Below we quote
excerpts from letters written by people who knew one or both of the Ballards
intimately:
“I have
known Guy Ballard for more than thirty years,” writes one of his friends, who
is amazed at Ballard’s sudden ascension into power. “He came to our home when I
was a little girl, and at that time tried to be a medium. Edna, his wife,
always has been ambitious, great for personal adornment, and has always been
the man of the family.”
“We have
known Mr. and Mrs. Ballard for years,” writes another party. “Mr. Ballard was a
spiritualist in Chicago, and practiced spiritualistic mediumship. Your
diagnosis of them is practically correct.”
“I have
known Mr. Ballard for over thirty years,” says still another. “He has been a
medium during all these years. He told me he had made a great discovery and
that he has the answer to all the difficulties we encounter.”
We quote now
from a much longer letter, written in the summer of 1938, which will give,
perhaps, as vivid a picture of the Ballard background as it is possible to
give:
« I know whereof I speak, for I have
known the Ballards intimately for about twenty-six years. It was about 1915 we
will say that I wrote a book on ancient Egypt. It had considerable to say about
Egyptian Black Magic, and it was printed in an occult magazine. The story
aroused considerable interest in several people . . . men who walk around
apparently sane, but have a break somewhere in the brain fibre.
Well these
people wrote to me and many of them were most interesting correspondents. One
of them later spent about four years in a mad house; still, he now walks around
and proves himself to be a very subtle and dangerous person.
. . .
I wrote to
the Ballards for four years steady every week, then my husband died . . . They
invited me to visit them in Chicago, which I did March 12, 1919. I lived with
them for seven months, sharing their poverty, their sorrows, and their woes,
for they were as poor as the proverbial church mouse.
. . .
They induced
me to finance the trip to California . . . The baby Eudonia [Donald ] was just
five years old . . .While in San Francisco this great idea of Guy’s was born.
We went to a
fake _____ church, and there was a lot of chicanery. The Priest and Priestess
sitting in two gold chairs with the twelve vestal virgins as the choir. Behind
them was a great illuminated cross with flashing lights.
During the
service the very lightly clad virgins threw flowers among the audience. It was
a scream. Afterwards came the Love Feast. A virgin held a basket of strips of
bread and the audience were asked to join this holy order, which was
non-sectarian. Another virgin held a loving cup of wine. Talk of hypnosis,
would you believe it, over one hundred and fifty people went forward and
partook of that sacrilegious feast, a parody upon the Lord’s Supper!
During this
scene Guy’s face was a study. He was enchanted with the show, but did not join
the church. As soon as he reached the sidewalk, he could not stop talking about
it . . . and from what I now hear, he has fashioned his church upon the same
lines with his illuminated background. He could not stop talking about this
laughable service.
. . .
Guy Ballard
had one obsession. He wanted to find a gold mine. He had dabbled a bit in
mining, prospecting, etc. He also studied hypnotism at this time, but was a bit
afraid of it. His idea in bringing me to Chicago was that I might lead him to a
gold mine, because I was a medium and had a spirit guide.
My guide
offended them both, for one night he told Edna that she had better stop right
where they were, that she would become . . . [Here this woman quotes what the
spirit guide said about Edna launching a great deception.]
Thenceforth
Edna had nothing more to do with my Ascended Master, but Guy thought he could manage
him.
So we
traveled to the top of the Sierras, and lived in a tiny cottage next door to a
gold mine. Every day either he and I walked out on the mountains, or Edna and
he wandered to far distant places while I took care of the dream child. Guy was
determined to find that gold mine. There was no money in the house and we lived
upon practically nothing.
One day in
September, I remember it was the 21st, I was exploring the little village of
about twenty houses, when I came across a tall white shaft numbered 10 up to
150.
-
“Why,
what’s that?” I asked, “the game they play in Coney Island?”
-
“No,
Ma’m,” replied the native, “that be the snow gauge. After this month you won’t
see anything but the roofs of the houses; even the horses go on snow shoes.”
Well sir, I
prayed hard to get out of discovering a gold mine. And strange to relate in a
day or two a registered letter came to me inviting me to Ontario, Canada.
I took the
next train out of the nearest station, and that’s the last I saw of the
Ballards, until I ran into a group of people who with bated breath and fear in
their eyes told me of the wonders they perform.
. . .
I don’t
believe a word of the Mt. Shasta story. Poppy-cock! He got the idea wandering
around the top of the Sierras. They would be gone for days together and camp
out under the stars.
The people I
met in New York nearly mobbed me when I told them that the Ballards were
frauds. One of them, not yet touched by their crazy ideas, gave me your
letters, and this story of the killing of dear little trusting animals has
induced me to write to you.
. . .
I am told
that thousands seem to be paralyzed or under a spell while they hold their
meetings. He must have turned into a wizard of some sort. No wonder they
bothered my life to try and give them the names of certain books.
. . .
They are just very ordinary people, but clever. But again, they may be
dealing in black magic. Guy was crazy about it. »
From this
graphic description of the early history of the Ballards, two facts stand out:
First, Guy
Ballard and his wife Edna had what became almost an obsession with gold mining.
Secondly, they
craved hidden powers and dominion over others.
And her books
and statements are clear evidence of these two desires and confirm what this
woman says in her letter, since when she wrote it, she had not read any of
Ballard's books and had only attended one or two of his meetings.
(This
is the first part of chapter 17 of the book Psychic Dictatorship in America)
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