TRIUMPHANT ENTRY INTO CHICAGO

 

 

By Gerald B. Bryan

 

In an earlier chapter it was described how during the first part of October, 1934, the then little-known Ballards jumped the train out of Chicago and started on their conquest to save heathen America.

 

For some reason —which most of their students did not understand— it was not until exactly four years later (October, 1938) that they publicly returned to Chicago to hold classes.

 

Not that the heathen in that particular city in those four years did not need the saving grace of the “Mighty I AM,” but, as we shall find, they did not lecture there because of certain other and quite valid reasons.

 

In those four years the “Accredited Messengers of Saint Germain” had achieved astonishing success. They had lectured practically in every large city throughout the United States, and in certain favorite “I AM” watering places they had returned many times. But back to their own home town of Chicago they simply wouldn’t go to hold public classes.

 

“What was the trouble?” “Why had Chicago failed?” “Was a prophet really without honor in his own city as Jesus had said?” All these and many other questions filtered through the minds of the good Chicago students. “Was Chicago as wicked as that?” they asked.

 

A couple of years previously the Ballards had made an abortive effort to lecture in Chicago. Saint Germain had come through with these instructions to their Assistant Director: “Take a class of four days in Chicago on your way east . . . Four days will fulfill all that is necessary.”

 

But before the Assistant Director could make the necessary arrangements even for that short length of time, all was changed. The Ballards had evidently received disquieting news from the “windy city,” and the Saint Germain order was countermanded.

 

The following excerpt from a letter received by the writer from a former close associate will no doubt explain why even the great Saint Germain’s order was not obeyed:

 

“In our days of innocence we heard of a concerted effort to have him [Ballard] arrested in public if he ever came to Chicago in a class, and we went to St. Louis to warn them. And this is what they said:

 

“‘WE ARE NOT COMING BACK TO CHICAGO UNTIL OUR DEBTS ARE OUTLAWED.’

 

“Then they entered into a personal argument as to how long that would be, and he said: ‘That will be in about two years.’ She said: ‘No, I think it will be in about eighteen months.’”

 

This episode occurred in October, 1936. The Ballards returned to Chicago, 1938 — just two years after Ballard had made the above statement that he would not return until his debts were outlawed; which he thought would be in about two years.

 

And so the Ballards, after an unexplained absence of four years, did return publicly to their own city. But even then, it seems that this return was more or less forced upon them. Their critics on one hand were saying that they were afraid to go back to their own home town because of their past, and on the other hand the Chicago faithful were beseeching them to come. So after personally making reasonably sure it was safe, they handed over their fears to Saint Germain and the Ascended Host — and went.

 

Some time and care had evidently been taken to prepare the ground for a triumphant entry. Their publicity agents were very much on the job, and the Ether-waves were hot with the news of the arrival of the “Accredited Messengers of Saint Germain.” Newspapers published their pictures in full “I AM” regalia on front pages. Large headlines announced their lecture topics from day to day.

 

“Fount of Youth Claimed,” was one of the headlines. “5000 Hear New ‘I AM’ Evangelism,” said another. “Thousands Bask in ‘Great Light’ at Cult Meeting,” said still another, and so on.

 

Altogether, it was a most fitting reception to two Chicagoans who had gone out into the world and made good, and had now returned to the city of their first love to have laurels heaped upon them. A good prophet was surely not without honor in his own city! It was too cold in the windy city for palm leaves —Los Angeles would have been a more fitting place— but Chicago had to have her day. She gave the Ballards a royal welcome, even though instead of the Messengers riding into the city in the traditionally humble style, as becomes high spiritual teachers of Oriental countries, they used flashy motor cars — three “golden colored” ones for the two senior Ballards and staff, and an “electric blue” for son Donald.

 

Quoting from a special article from the Chicago Daily News on the great event, dated October 12, 1938, we learn that the “high priest and priestess” of the movement “are packing the big opera house with throngs of well-dressed, intelligent-looking followers and recent converts,” and that it is estimated “when the 10-day Chicago sojourn of the Ballards comes to a colorful finish, 50,000 persons will have heard the story of the ‘ascending Masters,’ and ‘vibrations,’ and that thousands of dollars will have been deposited in the little yellow envelopes.”

 

“Have you a lot of bills?” Mrs. Ballard at one point asked her audience, according to an article in the Chicago Herald & Examiner of October 8, 1938. “The great light wants you to pay them, but every irritation in your emotional body prevents it. Receive the light and the bills will be paid.”

 

What kind of “emotional irritation” was preventing Ballard from paying his own bills, or paying the little woman who had lent him $200.00 in good faith?

 

“The Ballards made no secret of the fact that their cup of material happiness is full to overflowing,” says an article in the Chicago Herald & Examiner of October 10, 1938.

 

“You, too, can enjoy the same benefits, they say, if you follow their teachings . . . ‘But it was not always thus,’ said blond Mrs. Ballard: ‘We didn’t know where our next meal was coming from when we started our work.’”

 

With all this publicity about paying bills and demonstrating meals, the generous and popular Ballards, as was to be expected, became more popular than ever. For who doesn’t want to pay old bills and eat a good meal?

 

Success at last in this city had crowned their efforts. The large and beautiful opera house was packed with an expectant and applauding audience. The stage was banked with ferns and flowers, and the Ballards themselves, dressed in their very best, looked very affluent and even majestic. Over a radio set-up on the stage, their words were broadcast to listening thousands who could not get to the big opera house.

 

“These utterances,” says the Chicago Daily News, “fascinate his terraced ranks of followers — they hang upon the cryptic pronouncements . . .”

 

“Men, women, and children from every walk of life sat enthralled,” says another news writer.

 

“A myriad of eyes fastened rapturously upon the brilliantly decorated stage,” commented still another.

 

Chicago had accepted them . . . her children had returned . . . all had apparently been forgiven.

 

But neither the happy Messengers nor their glorified Masters —who know everything— were aware that cruel fate was soon to take a hand. That despite all this show and glamour, the Chicago past of the Accredited Messengers was still grinding. That soon there was to be an event which would shake the confidence of thousands in these glorious people.

 

“Kick out deceit and treachery from your lives,” implored Mr. Ballard, according to the article in the Daily News. “I know when any deceit or harmful activity comes into this class room. If I don’t, Saint Germain does.”

 

And Mrs. Ballard, in her gorgeous raiment, waxed just as eloquent. “I have touched Saint Germain, just as I touch you now,” said she, according to the Herald & Examiner article. “His flesh is something like ours, but it is alabaster white, and a light flows from it . . . The blood of Ascended Beings turn to gold when they leave the mortal

sphere.”

 

The Daily News article describes her as “. . . a queenly personage in a silk gown of geranium hue, with broad ribbon trailers suspended from the shoulders in lieu of an opera train. Her hair is arranged in a coronet of white curls . . . she sits placidly in a gold-and-ivory chair.”

 

Thus did Chicago accept her very own. “How those decrees do work!” must have thought the Ballards as they read these publicity articles or from the decorated stages surveyed this magnificent victory over their hectic past in this city.

 

“They say we dared not come to Chicago,” Mrs. Ballard is reported to have said, “but we are here!” And then with a dramatic gesture, she added: “So what?”

 

This “So what” part of the history of the Ballard movement will have to be included under a different heading than that of their triumphant entry into Chicago. The “Accredited Messengers of Saint Germain” might have made a triumphant entry, as these news items would indicate, but they were fated soon to make a different kind of exit!

 

 

 

(Psychic Dictatorship in America, chapter 19)