Ascended Master Teachings

Students of Ascended Master Teachings organizations (also known as "Ascended Master Activities") believe that the Presence of Life - God - Individualizes as the "I AM" and incarnates throughout the created universes. They believe that their Teachings have been given to humanity by the Ascended Masters. These are believed to be individuals who have lived in physical bodies, acquired the Wisdom and Mastery needed to become Immortal and Free of the cycles of "re-embodiment" and karma, and have attained their "Ascension". They consider the Ascension to be the complete permanent union of the raised and purified outer self with the "I AM" Presence - that True Identity that is the unique Individualization of Almighty God for each person. This knowledge is believed to have previously been taught for millions of years only within "Ascended Master Retreats" and "Mystery Schools". It is believed by adherents of the Ascended Master Teachings that this wisdom was partially released by the Theosophical Society beginning in 1875, by C.W. Leadbeater and Alice A. Bailey, and began to have more detailed public release in the 1930s by the Ascended Masters through Guy Ballard in the I AM Activity. However, Theosophists maintain the concept of Ascended Masters are a corruption of the original Theosophical concept of the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom. The term Ascended Master was first introduced in 1934 by Guy Ballard with the publication of Unveiled Mysteries, a book which he said was dictated to him by the Ascended Master St. Germain. Other Ascended Master Teachings are contained in The Bridge to Freedom (1951), Mark Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet's The Summit Lighthouse (1958) (reorganized as the  Church Universal and Triumphant in 1975), The Temple of The Presence (1995), The Hearts Center (2005), the I AM University (2004), and various other organizations such as the White Eagle Lodge (1936) and the Aquarian Christine Church Universal, Inc. (2006).

In the Ascended Master Teachings, Ascended Masters are believed to be spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans, but who have undergone a series of spiritual transformations originally called initiations.