I Am | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

I Am

I AM. The "I AM" Religious Activity emerged in the 1930s as a major new representative of the Western Esoteric tradition, drawing most of its theology and imagery directly from the Theosophical Society. It subsequently gave birth to a number of groups that have, with minor variations, generally adopted the unique ideas and practices of the "I AM" while organizationally separating from the parent body.

History

"I AM" founders Guy Ballard (1878–1939) and Edna W. Ballard (1886–1971) were already steeped in esoteric thought when the seminal events in the movement's formation occurred. Guy Ballard had been employed as a mining engineer when in the early 1930s he visited Mount Shasta in northern California. In several esoteric books, Mount Shasta previously had been identified as a location of spiritual significance, most recently in 1931, in a book published by the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, Lemuria, the Lost Continent of the Pacific.

On the slope of the volcanic mountain, Ballard claimed he encountered a man who identified himself as Saint Germain, an important personage in the eighteenth-century European esoteric community, who since his earthly existence had become an ascended master. In Theosophical lore, ascended masters are spiritually evolved individuals who formerly had incarnated in earthly bodies but who no longer participate in the cycles of reincarnation.

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