Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tt00175)

I sent a day and an evening with the late Dr. Gerald Bryan around 1965 when he
was living in a rustic old house overlooking the ocean near Oceanside. Bryan
was a wonderful sincere man who had a good nose for discovering fraud. The
mass of research for his book, PSYCHIC DICTATORSHIP IN AMERICA was seized by
the Feds as key evidence in their prosecution of the Ballards for mail fraud.
The Feds wanted to shut the I AM movement down as a bunko scheme, but because
of the freedom of religion amendment, they had to settle for nailing them on
mail fraud instead. Bryan told me that for years afterwards, the I AM had an
inner group that was dedicated to involking the purple lightening to come down
and destroy him. He said that it never did. They also used to buy up copies
of PSYCHIC DICTATORSHIP IN AMERICA and destroyed them in order to keep the book
out of circulation. That may be part of the reason why his book is so scarce
today. Dr. Bryan also researched numerous other organizations and people in
the occult movement whom he also showed to be frauds, but I was pleasantly
surprised to find that he had a high regard for HPB and believed her to be
genuine.

JJHE

bhive888 wrote:

> Quoted from: The O.E. Library Critic
> (Oct. 1937): -
>
> "BRYAN'S BULL'S-EYE SHOTS AT THE BALLARDS"
> Besides being a transparent fraud, the teachings of the Ballards are
> calculated to make their victims' brains ooze out at their toes. You have
> but to attend a meeting or two to see signs of incipent madness. Dr Gerald
> B. Bryan has shown them up in five excellent brochures ...
>
> Jan 1937
>
> BRYAN BURSTS THE BALLARD BUBBLE
>
> ...Dr Bryan has rendered a great service to the cause of truth and sanity
> by exposing what is perhaps the most "catching" superstition of the present
> day. He shows that the Ballard writings and teachings are mostly pure
> fiction filled with glaring contradictions and distorted presentations of a
> few truths, filched from standard sources and diluted with the most
> ridiculous occult rubbish ever put before a credulous public, and
> spiritually and mentally destructive ...