The Count of St. Germain or in French Comte de Saint Germain was a European adventurer who achieved prominence in European high society of the mid-18th century due to his interest and achievements in science, alchemy, philosophy, and the arts. St. Germain used a variety of names and titles, including the Marquis de Montferrat, Comte Bellamarre, Chevalier Schoening, Count Weldon, Comte Soltikoff, Manuel Doria, Graf Tzarogy, and Prinz Ragoczy. While his real name is unknown, and his birth and background obscure, towards the end of his life he claimed that he was a son of Prince Francis II Rákóczi of Transylvania.
Lemuria, or Limuria, was a continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater, theorized to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, later appropriated by occultists in supposed accounts of human origins. The theory was discredited with the discovery of plate tectonics and continental drift in the 20th century.
The Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) is a New Age religious organization founded in the United States in 1975 by Elizabeth Clare Prophet. The church is headquartered near Gardiner, Montana, and the church has local congregations in more than 20 countries.
CESNUR, is a non-profit organization based in Turin, Italy that studies new religious movements and opposes the anti-cult movement. It was established in 1988 by Massimo Introvigne, Jean-François Mayer and Ernesto Zucchini. Its first president was Giuseppe Casale. Later, Luigi Berzano became CESNUR's president.
Ascended masters in a number of movements in the theosophical tradition are held to be spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans, but who have undergone a series of spiritual transformations originally called initiations.
Guy Warren Ballard was an American mining engineer who, with his wife Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard, founded the "I AM" Activity.
A cult is a group which is typically led by a charismatic and self-appointed leader, who tightly controls its members, requiring unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered deviant. It is in most contexts a pejorative term, also used for a new religious movement or other social group which is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular person, object, or goal. This sense of the term is weakly defined – having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia – and has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.
The "I AM" Activity Movement is the original ascended master teachings religious movement founded in the early 1930s by Guy Ballard (1878–1939) and his wife Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard (1886–1971) in Chicago, Illinois. It is an offshoot of theosophy and a major precursor of several New Age religions including the Church Universal and Triumphant.
Neo-Theosophy is a term, originally derogatory, used by the followers of Helena Blavatsky to denominate the system of Theosophical ideas expounded by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater following the death of Madame Blavatsky in 1891. This material differed in major respects from Blavatsky's original presentation, but it is accepted as genuinely Theosophical by many Theosophists around the world.
The Bridge to Freedom, an Ascended Master Teachings religion, was established in 1951 by Geraldine Innocente and other students of the Ascended Masters after she received what was believed to be an "anointing" to become a "messenger" for the Great White Brotherhood. This organization believed that their teachings had been given to humanity by the Ascended Masters. These were believed to be individuals who had lived in physical bodies, acquired the wisdom and mastery needed to become immortal and free of the cycles of "re-embodiment" and karma, attaining in this way their "Ascension". They considered the "ascension" to be the complete, permanent union of the purified outer self with the "I AM" Presence—meaning that true identity that is the unique individualization of God for each person.
New religious movements and cults have appeared as themes or subjects in literature and popular culture, while notable representatives of such groups have themselves produced a large body of literary works.
Charles James Sindelar was an American illustrator and painter, who in later life focused on religious art. Sindelar established a reputation for himself in graphic design and illustration during the first quarter of the 20th century through his favourably reviewed creation of a number of menu cover designs produced for a series of events referred to as the Lotos Club dinners, in New York City. The guest lists for the events included four U.S. presidents and other notables of the time, including writer Mark Twain. Sindelar's covers incorporated a likeness of the celebrity who was being feted at the event, accompanied by intricate detailing. In the 1930s and 1940s, along with May DaCamara (1894-1976), Sindelar produced artwork for the "I AM" Activity of the Saint Germain Foundation.
The Great White Brotherhood, in belief systems akin to Theosophy and New Age, are said to be perfected beings of great power who spread spiritual teachings through selected humans. The members of the Brotherhood may be known as the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom, the Ascended Masters, the Church Invisible, or simply as the Hierarchy. The first person to talk about them in the West was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Theosophy), after she and other people claimed to have received messages from them. These included Helena Roerich, Alice A. Bailey, Guy Ballard, Geraldine Innocente, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Bob Sanders, and Benjamin Creme.
FECRIS – (in French)European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism, a French non-profit association and anti-cult organization, serves as an umbrella organization for groups which investigate the activities of groups considered cults in Europe.
A number of writers, some of whom were connected with Theosophy, have claimed that Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist and author, was a member of secret societies; a smaller number claim that he would have attained the Ascension and became the Ascended Master Saint Germain.
"Is Theosophy a Religion?" is an editorial published in November 1888 in the theosophical magazine Lucifer; it was compiled by Helena Blavatsky. It was included in the 10th volume of the author's Collected Writings. According to Arnold Kalnitsky, in the article it is about the problems of religion from the Theosophical point of view.
Christianity and Theosophy, for more than a hundred years, have had a "complex and sometimes troubled" relationship. The Christian faith was the native religion of the great majority of Western Theosophists, but many came to Theosophy through a process of opposition to Christianity. According to professor Robert S. Ellwood, "the whole matter has been a divisive issue within Theosophy."
Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard, also known as Lotus Ray King, was an American theosopher who co-founded the Saint Germain Foundation and served a co-leader of the I AM Movement with her husband Guy Ballard. In 1944, Ballard and her son Donald Ballard were charged with mail fraud and their court case would eventually be ruled by the US Supreme Court as United States v. Ballard. Ballard's work with the I AM Movement is considered a predecessor to the current new age movement.
