Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Contemplating the Mighty I AM Presence
Visualize one’s connection to a higher ‘Mighty I AM Presence’ above (as depicted in the I AM Presence Chart) — light streaming down to the self — as a centring, identity-anchoring practice.
Sit quietly and turn attention upward to your “Mighty I AM Presence” — your higher self. Visualize a radiant figure of light above you, ringed by colour bands, with light streaming down into your heart. Feel the connection and quietly identify with it (“I AM the Presence”). Rest there a minute or two, centred and steady, then act from that stance. Do it daily. It centres and re-anchors identity — it is not protection or medical treatment.
What it is
This is Guy Ballard’s (Godfré Ray King’s) practice of contemplating one’s connection to the “Mighty I AM Presence” — the higher, divine self that, in the “I AM” Activity, is depicted in the famous Chart of the Magic Presence (the “I AM Presence Chart”).
The Chart shows three figures: the lower self (a person standing), a violet flame around them, and above them a radiant upper figure (the I AM Presence) ringed by colour bands (the “Causal Body”), with light streaming down from the Presence into the heart of the person below.
The practice is to visualize this connection: to picture the luminous Presence above you, feel its light pouring down into you, and quietly identify with it as your true self and source.
It is used as a daily centring and identity-anchoring move — a way to begin from “the higher self” rather than the anxious surface self. In Ballard’s system this contemplation is the frame that the “I AM” affirmation and the violet flame are addressed to.
It is the originating ancestor of later “connect to your I AM Presence” visualizations, including the preambles of Prophet’s decrees and her Tube of Light.
The Method
- Settle and look up (inwardly). Sit quietly; turn attention upward to the idea of your “Mighty I AM Presence” — your divine self, above and beyond the ordinary personality.
- Picture the Presence. Visualize a radiant figure of light above you, surrounded by bands of colour (the Causal Body), as shown on the Chart.
- See the stream of light. Picture a ray or stream of light descending from the Presence into your own heart, linking the small self below to the great self above.
- Feel the connection. Rest in the sense of being sustained and steadied by that higher source; let the surface anxieties soften.
- Identify with it. Quietly affirm that this — the Presence — is who you really are and where your life flows from (often with an “I AM” affirmation: “I AM the Presence”).
- Hold it briefly. Stay with the felt connection for a minute or two, centred and calm.
- Carry it out. Close and begin your activity from that steadier, “higher-self” stance. Use daily. (Sourcing note: the Chart’s three-figure structure — lower self, violet flame, upper I AM Presence with the Causal Body colour bands and descending light — and the practice of contemplating/identifying with the Presence are from The Magic Presence and the “I AM” Discourses and the movement’s Chart of the Magic Presence; the numbered sequence is an attributed paraphrase. Short fair-use quotes only.)
Source & Lineage
Guy Ballard (Godfré Ray King), The Magic Presence (1935) and the “I AM” Discourses, with the movement’s Chart of the Magic Presence — the foundational depiction of the “Mighty I AM Presence,” taught from the early 1930s. → (with ).
Lineage forward: the “I AM Presence” and its Chart pass through Geraldine Innocente’s Bridge to Freedom into Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s Summit Lighthouse, where the same Presence-above imagery opens her decrees (“O my constant, loving I AM Presence…”) and underlies her Tube of Light.
Distinct from its neighbours: this is the originating Presence-contemplation (identifying with the higher self via the Chart). Prophet’s turns the same Presence-above frame toward protective white-light shielding; the Ballard turns it toward cleansing; the plain is the verbal affirmation it accompanies.
Other “higher-self connection” practices (e.g.) share the move from different lineages.
Common refinements
Treating the Chart as literal anatomy. It is a contemplative image, not a map of real energy bodies; take the centring without the cosmology.
- Straining for a vivid picture. A loose, felt sense of “a steadying higher source above, light coming down” is enough; forcing detail blocks the calm.
- Using it as armour or cure. It centres you; it is not protection from real danger or treatment for illness (see Safety).
- Outsourcing your judgement. Identify with your own “higher self,” not with the movement’s leaders or claims.