Spiritual Tourism and Frontier Esotericism at Mount Shasta, California
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v5i2.26233Keywords:
Pilgrimage, Spiritual Tourism, Mount Shasta, esoteric, spirituality, New Religious MovementsAbstract
Mount Shasta City, California (pop. 3300) is the gateway to this region’s major attraction, a 14,179 foot volcano that is a sacred site for tourists seeking spiritual ascension, a mystical practice rooted in the Theosophical Society and the Saint Germain Foundation and the post-1950s associational offshoots of these traditions. Analysing 150 years of pilgrim narratives in the Mount Shasta Collection of the College of Siskiyous library, this study charts spiritual tourism and the central role pilgrims play in the foundation and promotion of key esoteric associational groups and concepts in the United States. Pilgrim accounts of encounter and ascent at Mount Shasta effectively create and reaffirm its sacred status. Spiritual tourists transmit and ascribe new metaphysical meanings to the mountain using an ever-expanding repertoire of cosmic attributes and esoteric signifiers.
References
Ariana, Addonatia. 1995. “Interdimensional Photography Brochure.” In Spirituality File 2: Mount Shasta Collection, College of the Siskiyous Library, Weed, CA.
Austin, Mary. 1914. California: The Land of the Sun. New York: MacMillan.
Avenell, Bruce K. 1999. Mount Shasta: The Vital Essence—A Spiritual Explorer’s Guide to the Natural and Man-Made Consciousness Enhancing Structures on Mt. Shasta. Escondido, CA: The Eureka Society.
Avery, Benjamin Parke. 1878. Californian Pictures in Prose and Verse. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press; Hurd & Houghton.
Beers, Terry, editor. 2000. Unfolding Beauty: Celebrating California’s Landscapes. Santa Clara, CA: Santa Clara University Press.
Bender, Courtney. 2010. The New Metaphysicals. Chicago. IL: University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226043173.001.0001
Braden, Charles Samuel. 1967. These Also Believe. New York, NY: The MacMillan Company.
Bremer, Thomas S. 2006. “Sacred Places and Tourist Spaces.” In Tourism, Religion, and Spiritual Journeys, edited by Dallen J. Timothy and Daniel H. Olsen, 25–35. New York: Routledge.
Byrne, Denis. 2010. “The Enchanted Earth: Numinous Sacred Sites.” In Sacred Natural Sites: Conserving Nature and Culture, edited by Verschuuren, Bas, Robert Wild, Jeffrey A. McNeely, and Gonzalo Oviedo, 53–61. Washington, DC: Earthscan.
Calderazzo, John. 2004. Rising Fires: Volcanoes and our Inner Lives. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press.
Campbell, Bruce F. 1980. Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Casterline, Renee and Jane English. 2003. Mount Shasta Reflections. Berkeley, CA: Amber Lotus Publishing.
Chaney, Earlyne. 2009 [1953]. Secrets from Mount Shasta. Rancho Cucamonga, CA: Astara.
Clark, Jerome. 2010. Hidden Realms, Lost Civilizations and Beings from Other Worlds. Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press.
Coats, Curtis. 2011. “Spiritual Tourism—Promises and Problems: The Case of Sedona, Arizona.” In Media, Spiritualities and Social Change, edited by Stewart M. Hoover and Monica Emerich, 117–136. London: Continuum.
Cohen, Daniel. 1971. Masters of the Occult. New York: Dodd, Mead.
Cox, Carol Jean. 2014. Communities of the Mount Shasta Region. Nevada City, CA: CAREAN Publishing.
Cumming, Duncan. 1897. A Change with the Seasons. Dunsmuir, CA: The Dunsmuir Publishing.
D’Andrea, Anthony. 2006. Global Nomads: Techno and New Age as Transnational Countercultures in Ibiza and Goa. New York: Routledge.
Dana, James Dwight. 1849. “United States Exploring Expedition. During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1841.” Geology 10: 615.
Davis, M. Evalyn. 1908. Revelations of the Life Beautiful. Los Angeles, CA: Baumgardt.
DeCamp, L. Sprague and Willy Ley. 1952. From Lands Beyond. New York: Rinehart.
D?gen, Eihei. 2001. “The Spiritual Discourses of the Mountains and the Water,” translated by Houn Hubert. Journal of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives 16(2): 17–33.
Duntley, Madeline. 2013. Holistic Spiritual Practice and Beliefs Survey. Unpublished raw data.
Eichorn, Arthur Francis, Sr. 1971. The Mount Shasta Story: Being a Concise History of the Famous California Mountain. Mt. Shasta, CA: Mount Shasta Herald.
English, Jane and Jenny Coyle. 1995. Mt. Shasta: Where Heaven and Earth Meet. Mt. Shasta, CA: Earth Heart.
Flood, Gavin. 2013. The Truth Within: A History of Inwardness in Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199684564.001.0001
Frank, Emilie A. 2010. Mt. Shasta: California’s Mystic Mountain. Klamath River, CA: Living Gold Press.
Godwin, Joscelyn. 1994. The Theosophical Enlightenment. Albany: The State University of New York Press.
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1998. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. 2013. The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Huggins, Mary A. 1937. California the New Holy Land. Los Angeles, CA: DeVorss & Company.
Huntsinger, Lynn and Maria Fernandez-Gimenez. 2000. “Spiritual Pilgrims at Mount Shasta, California.” The Geographical Review 90(4): 536–558. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3250783
Hutchings, J. M. 1875. Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California: A Tourist’s Guide. San Francisco, CA: A. Roman & Company, Publishers.
Jenson, Lin. 1997. Bowing to Receive the Mountain. Carmel, CA: Sunflower Ink Press.
Jones, Aurelia Louise. 2004. Telos: Revelations of the New Lemuria, Volume 1. Mt. Shasta, CA: Mount Shasta Light Publishing.
I AM Come Pageant: 50th Anniversary, n.a. 2002. Chicago, IL: The Saint Germain Press.
Johnson, Arthur T. 1913. California: An Englishman’s Impressions of the Golden State. New York: Duffield and Company.
Keeble, N. H., ed. 1984. [John Bunyan] The Pilgrim’s Progress. New York: Oxford University Press.
King, Godfré Ray. [a.k.a. Guy Ballard] 1939 [1934]. Unveiled Mysteries. Chicago, IL: Saint Germain Press.
Lane, Belden C. 1998. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mc Christ, Sylvia Clarise. 1993. “Visionary Art Brochure” in Spirituality File 2: Mount Shasta Collection. College of the Siskiyous Library, Weed, CA.
Miesse, William C. 1993. Mount Shasta: An Annotated Bibliography. Weed, CA: College of the Siskiyous.
Miesse, William C. with Robyn G. Peterson. 2008. Sudden and Solitary: Mount Shasta and its Artistic Legacy 1841–2008. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books.
Mt. Shasta Business Resource and Community Guide, n.a. 2013. Mt. Shasta, CA: Chamber of Commerce.
Mt. Shasta, Peter. 2000. “Mt. Shasta and the New Shambhala.” Mount Shasta Magazine 1(3): 9.
Mt. Shasta Sacred Sites Guidebook. Mt. Shasta, CA: Sacred Garden Desktop Publishing, n.a., n.d.
Neuhaus, Tom. 2012. Tibet in the Western Imagination. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137264831
Norman, Alex. 2011. Spiritual Tourism: Travel and Religious Practice in Western Society. London, UK: Continuum.
2013. “The Turn East: ‘New’ Religious Consciousness and Travel to India after Blavatsky.” In Journeys and Destinations: Studies in Travel, Identity, and Meaning, edited by Alex Norman, 129–157. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
O’Brien, Robert. 1951. California Called Them: A Saga of Golden Days and Roaring Camps. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ogilbee, Mark and Jana Riess. 2006. American Pilgrimage. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press.
Paolini, Kenneth and Talita Paolini. 2000. 400 Years of Imaginary Friends: A Journey into the World of Adepts, Masters, Ascended Masters, and their Messengers. Livingston, MT: Paolini.
Phylos, the Thibetan. [a.k.a. Frederick Spencer Oliver]. 1940 [1905]. A Dweller on Two Planets. Los Angeles, CA: Borden Publishing.
Powell, A. E. 1982 [1927]. The Astral Body. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House.
Reisinger, Yvette. 2013. Transformational Tourism: Tourist Perspectives. Boston, MA: CABI Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1079/9781780642093.0000
Riessman, Catherine Kohler. 1993. Narrative Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Rucker, Rudy. 1984. The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Sanders, F. C. S. 1916. California as a Health Resort. San Francisco, CA: Bolte & Braden.
Scott, Commander. 1946. Romance of the Highways of California. Glendale, CA: Griffin-Patterson.
Singh, Shalini and Tej Vir Singh. 2009. “Aesthetic Pleasures: Contemplating Spiritual Tourism.” In Philosphical Issues in Tourism, edited by John Tribe, 135–153. Buffalo, NY: Channel View Publications.
Smith, Melanie, Nicola MacLeod, and Margaret Hart Robertson. 2010. Key Concepts in Tourist Studies. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Strickland, Tiffany Darlene. 2004. “Constructions of Mythology: Mount Shasta, Atlantis and the Ancient Lemurians.” M.A. Thesis. Fullerton, CA: California State University.
Swatos, William H., Jr., editor. 2006. On the Road to Being There: Studies in Pilgrimage and Tourism in Late Modernity. Boston, MA: Brill.
Timothy, Dallen J. and Paul J. Conover. 2006. “Nature religion, self-spirituality, and New Age Tourism.” In Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys, edited by Dallen J. Timothy and Daniel H. Olsen, 139–155. New York: Routledge.
Von Finck, Walter, ed. 1989. The New Visionaries From Mt. Shasta. Ashland, OR: Lapis Dragon Publishers.
Walton, Bruce, ed. 1986. Mount Shasta: Home of the Ancients. Mokelumne Hill, CA: Health Research.
Wearing, Stephen, Deborah Stevenson and Tamara Young. 2010. Tourist Cultures: Identity, Place and the Traveller. London: Sage Publications.
Webster, Leonard and Patricie Mertova. 2007. Using Narrative Inquiry as a Research Method. New York: Routledge.
Weston, Michael. 1992. Shasta Springs Resort Remembered in Pictures. Yreka, CA: Siskiyou County Museum.
Wilson, Robert W. 1961. “A Review of A Dweller on Two Planets” Journal of Borderland Research 17(5): 14–17.
Wolf, Barbara and Ben Orlove. 2008. “Environment, History, and Culture as Influences on Perceptions of Glacier Dynamics.” In Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society, edited by Ben Orlove, Ellen Wiegandt, and Brian H. Luckman, 49–67. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Yü, Dan Smyer. 2012. The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China. New York: Routledge.
Zanger, Michael. 1992. Mt. Shasta: History, Legend, and Lore. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts.
Austin, Mary. 1914. California: The Land of the Sun. New York: MacMillan.
Avenell, Bruce K. 1999. Mount Shasta: The Vital Essence—A Spiritual Explorer’s Guide to the Natural and Man-Made Consciousness Enhancing Structures on Mt. Shasta. Escondido, CA: The Eureka Society.
Avery, Benjamin Parke. 1878. Californian Pictures in Prose and Verse. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press; Hurd & Houghton.
Beers, Terry, editor. 2000. Unfolding Beauty: Celebrating California’s Landscapes. Santa Clara, CA: Santa Clara University Press.
Bender, Courtney. 2010. The New Metaphysicals. Chicago. IL: University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226043173.001.0001
Braden, Charles Samuel. 1967. These Also Believe. New York, NY: The MacMillan Company.
Bremer, Thomas S. 2006. “Sacred Places and Tourist Spaces.” In Tourism, Religion, and Spiritual Journeys, edited by Dallen J. Timothy and Daniel H. Olsen, 25–35. New York: Routledge.
Byrne, Denis. 2010. “The Enchanted Earth: Numinous Sacred Sites.” In Sacred Natural Sites: Conserving Nature and Culture, edited by Verschuuren, Bas, Robert Wild, Jeffrey A. McNeely, and Gonzalo Oviedo, 53–61. Washington, DC: Earthscan.
Calderazzo, John. 2004. Rising Fires: Volcanoes and our Inner Lives. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press.
Campbell, Bruce F. 1980. Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Casterline, Renee and Jane English. 2003. Mount Shasta Reflections. Berkeley, CA: Amber Lotus Publishing.
Chaney, Earlyne. 2009 [1953]. Secrets from Mount Shasta. Rancho Cucamonga, CA: Astara.
Clark, Jerome. 2010. Hidden Realms, Lost Civilizations and Beings from Other Worlds. Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press.
Coats, Curtis. 2011. “Spiritual Tourism—Promises and Problems: The Case of Sedona, Arizona.” In Media, Spiritualities and Social Change, edited by Stewart M. Hoover and Monica Emerich, 117–136. London: Continuum.
Cohen, Daniel. 1971. Masters of the Occult. New York: Dodd, Mead.
Cox, Carol Jean. 2014. Communities of the Mount Shasta Region. Nevada City, CA: CAREAN Publishing.
Cumming, Duncan. 1897. A Change with the Seasons. Dunsmuir, CA: The Dunsmuir Publishing.
D’Andrea, Anthony. 2006. Global Nomads: Techno and New Age as Transnational Countercultures in Ibiza and Goa. New York: Routledge.
Dana, James Dwight. 1849. “United States Exploring Expedition. During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1841.” Geology 10: 615.
Davis, M. Evalyn. 1908. Revelations of the Life Beautiful. Los Angeles, CA: Baumgardt.
DeCamp, L. Sprague and Willy Ley. 1952. From Lands Beyond. New York: Rinehart.
D?gen, Eihei. 2001. “The Spiritual Discourses of the Mountains and the Water,” translated by Houn Hubert. Journal of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives 16(2): 17–33.
Duntley, Madeline. 2013. Holistic Spiritual Practice and Beliefs Survey. Unpublished raw data.
Eichorn, Arthur Francis, Sr. 1971. The Mount Shasta Story: Being a Concise History of the Famous California Mountain. Mt. Shasta, CA: Mount Shasta Herald.
English, Jane and Jenny Coyle. 1995. Mt. Shasta: Where Heaven and Earth Meet. Mt. Shasta, CA: Earth Heart.
Flood, Gavin. 2013. The Truth Within: A History of Inwardness in Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199684564.001.0001
Frank, Emilie A. 2010. Mt. Shasta: California’s Mystic Mountain. Klamath River, CA: Living Gold Press.
Godwin, Joscelyn. 1994. The Theosophical Enlightenment. Albany: The State University of New York Press.
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1998. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. 2013. The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Huggins, Mary A. 1937. California the New Holy Land. Los Angeles, CA: DeVorss & Company.
Huntsinger, Lynn and Maria Fernandez-Gimenez. 2000. “Spiritual Pilgrims at Mount Shasta, California.” The Geographical Review 90(4): 536–558. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3250783
Hutchings, J. M. 1875. Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California: A Tourist’s Guide. San Francisco, CA: A. Roman & Company, Publishers.
Jenson, Lin. 1997. Bowing to Receive the Mountain. Carmel, CA: Sunflower Ink Press.
Jones, Aurelia Louise. 2004. Telos: Revelations of the New Lemuria, Volume 1. Mt. Shasta, CA: Mount Shasta Light Publishing.
I AM Come Pageant: 50th Anniversary, n.a. 2002. Chicago, IL: The Saint Germain Press.
Johnson, Arthur T. 1913. California: An Englishman’s Impressions of the Golden State. New York: Duffield and Company.
Keeble, N. H., ed. 1984. [John Bunyan] The Pilgrim’s Progress. New York: Oxford University Press.
King, Godfré Ray. [a.k.a. Guy Ballard] 1939 [1934]. Unveiled Mysteries. Chicago, IL: Saint Germain Press.
Lane, Belden C. 1998. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mc Christ, Sylvia Clarise. 1993. “Visionary Art Brochure” in Spirituality File 2: Mount Shasta Collection. College of the Siskiyous Library, Weed, CA.
Miesse, William C. 1993. Mount Shasta: An Annotated Bibliography. Weed, CA: College of the Siskiyous.
Miesse, William C. with Robyn G. Peterson. 2008. Sudden and Solitary: Mount Shasta and its Artistic Legacy 1841–2008. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books.
Mt. Shasta Business Resource and Community Guide, n.a. 2013. Mt. Shasta, CA: Chamber of Commerce.
Mt. Shasta, Peter. 2000. “Mt. Shasta and the New Shambhala.” Mount Shasta Magazine 1(3): 9.
Mt. Shasta Sacred Sites Guidebook. Mt. Shasta, CA: Sacred Garden Desktop Publishing, n.a., n.d.
Neuhaus, Tom. 2012. Tibet in the Western Imagination. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137264831
Norman, Alex. 2011. Spiritual Tourism: Travel and Religious Practice in Western Society. London, UK: Continuum.
2013. “The Turn East: ‘New’ Religious Consciousness and Travel to India after Blavatsky.” In Journeys and Destinations: Studies in Travel, Identity, and Meaning, edited by Alex Norman, 129–157. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
O’Brien, Robert. 1951. California Called Them: A Saga of Golden Days and Roaring Camps. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ogilbee, Mark and Jana Riess. 2006. American Pilgrimage. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press.
Paolini, Kenneth and Talita Paolini. 2000. 400 Years of Imaginary Friends: A Journey into the World of Adepts, Masters, Ascended Masters, and their Messengers. Livingston, MT: Paolini.
Phylos, the Thibetan. [a.k.a. Frederick Spencer Oliver]. 1940 [1905]. A Dweller on Two Planets. Los Angeles, CA: Borden Publishing.
Powell, A. E. 1982 [1927]. The Astral Body. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House.
Reisinger, Yvette. 2013. Transformational Tourism: Tourist Perspectives. Boston, MA: CABI Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1079/9781780642093.0000
Riessman, Catherine Kohler. 1993. Narrative Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Rucker, Rudy. 1984. The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Sanders, F. C. S. 1916. California as a Health Resort. San Francisco, CA: Bolte & Braden.
Scott, Commander. 1946. Romance of the Highways of California. Glendale, CA: Griffin-Patterson.
Singh, Shalini and Tej Vir Singh. 2009. “Aesthetic Pleasures: Contemplating Spiritual Tourism.” In Philosphical Issues in Tourism, edited by John Tribe, 135–153. Buffalo, NY: Channel View Publications.
Smith, Melanie, Nicola MacLeod, and Margaret Hart Robertson. 2010. Key Concepts in Tourist Studies. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Strickland, Tiffany Darlene. 2004. “Constructions of Mythology: Mount Shasta, Atlantis and the Ancient Lemurians.” M.A. Thesis. Fullerton, CA: California State University.
Swatos, William H., Jr., editor. 2006. On the Road to Being There: Studies in Pilgrimage and Tourism in Late Modernity. Boston, MA: Brill.
Timothy, Dallen J. and Paul J. Conover. 2006. “Nature religion, self-spirituality, and New Age Tourism.” In Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys, edited by Dallen J. Timothy and Daniel H. Olsen, 139–155. New York: Routledge.
Von Finck, Walter, ed. 1989. The New Visionaries From Mt. Shasta. Ashland, OR: Lapis Dragon Publishers.
Walton, Bruce, ed. 1986. Mount Shasta: Home of the Ancients. Mokelumne Hill, CA: Health Research.
Wearing, Stephen, Deborah Stevenson and Tamara Young. 2010. Tourist Cultures: Identity, Place and the Traveller. London: Sage Publications.
Webster, Leonard and Patricie Mertova. 2007. Using Narrative Inquiry as a Research Method. New York: Routledge.
Weston, Michael. 1992. Shasta Springs Resort Remembered in Pictures. Yreka, CA: Siskiyou County Museum.
Wilson, Robert W. 1961. “A Review of A Dweller on Two Planets” Journal of Borderland Research 17(5): 14–17.
Wolf, Barbara and Ben Orlove. 2008. “Environment, History, and Culture as Influences on Perceptions of Glacier Dynamics.” In Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society, edited by Ben Orlove, Ellen Wiegandt, and Brian H. Luckman, 49–67. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Yü, Dan Smyer. 2012. The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China. New York: Routledge.
Zanger, Michael. 1992. Mt. Shasta: History, Legend, and Lore. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts.
Published
2015-05-10
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Duntley, M. (2015). Spiritual Tourism and Frontier Esotericism at Mount Shasta, California. International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 5(2), 123–150. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v5i2.26233
