Spiritual Tourism and Frontier Esotericism at Mount Shasta, California

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 spir-itual tourism and the central role pilgrims play in the foundation and promo-tion of key esoteric associational groups and concepts in the United States. Pilgrim accounts of encounter and ascent at Mount Shasta effectively cre-ate 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