THE I AM ACTIVITY

Tim Rudbøg

This chapter investigates a rather unexplored esoteric religious move- ment known as the I AM Activity, which emerged in California during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its founders Guy W. Ballard (1878–1939) and his wife Edna Anne Wheeler (1886–1971) had studied a wide spectrum of esoteric literature related to , New Thought, Christian Science, modern Rosicrucianism, and Spiritualism, before eventually claimed to have had an extraordinary encounter with an . This meeting and his recurrent contacts with ascended Masters became the source for more than twenty books centered on an idea called the I AM Presence and a spiritual practice of “decreeing.” By the late 1930s the movement purportedly had over one million followers, and even though it has considerably fewer members today, its ideas have been widely assimilated by the religious milieu.

The Founding of the I AM Activity

According to the esoteric experiential narrative of Guy W. Ballard as pre- sented in his first book Unveiled Mysteries (1934), the I AM Activity began in August through October of 1930 with his meeting with an ascended Master named Saint Germain on Mount Shasta, a volcanic white moun- tain in northern California (King 1934: xvii). Ballard had been sent on gov- ernment business to a little town at the foot of Mount Shasta and – as he explains – having heard rumors of a group of divine men called the Brotherhood of Mount Shasta, he decided to investigate these reports in his spare time (King 1934: 1). Folk tales and strange rumors had been linked with the mountain long before Ballard’s visit. A book entitled A Dweller on Two Planets attributed to Phylos the Thibetan (1905 [1883–1886]), but written by Frederick S. Oliver (1866–1899), in what he himself described as a state of automatic writing, was presumably the first source behind the idea of a hidden sanc- tuary of spiritual Masters from underneath Mount Shasta. The AMORC Rosicrucian leader Harvey Spencer Lewis (1883–1939) also pub- lished a book, Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific (1931), which in 152 tim rudbøg addition to a frontispiece depicting Mount Shasta included much detailed information linking the Mount Shasta area to the lost continent of Lemuria and the survival of Masters supposedly still living in this area (Cervé 1931: 247–263). One particular morning, Ballard narrates, he planned a hike on the mountain to reconnect with his own innermost heart and to enter a sacred space. During lunchtime it had become very warm, and Ballard found a spring with clean water. He took out his cup, ready to fill it, and an electrical current passed through his entire body from head to foot, as a young man suddenly appeared behind him. The man began an elaborate discourse about the infinite possibilities that one can gain access to through the right apprehension of love, intense desire, and what he termed the Eternal Law of Life, or the idea that whatever a person thinks and feels will manifest in his or her life through hidden spiritual laws (King 1934: 2–6). It was thus on this mountain, according to Ballard’s narrative, that he first learned about the I AM Presence. This is no doubt a reflection of the Biblical account of Moses’ encounter with on Mount Sinai: “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3: 14, KJV). After some further discourses on the Eternal Law of Life, or the right con- trol of thoughts and feelings in order to manifest what one wishes, the young man revealed his true identity to Ballard, as the ascended Master Saint Germain: “He stood there before me – a Magnificent God-like figure – in a white jeweled robe, a Light and Love sparkling in his eyes that revealed and proved the Dominion and Majesty that are his” (King 1934: 15). This discursive event not only strikingly construed Ballard as a new Moses contacted by God, or in this modern case by an ascended Master, but from then on effectively placed him in an authoritative position alongside previous Theosophical leaders such as Helena P. Blavatsky (1831–1891), Henry S. Olcott (1832–1907), A.P. Sinnett (1840–1921), C.W. Leadbeater (1854–1934), and Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949). Such claimed spiritual contacts appear to have constituted one of the primary episte- mological strategies applied by the Theosophical tradition, and Ballard was clearly no exception.1 His wife and son were also designated as

1 For more details on epistemological strategies, i.e. ways of legitimizing truth claims, prevalent in Theosophy and its various off-shoots, see Hammer 2001.