JOHN’S TESTIMONY ABOUT THE BALLARDS AND THEIR I AM MOVEMENT

 

 

 

 

I have been a former student of the I AM activity of Saint Germain Foundation. I know that my message is long and I ask permission to publish it because I have first-hand and very little-known information about that organization.

 

Well, the first thing I want to talk about is Edie Broce. Edie was a friend of Donald (the Ballards' son). She lived in Dunsmir (Mount Shasta). In order not to lengthen the story too much I will summarize it.

 

Donald returns from the war and tells his mother Edna that he no longer believed in his parents' teaching, which is why he resigns from his position as vice-president of the Saint Germain Foundation. However, Donald continues to travel every summer to Shasta Spring (which is where the I AM Foundation has its center near Mount Shasta, which is where Saint Germain supposedly appeared to Guy Ballard) and there he talked to his friend Edie and told her many things.

 

We know that what Edie's letters say is true. I know students from the I AM organization who were at Edie's house and there she showed evidence of what she was talking about. One of those who went to her house in 2012 was the field worker for Latin America.

 

Donald had his own ideas, he was quite radical politically. He said very strong things. He probably didn't like, for example, the civil rights of the 60s. (Remember that until the early 80s, black I AM students were prohibited from entering the temples of this organization based on a dictate from the Great Divine Director of the 30s that said that blacks and whites had different radiation and that therefore it was not advisable to mix them in sanctuaries) and in practice this led to a situation very similar to apartheid in South Africa.

 

The fact is that Donald was politically radical on some issues, but he did not share his parents' racism. During the war he had lived with black soldiers and had made friends with them, and that is why he did not share the racial politics of his parents.

 

I'm sorry I can't tell you the exact year Donald resigned, but I can tell you that Donald was no longer in the Activity since 1944 or 1945. Donald was part of the John Birch Society, which was a kind of ultra-conservative association in the United States. They were against the United Nations, and in the I AM organization there are decrees against the United Nations.

 

There is a dictum in which the Ascended Master Jesus supposedly said that we have to "call for annihilation and blowing up anything related to the United Nations and the sinister force behind it."

 

I do not agree that the United Nations is an instrument of sinister force, but the John Birch Society said this and Donald was from that organization and he passed information to Edna and somehow this entered into Jesus' dictation.

 

Today even the students of the I AM still decree against the United Nations. In the Outline there is a paragraph in which the members of the I AM decreed against the United Nations and in Shasta the students do the Lotus Invocation every day.

 

 

Do you know how Donald died?

 

While eating his breakfast, he died. He had a cardiac arrest at age 55. Obviously I haven't met Donald, but I have heard things from those who knew him. For example, Donald liked to talk using words like "fuck" and the like. He was a little foul-mouthed.

 

In the summers in Shasta he did not stay in Shasta spring, but in a hotel in the city. He liked to smoke, eat bacon and drink beer. He didn't go to classes and liked to run in the car. On one occasion the police chased him.

 

He divorced his first wife. It seems that she was unfaithful to him. And he married a second woman named Virginia.

 

If you read Edie's letters, you will know that Edna had left control of the organization and all of its assets to Donald in her will, since Donald was her son. But when Edna had a stroke and was hospitalized, Frederick (who later became president of the foundation) went to the hospital with a notary and had Edna sign a document changing her will. They simply robbed Donald of his inheritance and this displeasure led to Donald's hasty death from a heart attack.

 

 

Donald began writing a book telling the truth about the I AM organization, but was never finished due to his sudden death.

 

Virginia (Donald's wife) blamed Frederick for her husband's death and as revenge sold master paintings and unpublished texts to Elizabeth Clare Prophet (the competitor and founder of the Summit Lighthouse).

 

It is not well known what happened to Donald's manuscript that compromised the I AM organization, since Virginia died of cancer. Some say that Virginia's sister sold it to I AM, who later became president, Mr. Arnol Perris.

 

 

 

Now, I must clarify that the “teaching” of the Ascended Masters represents a partial truth. Not everything is false. Of course the law of mentalism exists, the sacred fire is real, and some ascended masters like Jesus exist. Decrees work when they are made with faith and visualization has creative power.

 

But not all the I AM teaching is 100% correct and the teachings of the ascended masters are not free of human error and the psyche of the messenger has intervened in them.

 

For example, in the book “The Magic Presence”, Saint Germain supposedly says that the Sun is cold, that there are bees on Venus, or that earthquakes are produced by gas belts, ignoring the entire theory of plate tectonics. Naturally all of this can be classified as pseudo-science.

 

But the reasons why I began to question the content of the books “The Mysteries Unveiled” and “The Magical Presence” began not with the suspicion that they were plagiarism, but with the questioning of the spiritual meaning of some of the experiences that were described, they mention there.

 

For example the rise of David Lloyd. So man spent his life searching for a cup and a mountain, he never followed a spiritual path, spiritual practices, growth in divine consciousness and perfection. Nothing. Just a mountain and a cup. Then he finds Godfre and a cup falls into his hands. He prays and David Lloyd drinks and rises, fulfills the ultimate goal of all his human existences of him. This story has no real spiritual meaning.

 

If what we need to fulfill our human existence is a cup, the Ascended Masters would have brought it to us throughout the ages instead of teachings.

 

Why on earth do I need to study a teaching and practice it, if David Lloyd never did and still ascended, while all the many generations of I AM students spent their lives practicing and studying and still lost their bodies in the end?

This story sounded like pure fiction to me. I realized the complete lack of spiritual substance in him. So it's a fictional story with no real spiritual substance that positions the author as the glorious Messiah who made that happen.

 

And to tell you the truth, the first time I read “The Mysteries Unveiled” 17 years ago, I really liked the book but I didn't fully believe in its authenticity. I remember not believing David Lloyd's story. Only years later did I begin to believe it but against my deepest intuitions.

 

Another thing is that since I entered the I AM Activity I remember feeling that Godfre had never gone to India (as he had intended). I remember hearing interviews with the first students who met Godfre when he returned to Chicago, and before he was famous, and they talked about his return to Chicago from the West, that is, probably from California. My intuitions told me that he had not gone to Egypt, Arabia and India as recorded in “The Magical Presence.”

 

One day talking to Peter from Mount Shasta, I learned about his aunt who was one of the students affectionately called Pearl in the 1930s, and who, according to a dictum from the 1960s, gained ascension.

 

Pearl said that the stories from the 1930s (“The Magical Presence” and “The Mysteries Unveiled”) mixed fact and fiction. And Pearl confirmed that in fact Guy Ballard did not have a passport, so all the trips to the East are solely in Ballard's imagination.

 

To this must be added a court order against Guy Ballard due to a complaint in the exploitation of a gold mine.

 

It seems that there was a project called “Lake of gold” in which several elderly women gave their money to Guy Ballard. The project involved draining a lake that supposedly contained gold nuggets. It appears that the lake was never drained but Guy Ballard did take the money.

 

United States mining authorities said it was false that there was gold in that lake, so arrest warrants were issued for Guy Ballard. It is not very clear what happened in those years.

 

It is known that Guy Ballard then adopted the name Dick Gilbert, a pseudonym that allowed him to move freely and flouting court orders. That's why the first books call Ballard, like Godfre Ray King. At first Ballard was speaking to a group of students who knew that he had not been to India. That is why Ballard spoke in Godfre Ray King in the third person. But as the year 1932 progressed, Ballard said he was Godfre Ray King.

 

When Ballard's identity was revealed, the court orders against him were reactivated, however Ballard's lawyers alluded that all of this had already expired. (Minor crimes have a period in which they can be prosecuted and if it is not done within that period then they expire).

 

But I have deviated from what I was talking about. About the fictional nature of some experiences narrated in the books “The Magical Presence” and “The Mysteries Revealed”.

 

Subsequent findings confirmed this. In a pamphlet published in 1936, the author of the Ballards-critical book "Psychic Dictatorship in America" shows how dates don't work.

 

So Guy Ballard supposedly met Saint Germain on Mount Shasta in the second half of 1930. And after that experience those told in “The Magical Presence” in 1931 begin. Around July 1931 Saint Germain meets with them and announces that one year from now Daniel Rayborn would achieve ascension. And so come the preparation times.

 

There is a Christmas event in which they traveled together to the University that Rayborn's children attended, and then, a year after the announcement, Daniel Rayborn achieves ascension, and the rest of the group goes to the Far East where the chapters take place finals.

 

So it means that Rayborn ascended around July 1932, and after that comes the trip to the Far East. But the dictations in Chicago, when Mr. Ballard was already back home, began in July 1932!!!

 

And this is how more and more, it began to become clear to me how most of what is in “The Magical Presence” can only be fiction. Many of these stories are very imaginative and poorly written, confusing, etc. And those stories about secret services capturing secret communist agents and all that. That also sounded like pure fiction to me.

 

For example I never understood how at the Ascended Masters Retreat in Darjeeling, India, Rex was able to identify an intruder within the retreat, while the all-powerful and omniscient Ascended Masters present could not. And when Rex said, "an intruder!", the Master in charge of the Retreat glared at him fiercely and demanded proof! And then Rex's Twin Ray Pearl jumps on the man and some papers that prove he was a spy fall out.

 

That is clearly pure fiction! It makes no sense, it has the fantasy and imagination of detective fiction, it contains no spiritual substance, and it is difficult for me to believe that it could be true. I find “The Mysteries Unveiled” to be a book that feels more authentic than “The Magical Presence.”

 

 

Claims that Mr. Ballard plagiarized previous books apply primarily to “The Magic Presence.” For example, that story about Alexander Gaylord and his meeting with his twin, Lady Master Leto, who was occasionally called Princess Louise, is 100% copied from the book "Brother of the Third Degree", until the details.

 

Even, for example, when Gaylord first sees Leto, she is veiled and he hears that she is the "veiled sister." That is exactly how the main character of the book "Brother of the Third Degree" first meets her twin Ray, "Lole" (instead of Leto) and that she was also known as Princess Louise.

 

So when I first read the book "Brother of the Third Degree", I thought that Alexander Gaylord was a reincarnation of the main character of Alphonso Colonus (the main character of that book), and that Leto had survived centuries and was Lole from the other book.

 

But it's too identical. Even the fact that they were working in the secret political fields, the way they met, the way Alphonso Colonus was surprised when he heard people calling Lole by Princess Louise's name. That's the same thing, it can't be that in two different incarnations Alexander Gaylord / Alphonso Colonus have experienced the same things and had the same feelings. So clearly Guy Ballard plagiarized that book.

 

I remember that at the beginning I really enjoyed and loved “The Magical Presence”, but now I can't see it as anything more than fiction. On the other hand, I think there could be some truth in the experiences of “The Mysteries Revealed.” It is a fact that Guy Ballard was at Mount Shasta for months. It is a fact that he used to walk there. It is a fact that he wrote letters to his wife from Mount Shasta describing meeting a mysterious young man, as described in the book.

 

But I find it hard to believe that he met the Rayborn family, made fantastic discoveries of gold mines, met those four children, the story of Alexander Gaylord and the secret service and the capture of the communist emissaries, the trip to India, etc. I can't see that these things are real.

 

All the stories are confused. It was not a well-written book. For example when Mr. Rayborn's mine superintendent died, he hired Bob. Then she suddenly started sharing the deepest secrets about Saint Germain with him, and suddenly he's one of the family, and he meets Saint Germain and finds out that he's Lady Nada's twin ray.

 

Now he apparently no longer worked as a superintendent, so Mr. Rayborn hires someone else (I think his name was Dave something). Then, after the story of the capture of the communist emissaries (one of the two, because this story happens twice), Saint Germain frees a woman who was doing evil, heals her daughter Zara, and this family comes to live to America. But suddenly Zara discovers that she is Dave's twin ray, and this whole new family meets Saint Germain at a hasty dinner.

 

It's all confusing, it seems like everyone Mr. Rayborn hires when the superintendent finds his twin ray and meets Saint Germain and leaves the job!

 

Furthermore, the story of Mr. Rayborn's loss of his wife is like the same story told in the chapter about the Secret Valley. Too strange and confusing.

 

Then we have another David (after ascended David Lloyd) who had the same characteristics of the previous Ascended David: elderly gentleman with white hair and beard. And all the ascensions in these books were achieved by material means: beakers filled with glowing liquid, accelerator chairs.

 

No Ascension achieved by spiritual means. That sounds like spiritual materialism to me. They are stories that are too confusing, too imaginative and fanciful, too many of them can be found exactly as in previous romances such as: “Inhabitant of Two Planets”, Brother of the Third Degree”, “Myriam and the Mystical Brotherhood”, “A Wanderer on Earth of the Spirit”, “The Prince of Atlantis”, “The Lives and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East” and others. That's why I have a hard time arguing that those first two books are perfectly true from cover to cover, as the Ballards said. They are too imaginative.

 

 

So, what is authentic to me about Ballard's teaching?

 

While I have doubts about the Ballards and their experiences, I also believe that aspects of the transcendental tradition can be found in the Ballards' teaching, and I honor that. Some of the books consulted by the Ballards to write his work are good. I have no doubt about the power of visualization. I have experimented with it and have had tangible and visible results. Ballard did not invent visualization.

 

In “The Mysteries Unveiled” visualization is taught in 1934, although we already found visualization in books from the 1920s and even before through the work of Atkinson at the beginning of the 20th century. So we can safely say that the visualization is not original to the Ballards and that the Ballards took that idea from some book and incorporated it into their teaching. And as the Ballards incorporate some true ideas that they borrowed, we cannot say that everything they teach is false. Now, what is false is that this part of the good teaching was revealed to them in the form of dictations, since it was copied from other sources.

 

 

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I am very sorry if you feel that my text has been too long, but it was the first time in eight years since I left the I AM movement that I have had the opportunity to express in writing before others, everything I saw, heard, and remained silent. And for me it has been therapeutic to be able to write it.