The Saint Germain Foundation is a religious organization, headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, with a major facility just north of Dunsmuir, California, in the buildings and property of the Shasta Springs retreat. There is also a facility in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in downtown Denver, Colorado.
The doctrines of the organization are based on teachings and wisdom received by Guy Ballard in 1930. Ballard was hiking on the slopes of Mount Shasta in California, and claimed Saint Germain appeared to him and began training him to be a "Messenger". Ballard published his experiences in a series of books. The organization's philosophies are known as the "I AM" Activity, and its members popularly known as "I AM" Students.
J. Gordon Melton studied the group and ranked it in the category "established cult". Also present in New Zealand, the St. Germain Foundation is considered by writer Robert S. Ellwood as a religious group with theosophical and esoteric roots. The group is recognized by the Theosophical Society and the Great White Brotherhood.
The group was labelled as cult in the 1995 report established by Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France. The group founded a community in France in 1956 and is now located in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. It counts less 50 members. In 1997, the Belgian parliamentary commission established a list of 189 movements containing I AM.
Worldwide, the religious group had over one million members in 1940, but it began to decline after Ballard's death. Among the splinter groups of the Saint Germain Foundation, there have been the Bridge to Freedom, The Summit Lighthouse and the Church Universal and Triumphant.
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