Editing "I AM" Activity (section)

=== Founding ===
The "I AM" Activity was founded by [[Guy Ballard]] (pseudonym Godfré Ray King) in the early 1930s. Ballard was well-read in theosophy and its offshoots, and he claimed to have met and been instructed by a man who introduced himself as "Saint Germain" while hiking on [[Mount Shasta]] looking for a rumored branch of the [[Great White Brotherhood]] known as "The Brotherhood of Mount Shasta".<ref>{{cite book |last=King |first=Godfré Ray |year=1935 |orig-year=1934 |title=Unveiled Mysteries |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/02TheMagicPresenceByGodfrRayKing1935FirstEdition/%2301%20-%20Unveiled%20Mysteries%2C%20by%20Godfr%C3%A9%20Ray%20King%20-%201935%20-Second%20Edition#page/n1 |publisher=Saint Germain Press |location=Chicago, Illinois |edition=Second |chapter=1: Meeting the Master |pages=1–32 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref> Saint Germain is regular component of theosophical religions as an ascended master, based on the historical [[Comte de Saint-Germain]], an 18th-century adventurer.<ref name="Barrett 1996" />{{rp|191}}

The Ballards said they began talking to the ascended masters regularly. They founded a publishing house, ''Saint Germain Press'', to publish their books and began training people to spread their messages across the United States.<ref name="Partridge 2004" />{{rp|330}} These training sessions and "conclaves" were held throughout the United States, open to the general public and free of charge.<ref>''The Voice of the "I AM"'' Number 1, March 1936. Chicago, Illinois: Saint Germain Press. page 27</ref> A front-page story in a 1938 edition of the ''Chicago Herald and Examiner'' noted that the Ballards "do not take up collections or ask for funds".<ref name="Herald">''Chicago Herald and Examiner'' October 8, 1938</ref> Meetings became limited to members only after hecklers began disrupting their open meetings.<ref name="Barrett 1996" />{{rp|191}} Over their lifetimes, the Ballards recorded nearly 4000 live dictations, which they said were from the ascended masters.<ref name="history" /> Guy Ballard, his wife Edna, and later their son Donald, became the sole "accredited messengers" of the ascended masters.<ref name="Barrett 1996"/>{{rp|192}} In 1942, they began the I AM Sanctuary at a former Presbyterian missionary school.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SmxBCwAAQBAJ&q=%22guy%20ballard%22%20%22presbyterian%22|isbn = 9781625856401|title = A History of Spirituality in Santa Fe: The City of Holy Faith|date = February 22, 2016|publisher = Arcadia}}</ref>