New Age "I Am" Church Universal & Triumphant Debate: Larry Wessels Vs. Verner Zotter

This debate took place on Larry's ministry radio outreach show entitled, "Christian Answers Live!" hosted by Lee Meckley. Verner Zotter, a local cable access television producer, took exception to Larry Wessels' local cable access shows playing on Time Warner channel 11 in Austin, Texas & thus challenged for debate. Wessels saw this debate as an opportunity to deal with one of the many forms of "New Age" religious belief that sets itself up in opposition to Biblical truth. The "Church Universal & Triumphant" (CUT for short) is one of the chief sects to grow out of the "'I AM' Ascended Masters" new age religious movement. "I AM" has its roots in an eclecticism of ancient GNOSTICISM, Eastern MYSTICISM, THEOSOPHY, & CHRISTIANITY. Borrowed from Exodus 3:14, the phrase "I AM" attempts to capture the locus & essence of deity that resides in a line of "Ascended Masdters" throughout history.The "I AM" movement proper began in the 1930s with GUY BALLARD (1878-1939) & his wife Edna (1886-1971). Borrowing from the Gnostic idea that God, as absolute spirit, is only accessible through human intermediaries, the Ballards taught that these "Masters" had been raised up at various times throughout history to reveal God's truth. The chiefs of the Ascended Masters were Jesus & a seventeenth-century OCCULTIST, Saint Germain, with whom Ballard claimed to have had contact in 1930 on Mount Shasta in California. Guy Ballard died in 1939 & his wife Edna then claimed that her dead husband was now an "Ascended Master" & she claimed to be in contact with him. Following Edna's conviction for mail fraud & fraudulent solicitation of funds she continued to provide leadership.