Who Are the Ascended Masters?

I always like to say that the ascended masters are people like you and me. In fact, they are sons and daughters of God who have realized that they are joint heirs with the Christ. When they were embodied on earth, they determined to master life, to pursue God with a passion through their sacred labor and to reunite with him at the conclusion of their sojourn on earth.

The ascended masters, then, are simply people like you and me who have re-entered the consciousness of God. Now they are part of the LORD’s hosts and the saints in heaven. They are the hovering presence, the living Spirit of God, that ministers unto God’s children on earth.

You mean they actually communicate directly with people on our plane?

The ascended masters have been communicating with mankind for thousands of years. When the prophets of Israel delivered their prophecies, they would begin by saying, “The Word of the LORD came unto me, saying….” The LORD God they described was a personification of the Great Spirit, an individualized presence that appeared to them. There are also many descriptions in the Old and New Testaments of angelic presences who came with messages and warnings at certain crucial moments.

We find, then, that the appearance of the ascended masters is not new. But the term ascended master is new, and it is something we need to understand as we enter the Aquarian age. The term is actually self-explanatory: master is one who has the full faculties of being, who has mastered one or more areas of human endeavor. But in this sense, we are speaking of the master as a teacher and the master of life.

An ascended master is one who has ascended, or reunited, with God. He or she has accelerated consciousness, is free from the rounds of rebirth and does not continue to incarnate in flesh-and-blood form.

Now, we’ve all heard of masters from the East, the masters of India. We would call them unascended masters because they are teachers who have mastered the energies of life and yet they are still in embodiment.

If someone has mastered time and space and transcended this plane, why should he come back and help us?

This is the meaning of love. All the great ones who have come to earth have come because of their great love. They could not bear to leave their brothers and sisters without an understanding of the Path. So the ascended masters are the benevolent ones, the compassionate ones who remain with this planetary home to show us the way out.

Their communication has been very real to me for most of my life. I began feeling the presence of the ascended masters in childhood and in my teenage years, and finally I saw the master El Morya. He appeared to me when I was in college at Boston University.

El Morya (who was embodied as Saint Thomas More) came to me in answer to my prayers of many years. I had told God that I wanted to be of service in communicating his teachings to his children. El Morya told me that I must be trained to be a messenger so that I could set forth the teachings.

I began my training under Mark Prophet, whom I later married, and in time I was able to receive directly the Teachings of the Ascended Masters, which we have set forth in many books and publications and on audio and video recordings. Essentially they provide the synthesis of the world’s religions that I knew as a child I had come to deliver.

This work is rewarding because it always leads the individual back to the Real Self, the Inner Self. And that is the point of beginning for our life’s work and fulfillment.

So are you saying that the ascended masters are communicating with you today in the same way that they once did with the prophets in the Bible?

This is true and, of course, I am not the only one. There are others who have heard the Word of the LORD. Joel prophesied that in the last days the LORD God would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh. He said: “Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” As that Spirit of the LORD is being poured out upon all flesh, the people of God are realizing the very personal presence of the LORD’s hosts.

You see this in the charismatic movement today in the Protestant and the Catholic churches. People are waiting upon the Word of the LORD. They are calling upon that Spirit, and many are hearing and many lives are being transformed by it.

What you’re saying is really amazing and fantastic, and I guess the big question is: How does somebody know that what you’re saying is true?

There’s only one way, and that is by the formula Jesus gave us. He said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” He told us there would be false Christs and false prophets. Hence, if there were to be false Christs and false prophets, we may infer that there would also be true Christs and true prophets.

We know that the coming of the Christ is the coming of the “anointed one.” The word Christ is from the Greek Christos, which means “anointed.” The Christ is the Son of God anointed with the Christ consciousness, or with the light of the Word—the Second Person of the Trinity.

Those who come in the spirit of prophecy come with the Holy Spirit. Some are endowed as prophets and some as Christs. Then there are those who are not a part of that dispensation but who enter into practices of black magic and witchcraft. These are the false Christs and the false prophets.

The children of God must test, or try, the spirits, as John said, to see whether they are of God. To try the spirits means to test the vibration, to test the very foundations of truth. This we must do through quiet communion and meditation and through calling upon the name of the LORD, I AM THAT I AM, to give us proof that the word we are hearing is real.

Are you saying that it is possible for anyone to decide whether or not your experience is real just by listening to you?

Yes, because we all have God living within us, and the flame of God gives to us that consciousness whereby we can distinguish light and darkness.

Why are you called a messenger? Do the masters speak through you? What is the nature of this experience?

I have been called a messenger by the masters because they deliver their messages, or dictations, through me. The office of the messenger is something that comes by the gift of the Holy Spirit. So too is the gift of prophecy. It is a grace. It is an endowment. It is something that one achieves by walking with God until God calls one to speak to his people.

During a dictation my consciousness is accelerated, or elevated, so that it can mesh with the consciousness of the ascended master who is speaking through me. The sphere of my higher consciousness actually meshes with the sphere of consciousness of the ascended master. In that moment, there is the release of the Word. The master uses my voice as the instrument to bring forth his teaching.

Taking a dictation is a very real experience in the presence of the master. It is like being inside someone’s mind. The mind of the master is cogitating through my mind and he is speaking through my mouth. However, I am not in a trance, and I am in full awareness with my full faculties of the Christ mind.

Is this different, then, from what is normally referred to as a psychic involvement?

Yes. Psychic channeling, which often comes forth in trance, comes through the subconscious mind. The individual is not in the presence of his own Christ mind, and his body is used by discarnates, disembodied spirits, to convey messages from the departed.

Now, this may have its place for those who desire it, but where I stand as a messenger for the ascended masters it is not permitted. I would lose the gift of the messengership and of prophecy were I to engage in any form of interaction with disembodied spirits.

The ascended masters require that their disciples—and I consider myself a disciple—always be in full command of their faculties when they are in communion with God and that they retain their own reason and judgment and self-discipline.

So there is no point at which your own faculties are suspended?

That’s correct. And of course there are different methods that the great ones use to convey their concepts. Sometimes taking a dictation is like reading a ticker tape coming across Times Square. It simply is in letters of living fire that can be read and repeated. But this is only one form the masters use.

The meshing of consciousness with the master’s consciousness can be compared in the Catholic tradition with the Pope’s speaking ex cathedra. When it is said that the Pope speaks ex cathedra (literally, “from the throne, or chair”), it means “out of the mouth of God.” It means that God is speaking through the Pope without any opportunity for the Pope to intrude his own preferences or prejudices, and therefore the word that comes forth under those conditions is accepted as absolute and infallible.

When you speak during a dictation, is the message infallible?

I wouldn’t say that it is infallible, because I think that’s a dangerous conclusion to draw. But I would say that there is less opportunity for error than there would normally be in the course of my giving forth teachings.