Podcasts · Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes
CULT: The I AM Movement
· 41 min · Episode 74
Episode CULT: The I AM Movement
In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces how Guy and Edna Ballard built the I AM Movement, a Depression-era spiritual empire claiming contact with immortal "Ascended Masters," and turned it into a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme. When federal prosecutors charged them with mail fraud for promising supernatural miracles they could never deliver, the Ballards fought back all the way to the Supreme Court, and won a landmark ruling on religious freedom that still shapes U.S. law today.
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