In reading up on new-age and QAnon fringe, one will occasionally come across mentions of something called "I AM". When one inquires as to what "I AM" denotes they are generally informed that it is a cult religion started by Guy and Edna Ballard. This answer is only sort of correct. The issue is really so much more complex than that to the point where that answer is not technically true. The phrase "I AM", to begin with, predates Ballard's use.
The AM of I AM is sometimes considered to represent the Ascended Masters, by a form of what the Qabalists would call Notariqon, an occult system of acrostics. By this, we mean that I AM as a movement is the Ascended Masters movement. In a general sense, this is true. It would be helpful in usage, however, to differentiate the I AM teachings or movement as specifically those relating to Ballard tradition and the Ascended Masters movement to refer to the derivative and associated movements, which may differ significantly from I AM dogma.
By "I AM dogma", I mean the teachings of the original I AM Activity cult as formulated by Guy and Edna Ballard. This is essentially the Cult of Saint Germain. It is generally a neotheosophical esoteric-Christian new-age cult. While Christian in some outer trappings, Saint Germain is more central to to the cult's teachings than Jesus, who is seen as simply one of the Ascended Masters. Any focus on Jesus in the teachings of the cult are essentially patched in to make the cult's teachings more palatable to Christians. This game is given away in their own writings:
"Many will ask, why especially Jesus? I answer, because humanity has been taught to look to the Presence of Jesus the Christ, few having any knowledge at all of the Ascended Host of the Great Masters of the Great White Brotherhood who wield limitless Power to assist mankind."
As a neotheosophical teaching, I AM Activity taught that souls reincarnated. Theosophy teaches that certain highly developed souls can become Masters, or Mahatmas. These Masters were said to have passed down great wisdom teachings and wrote the scriptures of many religions. The Ballards taught that some select few Masters could ascend to a discarnate state and become Ascended Masters, a term borrowed from Baird T. Spalding's writings. This is not the last we will hear of Spalding, but we have not finished discussing the theosophical bases of the I AM Activity beliefs.
The Ballards teachings were based upon the theosophical progressions of ages. They wrote of Lemuria and Atlantis. They are defined as New Age because they believed that they were ushering in a New Age, the Age of Aquarius. Indeed, the whole of the cosmos in which the I AM Activity finds itself in is based in Theosophy, not just this plane, but the Astral and the series of higher planes to which a Master might ascend. The material plane, they taught, is illusory, even using the Sanskrit term "maya", as is popular in theosophical writings.
While existing within this neotheosophical paradigm, operationally, the I AM Activity is an esoteric-Christian New Thought group. Esoteric Christianity, as the term applies here, is hardly a form that most Christians would accept as truely Christian. Rather than seeking to get to Heaven through Faith in the Christ, an esoteric-Christian believes in awakening their Inner Christ, here known as the I AM Presence, or simply "The I AM". In this category of teachings, Jesus is seen as a prototype teacher who showed the way. The goal being ascending out of the cycles of reincarnation rather than attaining favorable judgement.
The term "I AM" also originates with Baird T. Spalding and his multi-volume Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East. Spalding was a personal acquaintance of the Ballards. Both Baird and Guy were involved in mining interests, searching for literal gold. Understanding Spalding's Teachings, it may be obvious at this point, is important in understanding I AM in any sense.
Spalding's Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East reads like a fictional spoof of theosophical tales of Tibetan Masters. The narrative of his books take the form of a travelog to India and Tibet in a voyage that clearly never happened. Everyone that they allegedly met in the Himalayas spoke English. That may have flown in India, but seems exceedingly unlikely high in the Himalayas.
These people that they allegedly met in the book perform many great miracles which they passed off as every day occurrences, so every-day that the locals thought nothing of it. They moved about by simply shifting from one place to another. They freely ascended to the Seventh Heaven and back. They walked on water, though this would seem pointless given the above, except to portray them as Christ-like. They manifested food whenever it was needed, also like Christ. They illuminated rooms without electricity or fire. It goes on and on.
Spalding had an obvious agenda to his work. He was Christian, and his work attempted to portray these wondrous eastern Masters as being subordinate to the Great Master Jesus the Christ. It seems probable that Spalding never put any effort into studying Buddhism in order to portray Buddhist beliefs in his tales. Rather, he made them esoteric Christians who could perform great miracles just as the great Jesus had done before them.
Like many neotheosophical new-age types after him, Spalding talks of a great Law. "The Masters say this Law will be brought forth in America, will be given to the world, and then all may know the way to Eternal Life. This, they acclaim, is the unfoldment of the New Age." As can be seen, he is literally proclaiming the "unfoldment of a New Age", which will unfold in America, which is common in theosophical circles. This American exceptionalism can be seen in I AM Activity doctrine as well as related ideologies, like Pelley's Liberation Doctrine, and can be seen down the developmental tree of the Ascended Masters movement right down to its association with QAnon.
Early in the first volume of his series, Spalding explicitly links the I AM to the "Christ Consciousness". Quoting a native character named "Emil", he writes "Then, through my I AM, my Christ Consciousness, I held my body in my mind until its vibrations were lowered and it took form..."
Later, it is explained that "When Jesus said, 'I am the door,' He meant that the I AM in each soul is the door through which the life, power, and substance of the great I AM, which is God, comes forth into expression through the individual. This I AM has but one mode of expression and that is through idea, thought, word, and act. This I AM God Being, which is power, substance, intelligence, is given form by consciousness."
The Ballards asserted the Sanskrit "OM" "means the same thing that 'I AM' is beginning to mean to the Western World." Their comments, or rather allegedly Saint Germain's comments on the matter shed light on the concept. "For Myself, I like very much the use of the 'I AM' because Its very expression indicates 'God in Action in the individual.' 'OM,' as 'understood by the Orientals, is a Universal Presence, and not nearly so apt to give the student the consciousness of the 'I AM Presence' acting in the individual, as the use of 'I AM.' This largely explains the reason for the condition in India today. Hundreds of thousands in India, through the confusion of many castes, have fallen into the error that the intonation of 'OM' was all that was required in their lives. While this brings a certain activity in hundreds of thousands of cases, it does not bring the energy of that activity into the individual's action, and so is of little benefit."
While Baird worked out his tales of esoteric Christianity in the East, he had expressly had no interest in starting a new religion or a cult of any sort. He was simply asserting a Christian dominance over eastern tales of wonder-working. This left the material open to be swiped wholesale by the Ballards, who used the material to form both a religion and a cult.
Spalding introduced these ideas to print in 1924. Guy Ballard claimed that he was taught these concepts by the Beloved Ascended Master Saint Germain whom he met hiking on Mount Shasta. The Count of Saint Germain, yes Saint Germain is a place, was a well-known figure in theosophical lore. He was a mysterious alchemist who was said to never age. The Ballards whitewashed him from a dark-haired likely Eastern European into a sort of Aryan Jesus figure. They dropped the Count and shifted the Saint in his name from being part of the notation of locale into an implication of sainthood. This helped make the figure more palatable when drawing in Christians. Not only that, but they drew Christ into it for that very same purpose. He functioned within the cult as a sort of pitch-man for Saint Germain.
The practical or operational side of the religion was entirely drenched in New Thought. New Thought, for those unfamiliar, is the basis of the common "Power of Positive Thinking" as well as the idea behind Prosperity Gospel. It centers around bringing things about by the power of thought, be that secular or religious. New Thought was popular among Christian religious movements, from Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science to William Dudley Pelley's Liberation Theology.
The practices set forth in the writings of the Ballards are almost like New Thought on steroids. It is an extreme version of mind over matter, the mind fixed upon "the Mighty I AM Presence" in a similar manner to how a New Thought Christian attempts to work by the power of Christ. One who masters this power of concentration on the I AM is promised the ability to do incredible feats of wonder, from eternal youth to teleportation. In essence, the student is promised all of the wonder-working abilities displayed by Spalding's Masters of the East.
Should the student fail in their attainment, it is never the fault of the system, but always a defect in the mind of the student. They didn't try hard enough or had hidden, unconscious doubts.
This power of thought is generally operated by one of two forms: I AM decrees and visualizations.
The decrees are essentially incantations, either spoken, written or simply thought. They generally form what is known as "affirmations". They take the form of "I AM _____".
Following are some shorter decrees culled from the Ballards' works:
"'I AM' All-Powerful."
"'I AM' the Presence of Perfect Health."
"'I AM' this Pure Revelation of everything I want to know."
"'I AM' the full Liberation of Divine Love acting."
"'I AM' the Power of my complete Self-control, forever sustained."
"'I AM' the Active Presence, bringing this money into my hands and use instantly."
"'I AM' the Ascended Being I wish to be now."
Some are not quite so short and simple, as in: "'I AM' the governing Love, Wisdom and Power with its attendant Intelligent Activity which is acting today in every single thing that I think or do. I command this Infinite Activity to take place every moment and be the sustaining Guard about me, that I move, speak and act only in Divine Order."
These are all examples of positive decrees. The Ballards heavily stressed that students must zealously guard against making negative statements, or, indeed, of even holding negative thoughts. One should never say something like "I am sick", as this would activate the I AM Presence to a negative effect. The flip-side of the power of positive thinking is the danger of negative thinking.
For example, students were warned away from astrology, as it could become self-fulfilling prophecies. If a student reads an astrological prediction that something negative will happen, giving their attention to that prophecy of negativity will potentially bring it into existence.
"When the student once understands that whatsoever he connects himself with through his attention he becomes a part of to the degree of the intensity with which his attention is fixed, he will see the importance of keeping his attention off the seeming destructive angles of human experience, no matter what they are." (I AM Discourses, vol. 3, p. 70)
Much stress is put upon the idea of attention. Attention is connection. "Whatever you let the attention rest upon, you are agreeing with and accepting, because through the attention you have let the mind become one with it." (I AM Discourses, vol. 3, p. 10)
Visualization is not as heavily stressed in the Ballards' teachings as the art of the decree. The most important use of visualization in their teachings is the application of the purifying Violet Flame of Saint Germain. A visualization of this flame is used to burn away impurities.
In The Magic Presence, it is even said that such energies are used to control dust in the caves belonging to the Masters: "This Perfect Cleanliness is maintained by the conscious use of the Great Cosmic Rays, and within the next one hundred years, hundreds of housewives will be using the Violet Ray to keep private homes in the same wonderful state."
The Ballards' teachings have been hugely influential. They have inspired many spin-offs and even more copycat organizations. Beyond these myriad organizations, there are numerous Channelers and teachers who spout ideas about the I AM and Ascended Masters. Even more numerous are the unaffiliated social media influencers and their followers who mix and match related doctrines.
A comprehensive overview of even the organizations and major names associated with this Ascended Masters movement would fill an encyclopedia so no attempt will be made to make such an overview here, but rather I shall illustrate with some examples.
Contemporary to the Ballards' cult was the appearance in 1935 of the massive Urantia Book, which laid out a very complex mapping of the occult world, based around the I AM, supposedly dictated by extraterrestrial intelligence. While it makes no mention of Ascended Masters, it should not be left out of a discussion of I AM.
The most well-known I AM Activity spin-off group is undoubtedly the Church Universal and Triumphant, or CUT, which was lead by Elizabeth Clare Prophet. She authored numerous books which were widely circulated and helped spread much of the Ballards' doctrine. CUT was not, however, a mere carbon copy of the I AM Activity, as Prophet developed a more universalist approach. Prophet incorporated the study of all world religions in contrast to the Ballards' singular focus on their own religious complex.
Many of the groups which fall loosely within the Ascended Masters tradition drew significantly from similar sources as the Ballards, particularly Theosophy, Neotheosophy and William Dudley Pelley's Liberation Soulcraft. The idea of Ascended Masters soaked through the neotheosophically-minded cultic milieu. From this milieu arose the UFO cults. From the first book the Ballards published, Unveiled Mysteries, we could read of Ascended Masters rubbing elbows with visitors from Venus, and the Theosophists often speculated about humans on other planets, so this development was quite natural.
Joshua David Stone, creator of I AM University, put forth Ashtar, of the early UFO religions, as an Ascended Master. The Czechoslovakian Ivo Benda followed soon after with his Cosmic People of Light Powers or more simply the Universe People. With those cults, the Galactic Federation of Light and Ashtar Command were fully incorporated into the Ascended Masters Movement in the form common to the Q-age movement.
Not only extraterrestrials, but angels and particularly archangels have been pulled into the mix with the Ascended Masters. The Archangel Michael, in particular, has been credited with numerous channelled writings.
You can hardly flip through a Kryon book, one of the more popular new-age channelings without seeing "I AM" scattered throughout the text. According to Wikipedia: "In later books Lee Carroll describes Kryon as an angelic loving entity from the Source (or 'Central Sun') who has been with the Earth 'since the beginning' and belongs to the same 'Family' of Archangel Michael." The concept of the "Central Sun" is derived from Blavatsky's Theosophy and is important in the mythos expounded in the Ballards' writings. This and numerous other factors show that Kryon falls directly within the Ascended Masters tradition. Carroll was also a major pusher of the Indigo Children concept.
Many of the biggest name authors in the New Age Movement, such as Shirley MacLaine, Ruth Montgomery and Doreen Virtue have put forth distinctly I AM or Ascended Masters related teachings. It could easily be said that the combined traditions make up a large part of the core of the New Age Movement and its influence is widely pervasive, so the next time you hear "I AM", don't let your mind go straight to assuming the context is a fraudulent cult from the 1930s. It is quite likely related, but possibly a few times removed.