By Gerald B. Bryan
Probably in no other movement has
there ever been such attempt at widespread interference with the personal lives
of its members as in this cult of the Mighty I AM.
The Ballard students are
instructed to push people out of their lives who cannot embrace the Mighty I AM
teachings, and to have as little as possible to do with them. As result, the
deepest relationships of many years’ standing have been severed by zealous
students fanatical enough to live up to the Ballard instructions.
Husband, wife, mother, or some
other relative living in a fanatical Mighty I AM family, has actually been kept
in another part of the house and denied former privileges because he or she
would not embrace the Ballard doctrines. We cite an instance of this in the
following story.
A car was parked outside of an “I
AM Temple” in a certain city. The man within it had his head bowed over the
steering wheel.
Another man was waiting outside
this same “I AM” meeting place, and was pacing back and forth.
In passing by the parked car this
latter man noticed that the man with head bowed over the wheel was sobbing. In
ready comprehension, he approached him.
“I see they’ve got you too,” he
said.
The man at the wheel raised
himself up confusedly, quickly brushing the tears away. Then seeing the
understanding in the other’s face, said:
“Yes, I was conceded an unusual
privilege today. I ate at the table with my wife and children for the first
time in weeks. They’ve had me in another part of the house.”
He looked pathetically into the
face of the other man who seemed to understand, and added:
“I hope other privileges will be
conceded too, or at least these same ones continued, but one never knows what
the demand will be next. I am waiting to take my family home.”
This intolerance of other
people’s beliefs and methods of living is a direct outcome of the Ballard
teachings, particularly among so-called “hundred per cent students” who follow
the Ballard instructions in every way.
We quote the following letter
written by a former class leader under date of June 29, 1939:
“Last July during the Shrine
class I had a private interview with Mrs. Ballard, at which time she told me (I
might well use the terms, ordered or commanded, as that was her manner) to call
for the release of my own mother, whom she knew I love with all my heart, just
as we were taught to call for the release of our little pets.
“Why? Because my mother did not
believe in them nor their teaching, though she never opposed me or them in any
way.
“Mrs. Ballard told me I was
carrying a big load and that my mother was a ‘Vampire activity’ keeping alive
on my energy.
“She shot this question at me:
‘Doesn’t your mother take a lot of soda?’ ‘Yes.’ Then: ‘Doesn’t she eat a lot?’
I answered: ‘She has a good appetite.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and she sits around no
good to herself or anyone else and she can keep alive for years drawing on your
energy and living on it. Call for her release, you have work to do!’
“Then she told me to come home
and ‘Tell to stop all sex relations.’ (is my daughter, who is very happily
married to a fine fellow and they have two beautiful children.)
“I told her: ‘But they want two
more children,’ etc. ‘No,’ said the dictator, ‘It is too near the Ascension for
that now.’
“I asked: ‘What if her husband
will not agree?’ ‘Tell her to take a child by each hand and walk out and slam
the door,’ was her reply.”
The Ballards themselves, at least
in this regard, evidently live up to their own teaching. Years ago, Mrs.
Ballard pushed her own aged mother and only sister out of her life because they
would not accept the Mighty I AM or believe that Guy Ballard’s books and his
trips to India were true, knowing as they did that he was right here in the
United States all the while.
Former students who have had the
courage to get out of the cult are oftentimes denounced in public and even
decrees for their physical death demanded.
On Sunday evening, July 3, 1939,
at a “Hundred Per Cent Group” in Los Angeles, Guy Ballard spoke the following
words, saying they were from the great Ascended Master, “Sanat Kumara.” “Do not
again make the call for anyone to return to this Light.
Rather call for their release from
those bodies that they have chosen to desecrate by vicious falsehoods against
the Messengers of this Light.” Not only do the Ballards teach their students to
call for the “release” of certain individuals from their bodies, but it is
their duty, they say, to “free” all ANIMALS from their bodies, because: “Animal
forms were created in the beginning by powerful black magicians.” (p. 22, Oct.,
1936, V.) We quote:
“. . . It is the DUTY of every I
AM Student to call the Mighty I AM Presence and Ascended Masters to Free All
Animal Life from its discord, limitation, and imperfection.” (p. 30, Oct.,
1937, V., our capitals.)
To the credit of some of their
students, there was a protest against this inhuman doctrine. One of them wrote
the Ballard official representative, and received the following reply:
“Now you ask me if it is right to
put animals out of their bodies. I am going to answer this by simply telling
you what I have heard Mrs. Ballard say — that animal forms are imprisoned life
and as you know, we have a decree in our magazine and one in the new decree
book sending all animals into the higher life and Light.
“Now, dear, each one of us must
interpret that as best we can. I do know many of the students have put their
beloved pets out.”
The fact that many of these
animal pets have been “put out” or “released” is again shown by Guy Ballard’s
letter to one of the students in November of 1937, dictated and signed by him
personally: “When this call is sincerely made and the desire for their RELEASE
is felt in the feelings, it is quickly effective in releasing this life . . .
This is accomplished in perfect peace and harmony as has been demonstrated in
the case of HUNDREDS of the students. GWB: PBC” (Our capitals.)
In other words, hundreds of
animal pets have been “released” because the students decreed their DEATH!
However, what really happened was
admitted by the Ballard representative whose letter was quoted: “Many of the
students have put their beloved animals out.” The decrees didn’t work — so they
chloroformed, drowned or otherwise killed their trusting little animal friends!
One such case is quoted in the
letter below written in November, 1937. it is only one of many cases where
fanatical I AM-ers have killed their animal pets. We quote:
“The phone rang this morning and
an I AM-er called and told me that another of Mrs _____’s 100% class was put in
a sanitarium last week.
“It seems that she owned a lovely
dog and that they were told there were to be no more dogs. She had the dog
electrocuted.
“Her family resented it so they
had her taken to a psychiatrist who analyzed her and of course she did not know
when to speak and of what to speak, and started in on the books, and when she
was asked why she did not give the dog to ______, she said, it was just as bad
for him to have it as it was for her.
“Well, they pronounced her insane
and put her away last week. God pity them all.”
Some additional results of the
Ballard doctrines may be summed up in a few short sentences.
It has taught credulous followers
to forget everything else but the “Mighty I AM,” tending to hold its people in
moronic ignorance of what is going on in the world.
It has caused fanatical students
to “decree” long hours during the day and part of the night, with such
intensity and emotionalism that a number of them have had nervous breakdowns,
or have been confined to psychopathic wards and insane asylums.
It has produced untold mental
suffering from fears of cataclysms, entities, black magicians, destructive
decrees, and other fear-inspiring bogeys.
It has caused students to worship
at the shrines of an endless number of mythological gods and heathenish
“Masters,” instead of teaching a devotion to the One and True God, the Creator
of the Universe, of whose grandeur, love, and wisdom there is no end.
It had induced some of its
fanatical devotees to get rid of their life insurance, thinking that they or
their loved ones would soon make their “Ascension” and have no need of it.
It has promised financial
security by merely “decreeing” it, which resulted in some of their people
quitting their jobs, turning over their savings to the Ballards, and neglecting
their financial future.
It has caused people to neglect
their physical health as a result of being told that it was not necessary to
seek diversions, play games, exercise, or place any dependence in physical
remedies.
It has brought about needless
deaths because of dependence upon “Ascended Masters” and “decrees” to restore
health, remove tumors, etc. instead of sanely instituting physical and surgical
treatment when necessary.
It has produced in the student a
false sense of the greatness of the little personal self, which is the self
which makes its decrees to the “Mighty I AM,” causing distortion of the real
truth concerning the God consciousness within.
It has caused the student to look
outside of himself for guidance to some invisible “Teacher” or psychic “Master”
whose real purposes and designs are of the nature of things hidden, and whose
responsibility and honesty may be nil.
It has produced in the minds of
many people the idea that animals have been created by “black magicians”
instead of by God, causing in these cases a severance of the beautiful
relationship which has always existed between the dog and his master, and a
breaking of man’s comradeship with other members of the animal kingdom.
It has through the hands of
fanatical students sent hundreds of little pets to the pound to be killed, or
the sensitive animal cruelly sent away from its accustomed home.
It has caused untold grief,
insanity, and even suicide! With all these sins and crimes the Ballard “Mighty
I AM Instruction of the Ascended Masters” stands indicted, and it is time that
the public should know the full truth of it and its history written.
(Psychic Dictatorship in America,
chapter 26)
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