of Neo-Theosophy, New Thought, Mystic Americanism, and the soul teachings and organizational strategies of William Dudley Pelley that Ballard (as "Godfre Ray King") and Edna proceeded to popularize. The movement was astonishingly successful, with regular reports of a membership in excess of one million and income of more than $3 million in the first decade. The movement was vertically integrated and all encompassing, offering the believers everything from nostrums (don't wear red clothing; don't eat garlic; recite daily the provided affirmations of success and optimism; avoid sex in all its forms, even with your "Twin Ray" soulmate; etc.) to a complete line of books, pins, rings, portraits of various Masters, and phonograph records of Ballard's speeches and hymns, all suitably priced--and not given away because payment opened the Beloved Students' channels to the rays of blessing from the Masters. The journal claimed that it was "the mouthpiece through which the Ascended Masters' Instruction can reach the students quickly, that the most powerful work possible for America and the world may be done by the students to release the greatest Light in the shortest time," and that it was "the outpouring of the help from the Ascended Masters and has no human concepts in it." It was filled with "Discourses" and "Benedictions" in unctuous tone from various Masters: "Again, My Love enfolds you forever, as does the Love of all the Ascended Masters, and all wish me to express their Great Love and Enfolding Presence to you, that you may consciously understand its Omnipresent Activity, to glorify you and lift you into your Ascension," etc. Coupled with these were affirmations, lists of the Ballard's appearances, locations of Saint Germain Foundation Reading Rooms, and price lists of the movement's products. By the late 1930s Ballard's past had begun to catch up with him. In 1929, the year before he met Saint Germain, he was indicted in Chicago for selling stock in a fraudulent gold mining venture, a charge he managed to avoid by promoting himself as "Godfre Ray King" until the charge was dismissed. In 1938 the federal government--probably at the instigation of the remaining Black Magicians who had survived his well-publicized efforts to clear the country of their influence--charged him again, this time with his wife and son, for mail fraud. He died before trial and the rest were convicted and then had their conviction overturned by the Supreme Court. His death (or rather, his body) was an embarrassment for Edna since he had proclaimed himself physical immortal and taught that advanced students like him "ascended" in a Radiant Pathway of Light when their work was completed, while their body disappeared. Edna was up to the challenge and immediately proclaimed a New Dispensation (Guy had ascended into a specially prepared new body on the Masters' plane) and began to sell colored photographs of him to the faithful and to recite the messages she received from the new Master. NYPL; NY Historical Society; LOC; Brown University; Los Angeles Public Library; etc.

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