The Ballards said they began talking to the ascended masters regularly. They founded a publishing house, Saint Germain Press, to publish their books and began training people to spread their messages across the United States. These training sessions and "conclaves" were held throughout the United States, open to the general public and free of charge. A front-page story in a 1938 edition of the Chicago Herald and Examiner noted that the Ballards "do not take up collections or ask for funds". Some of the original members of I AM were recruited from the ranks of William Dudley Pelley’s organization the Silver Shirts. Meetings became limited to members only after hecklers began disrupting their open meetings. Over their lifetimes, the Ballards recorded nearly 4000 live dictations, which they said were from the ascended masters. Guy Ballard, his wife Edna, and later their son Donald, became the sole "accredited messengers" of the ascended masters. In 1942, they began the I AM Sanctuary at a former Presbyterian missionary school.