The transmission
Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard (1886–1971) co-founded the “I AM” Activity with her husband Guy Ballard and, after his death in 1939, became its primary leader and chief living “Accredited Messenger” of the Ascended Masters for more than three decades.
A trained harpist and capable organizer, she was instrumental in shaping the movement’s ritual life, publishing, and institutional survival. Under her stewardship the Saint Germain Foundation and Saint Germain Press continued to disseminate the teachings, decrees, and visual symbolism (notably the Chart of the Magic Presence).
Edna weathered a major federal mail-fraud prosecution (United States v. Ballard) that reached the U.S. Supreme Court — a landmark case on whether the sincerity, not the truth, of religious belief can be put on trial. Her leadership preserved the I AM current that later movements would inherit.
What they gave
Decree practice as discipline: Helped formalize the spoken-decree method of directing spiritual energy and affirming the I AM Presence.
- Institutional continuity: Sustained and organized the movement, ensuring transmission of its mind-power techniques.
- Messenger model: Embodied the “accredited messenger” role that later teachers (e.g., the Prophets) would replicate.
- Symbolic codification: Stewarded the visualization charts central to I AM practice.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: Guy Ballard; Theosophy; the Saint Germain mythos.
- Influenced: the Saint Germain Foundation; later ascended-master groups; ongoing decree practice.
Revelations they taught
Orders & Societies
Essential Works
- The 'I AM' Discourses1935