By Gerald B. Bryan
During the spring and summer of 1935, while yet in
California, the Ballard metaphysical machine made good progress, as was to be
expected in a land where the milk and honey of strange doctrine flows so
freely. From the early and more simple presentation of the Saint Germain
teachings the movement gradually took the form of a complicated ritualism,
wherein decrees and taboos were rigorously enunciated by a feminine dictator.
At first this authoritative control over lives of its
members was not so apparent. The individual students and class leaders were
allowed a certain freedom of thought and action, but this personal liberty the
leaders no doubt found to be a weakness which worked against their long
cherished personal ambitions.
Perhaps, too, a certain incident, which will now be
related, brought strongly to their attention the need for central control over
their rising kingdom of “I AM” worshipers. Then again, doubtless, they had in
mind the “New Government” Saint Germain had promised to set up in his beloved
America with an “Ascended Master” on the throne at the White House. All this of
course would require central control and dictatorship, not individual freedom.
Expanding audiences in Los Angeles necessitated the
Ballards on three successive occasions to seek larger halls, until “Saint
Germain” decided that the large Shrine Civic Auditorium, seating over six
thousand persons, was the place for his prospering Messengers who at last were
coming into their own. A ten-day class was scheduled there in August of 1935,
which closed in what was designated as “a blaze of glory.” Since then, this
auditorium which has been headquarters for great national conventions of
Shriners, has also been “Convention Headquarters” for I AM-ers, attracting the
faithful in large numbers at least twice a year from all parts of the country.
This “Shrine” meeting was the eighth large class held on
the Pacific Coast during the Ballards’ first surprising circuit. They had
lectured also in San Francisco, Seattle, Pasadena, Long Beach, San Diego, and
were flushed with victory, money, and Messianic fervor. Then their show moved
eastward for engagements in Kansas City, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and
Washington.
It is interesting to note that these two people and their
son Donald arrived in Los Angeles in a none-too-prosperous condition in an
unpretentious car, but when they left, they zoomed away in a couple of flashy
cream-colored Chryslers. Following in their wake were a number of the beloved
students, seeking through a sort of psychic induction process to partake of the
radiance of the “Ascended Masters.”
While the Messengers were absent, the work on the Pacific
coast was to be organized by a gentleman whom Saint Germain appointed as head
of a “Sevenfold Committee.” But despite the fact that these seven individuals
had been personally selected and approved by the unerring Saint Germain
himself, there was much dissension and argument among the members of this
committee as to how the work should be carried on during the Messengers’
absence. It seems that Saint Germain himself was not very certain just how it
should be done.
The mushroom growth of numerous “I AM Classes” and the
sudden ascension into power of many leaders —each a little uncertain what the
“I AM” was all about— and each no doubt with certain personal ambitions of his
own, brought on a condition of Ascended Master affairs which the decrees of the
students could not correct nor the imagined presence of the great “Saint
Germain” straighten out.
It seemed for a while as if the whole movement on the
Pacific Coast was due to go up in smoke from so much friction of personal
dissension among the members of the divinely appointed “Sevenfold Committee.”
Then it was that Edna Ballard displayed her, as yet,
untried capacity for autocratic leadership and domination over her “I AM”
family. Dispatching one of her characteristic “Saint Germain signed letters” to
the head of the Sevenfold Committee, this surprised gentleman was summarily
dismissed without a hearing and the cosmically-approved septenary forthwith
dissolved.
Suspicious, too, that their own manager, who was then
with them in the east, had gotten under the influence of another teaching and
was somehow involved in the disturbed Los Angeles happenings, another “Saint
Germain letter” was handed to this gentleman which caused him to resign as
their second officially appointed “Associate Director.”
Then canceling some of their eastern engagements, the
Ballards hastened to the scene of the Los Angeles dissension to straighten out
a condition which Saint Germain could not handle from the psychic plane —or, as
the credulous believe— from the Ascended Masters’ “Seventh Octave of Light.”
Appearing more or less unexpectedly at a meeting of
prominent students and class leaders at the Sindelar Studios, the Ballards
electrified their audience by the power and authority with which they spoke.
Edna in particular rose to the height of a feminine
dictator. In characteristic pose and eloquence she flayed the discharged head
of Saint Germain’s “Sevenfold Committee,” impugning him of base motives, and by
threat and intimidation warned those within reach of her voice what terrible
things would happen if they did not follow the instructions of the Ascended
Masters as given by their three and only “Accredited Messengers.”
“The great Law” she said, “would no longer protect those
who were disobedient, and any violation would be quickly punished — and be felt in the next two or three
embodiments.”
She caused the distribution of the two assertedly
dictated “Saint Germain letters” among the class leaders to be read to their
classes to further show that the Ascended Masters really meant business. The
letter sent through the U.S. Mails to the head of the Sevenfold Committee in
Los Angeles is reproduced here in its entirety, with the exception that all
personal names are left out. “Saint Germain” is responsible for the grammatical
construction, misspelled, and misused words.
Washington, D.C. November 26, 1935
 |
You are now dismissed from any further privilege or
authority to serve the Messengers, Myself, or any other of the Ascended Masters
in this embodiment.
To willingly try to deceive earnest students seeking
their freedom in the Light is unpardonable. You have made yourself a claw of
the sinister force in coming into the association [naming two leaders of two
other movements]. My pity goes out to you and [naming their own manager], for
your complete freedom for both of you was at hand when the Messengers were in
Long Beach. There was so much good in both of you and now to allow it to be so
distorted as has been done. Too late will you cry out in agony for the mistake
you have made.
Your earth span is very short. Make peace with your God
and call on the Law of Forgiveness while there is yet time, less you deprive
yourself of opportunity in the next embodiment. Do not try to bluff such
deception through any longer, less you do this thing again in the next two
embodiments.
When you willingly put yourself under the red Light, you
cut off the White Light.
My Love and hope goes out to you, that you may yet face
about and calling on the Law of Forgiveness, call sufficient assistance to cut
you free of this sinister claw.
I AM the making this one last attempt to help you.
Choose. The All-seeing Eye of God is upon you.
SAINT GERMAIN.
This interesting little “Ascended Master” document was
sent from their hotel in Washington, D.C., with the Ballard name on the
envelope. No doubt the fact of their being in the National Capitol, which was
Saint Germain’s field of political operations in his efforts to bring about his
“New Government,” gave these people an added sense of dictatorial power — and a
legal protection from sending a threatening letter through the mails.
Just two months before, the Ballards had written this
same gentleman that for his wonderful service to the “Light,” he would be
“forever blessed,” and that they and “Saint Germain: knew the “motive in his
heart” was as “pure and true as a diamond.”
This later letter from “Saint Germain,” with its threat,
“Your earth span is very short,” was surely not intended to “bless” this
gentleman quite “forever.” Neither was the additional threat, “Too late will
you cry out in agony,” intended to be a helpful morning thought.
The I AM-er’s god known as “Saint Germain” is a
revengeful god, visiting his wrath upon his errant ones not only in this
present embodiment, but even unto, as he says in his letter, the “next two
embodiments!”
The prophecy —if such it can be called— of this
gentleman’s early death was made over four years ago, but unfortunately for
Saint Germain’s prowess as a soothsayer, the gentleman in question is still
very much alive.
The effect of these threats, however, on the general mass
of followers, was all that could be desired. The scattered group leaders, some
of whom had been teaching unauthorized doctrines not countenanced by the
Accredited Messengers or who had otherwise been disobedient, were so impressed
by the power and authority of the Ascended Masters as displayed by Edna Ballard
and the Saint Germain letter that they very readily acquiesced this assumption
of divine authority. Indeed most of them feared to do otherwise, and were glad
to have this new papal protection from all the terrible things that would
happen to those who disobeyed. Very few troubled themselves about really
finding out what crime these two individuals had committed to deserve such
Ascended Master wrath. It seems that they had merely been guilty of doing a
little thinking on their own, and along with this forbidden sin they had
presumed to show some interest in a similar teaching. Such a thing, of course,
was not to be countenanced in a dictatorship. In addition to this, the Ballards
seized upon their “sin” as an opportunity to make them the goats, as it were,
of this Los Angeles upheaval — an occasion for the dictators to demonstrate a
new and more dominant assertion of their papal power.
The “humble Messengers” of Saint Germain made the most of
their opportunity, and since that early crisis in California their control has
become more and more dominant and their movement increasingly autocratic,
intolerant, belligerent, and tyrannical.
Thus, Guy and Edna Ballard’s long cherished ambitions for
gold and power were at last about to be realized, even though they had
sometimes to ride roughshod over those who had faithfully served them. A
dictator cannot be squeamish about friendship, particularly when that
friendship does not sub-serve certain ends. And so through this Los Angeles
incident Edna Lotus Ray King Ballard, Priestess of the Mighty I AM movement,
rose to new heights of dictatorship and achieved in part her long cherished
ambition to be ruler over the lives of many.
(Psychic Dictatorship in America, chapter 5)
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