By Gerald B. Bryan
At a modest brick bungalow, 1620 East 84th Place,
Chicago, there occurred during the fall of 1932 a series of assertedly
miraculous happenings, out of which has arisen the most fantastic and
extravagant spiritualistic movement in American history.
Some form of spiritualistic communication has always been
the belief and hope of the human race. Sometimes such a belief has been
tempered with reason and common sense. All too often, however, it has been made
to flare into something analogous to a raging forest fire, periodically
sweeping certain sections of the country, preying upon credulous minds, and
laying waste a lot of mental timber of promise.
Such has been the result of the spiritualistic phenomena
which assertedly took place in the red brick bungalow on 84th Place in old
Chicago, and which during the last few years has flared into a psychic
conflagration so widespread and intense that it should be of considerable
interest to psychologists and psychiatrists who deal in strange behaviorisms of
the human mind, as well as to politicians who astutely watch the current of
human emotions, that they may the better obtain power and authority in the
land.
In the history of the American colonies, and even in more
recent times, there are other instances of such psychic movements, but never,
however, on such a flamboyant and extravagant a scale as this present-day cult.
Nearly a hundred years ago, at another little house, now
historically famous as the “Fox Cottage at Hydesville, New York,” there
similarly occurred certain psychic phenomena credited with having given birth
to spiritualism in America.
This humble house, occupied by honest John Fox, his wife,
and their two little children, became what was popularly known in that day as
“haunted.” Here there began a remarkable series of psychic “rappings” and
“knockings” which were destined to be heard throughout the United States of
that day, and are still being heard in thousands of seances throughout the
country.
But in this latter-day happening which assertedly
occurred in an equally unpretentious house, although not considered “haunted,”
this ancient and primitive belief in the supernormal has taken wings on a
flight of fancy far beyond that of the humble happenings at the cottage home of
the little Fox sisters. For this later happening deals not with spirit “raps”
and “knocks,” but with distinctly more modern and streamlined methods of
communicating with the other side of life.
In short, instead of having ordinary “spirit guides” and
commonplace “ghosts” of departed relatives giving the usual type of spirit
messages, we now have, reportedly, great and mighty “Ascended Masters” speaking
audibly over a dazzling “Light and Sound Ray!”
Foremost among the “Masters” who speak audibly over this
streamlined “Light and Sound Ray” is the great “Ascended Master Saint Germain,”
who is alleged to have been the same mysterious personage whom history records
as the Comte de St. Germain — a man who in the 18th century had wide political
influence, and was adviser to Louis XV of France and some other potentates of
that day.
Thus the world moves on; and today the disciples of the
new cult can sit comfortably at home by their own radios listening to inspired
fireside chats from this 18th century Count, telling about the state of the
nation and the world, or they may read his “Light and Sound Ray” discourses,
all printed and duly copyrighted in seven large green-colored books!
The first of these books has the alluring title: Unveiled
Mysteries, wherein is described how the hero, a Mr. Godfre Ray King, meets in
the fall of 1930 the Comte de St. Germain in person on the side of a California
mountain Godfre Ray King, we later learn is none other than Guy W. Ballard,
co-originator of the mighty I AM cult; and, according to this book, he “had
been sent on government business to a little town situated at the foot of the
mountain.” (p. 1, Unveiled Mysteries.)
Please note the following abbreviations used in this
book:
|
A.M.D. A.M.L. D. G.L. M.P. U.M. V. |
The Ascended Master Discourses Ascended Master Light The “I AM” Discourses Group Letter Magic Presence Unveiled Mysteries Voice of the I AM |
While there, according to his account, he occupied his
leisure time trying to unravel a strange rumor concerning an alleged Occult
Brotherhood said to be domiciled in the mountain fastnesses of Mt. Shasta — California’s
own “Mystic Mountain.”
One day on one of his alleged rambles around Mt. Shasta,
he stopped at a mountain spring for a drink. Cup in hand, he knelt down to fill
it when something like an “electric current” passed through his body from head
to foot.
Looking up, he saw “no ordinary person.”
“Drink this,” said the mysterious stranger, handing him a
cup filled with a rich, creamy liquid. Very trustfully, Ballard did so — and he was never quite the same afterwards.
A few moments later the stranger was demonstrating his
gold-making abilities to Ballard.
“See!” said the mysterious one, “I have but to hold out
my hand and if I wish to use gold — gold is here.”
Instantly, Ballard said, “there lay in his palm a disc
about the size of a ten dollar piece!” (p. 4, U.M.)
From that time on, this mysterious mountain visitor —who
turned out to be none other than the great “Ascended Master Saint Germain”— reveals
to his wonder-eyed disciple more mysteries in heaven and earth than ever
dreamed of in any Shakespearean philosophy. The great “Master” takes time out
from more cosmic labors to personally escort his disciple to secret retreats in
America, Arabia, and India, and gets him back to his home in Chicago in time to
tune in to the marvelous “Light and Sound Ray” coming through the ceiling of
Ballard’s modest 84th Place bungalow.
In this streamlined spiritualistic movement there are
many additional marvels, of which we shall duly learn. But just now let us
introduce the couple who are the self-styled “Accredited Messengers” of this
Ascended Master Saint Germain, and who are responsible for a movement which is
today controlling the thought, dictating the action, and winning the financial
support of tens of thousands of people in the major cities throughout the
United States, a movement which actually claims “over a million earnest and
devoted students.”
Inasmuch as he claims to have been the originator of the
movement, let us present Guy W. Ballard first. However, his good wife, Edna
Wheeler Ballard, is far from being backward in her claims and activities, and
one can easily gather the impression from the way the show is handled that the
set-up is more of a matriarchy than a patriarchy.
Guy George Washington Godfre Ray King Ballard is a tall,
meticulously dressed man of some sixty years of age, usually attired in an
immaculate white suit, over which, for variety, he sometimes very effectively
drapes a long indigo-blue cape with shiny white satin lining, or sometimes a
full-length all-white one.*
 |
*The first and second chapters in this book, as well as
some of the others, were written BEFORE the so-called “Ascension” of Guy
Ballard. However, we publish the material as written, and have retained the
PRESENT tense, even though later history may now place some of the events in
the past tense.
In the glare of the footlights there is much sparkle of
jewels from rings and tie pin as he bows and gesticulates before his audiences.
Pale, deep-set blue eyes look below a slanting forehead
topped by grey hair, well-groomed and combed straight back as if flattened out
by the wind, giving the impression of a bird in flight. A well-formed eagle-like
nose and thin under jaw adds to this impression of flight into the empyrean.
In short, Guy Ballard gives the impression of being one
of those individuals who can easily live in a world of their own, peopled by
creatures and glories of their own imaginative making, but albeit, in his case,
a world sufficiently material to include and satisfy a life-long craving for
heavenly splendors.
Emotionally, this man of fantastic tales ranges from
mannerisms of deepest humility to a crescendo of high and mighty utterances
designed to show his self-claimed Messianic destiny as “Savior of America.”
From an over-display of humility attitudes, garnished
with such endearing expressions as “Dear Hearts” and “Beloved Ones,” he will
suddenly sweep into dynamic denunciations against “vicious individuals,” spies
and black magicians within and without our borders and call on “Mighty Ascended
Masters” to smite these individuals and all their works.
After such an exhibition of emotional pyrotechnics, the
audience is either hypnotically leaning forward in their respective seats with
delicious chills running up and down their individual spines, or else a few
will register disgust at such mass-stirring heroics by getting up and leaving
the auditorium.
One thing is certain: This man, in his eagle-like flights
of fancy and sweeping denunciations of so-called vicious individuals, has the
power not only to hypnotize himself as to the truth of what he is saying, but
he can, it seems, make his audience believe in the green cheese story of the
moon — or its occult parallel.
The play of his emotions up and down the scale tends to
keep his audiences in proper emotional trim —on their psychic toes as it were— and
the recital of marvels yet to come, gold, jewels, precipitated dinners, and what
not, to every devoted student through the Ballard system of salvation, makes
these students all too willing to be hypnotized away from their logical
faculties and follow the fanciful imaginings of the master of the show.
Let us now take a look at the feminine side of the
Ballard household.
Edna Anna Wheeler Lotus Ray King Ballard, known also as
“Little Dynamite” to her psychic master and also as “Chanera,” are names which
perhaps fit all the characteristics of this dynamic personality.
Years ago, before later and more euphonious names were
born, she was simply Edna Wheeler Ballard, a concert harpist, a vaudeville
trouper, a clerk in an occult bookstore, or sometimes just a housewife, varied
at times by trips to the mountain tops with her gold-seeking husband and infant
son, looking for the ever-eluding pot of gold (the Ballard gold mines we will
learn about) at the end of the rainbow.
As simply Edna, she was like most other people struggling
along through life. There was a child to raise, hospital and dental bills to
pay, and the rent came around all too soon. But the restless god of ambition
within her did not want it that way. It wanted power, glory, diamonds, gold,
and a luxury such as attributed to fabled rulers of old. To all these besetting
desires her early friends will attest.
Is it any wonder, therefore, that these ambitions should
not have been out-pictured some time in some tangible way? Particularly so,
when it is realized that she planned, worked, and schemed for them instead of
doing a lot of metaphysical wishful thinking. A dynamic, authoritative,
battling kind of person, Edna Ballard rules her “Mighty I AM” family with all
the command of the Amazonian chieftain. Appropriately, therefore, may she be
called “Little Dynamite,” the name bestowed upon her by the mighty “Ascended
Master Saint Germain.”
Viewed from afar, and in the soft radiance of the usual
Ballard stage setting, Edna’s appearance may be rather much in her favor. There
is a certain grace about her figure and the rhythmic movements of her arms as
she issues her decrees. Her gowns, ornate and overdone, are the envy of her
women audiences and a source of wonder and admiration no doubt to some of the
men. Sparkling rings and bracelets flash showers of light over her audiences. Diamond
tiaras, overhanging corsages, expensive furs, gorgeous new gowns, their long
trains sweeping the stage floor, all this is but an inadequate description of
the complete ensemble.
And so, today, Lotus Ray King Ballard, having achieved in
some degree the desires and ambitions of a frustrated Edna, has a portion of
the metaphysical and phenomena-seeking world at her feet. They, too, want the
things that Lotus has, and until the hypnotic spell has run its course and the
thin covering of goodness and saintliness of her cult has worn down to the
tinsel underneath, Lotus will hold the stage as dictator over the lives of many.
(Psychic Dictatorship in America, chapter 2)
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