THE MYSTERIES OF THE SOUTHERN CASCADES

For thousands of years, the Southern Cascades have been objects of myth and mystery. From the days of the native Americans until today, humans have been experiencing the unexplainable while visiting giant Mount Shasta that dominates the entire region.

Some encounter survivors of Lemuria, a lost civilization, who are believed to be living inside the mountain. Others have had individual experiences with Saint Germain, a mystical presence who becomes visible to special souls on the slopes of the mountain. Others simply feel an almost magnetic attraction to Mount Shasta that draws people from all parts of the world.

Each one who comes there has their own unique experience, varying from a simple awe of the snow-capped giant to being taken on a mystical world tour by Saint Germain. After co-founding the world-renowned Findhorn spiritual community in Scotland, Peter Caddy was called by Saint Germain to give workshops in nearby Stewart Mineral Springs across the Shasta Valley from the mountain.

The I am Come movement began in 1930 when founder, Guy W. Ballard, was approached by a vision of Saint Germain on the mountain and taken on a world tour of spiritual adventure and learning. This prompted creation of the Saint Germain Foundation which, each August  stages the I Am Come Pageant on the life of Christ with a cast of hundreds that easily rivals the famous Christian pageant at Oberamergau in Austria.

         I Am Come Pageant 

 These are some of the more visible mysteries of Mount Shasta, but there are hundreds more. Dawn Fazende, editor and publisher of Mount Shasta Magazine, began her work after being requested to do so by Saint Germain when he appeared before a group of a dozen women who witnessed the phenomenon.

                        As a complement to the raw spiritual energy of Mount Shasta is the softer, but powerful draw of Ashland, Oregon at the foot of Mount Ashland. In recent years, there has been a constant flow of people drawn there by inner-promptings from all over the world including mystical leaders like James Twyman, Jean Houston (spiritual counselor to Hillary Clinton) and noted-author Gary Zukav. Ashland is also the home of Neale Donald Walsch, best-selling author of Conversations with

The Southern Cascades are the home of another strange phenomenon as well. The area from Redding, CA to Grants Pass, OR is also the area that once sought to secede from California and Oregon to form a new State of Jefferson. Residents of the area felt that their politics and culture are in contrast to the other areas of those two states with their large populations and contrasting cultures. Although this movement is quite unlikely to happen, since those two states are not going to permit a secession of large amounts of territory, it is another sign of the unique spiritual contrast of the Southern Cascades.  

Tourists in search of a spiritual adventure come to the area from all over the world. In the green Colestin Valley, just south of Mount Ashland, a Tibetan Buddhist community is centered at the foot of a 30 foot-high statue of the Buddha. Leaving the I-5 Freeway at the Hilt exit, takes one through the site of the town of Hilt which disappeared in the 1970s. It was home of a lumber mill making wooden orange crates for Sunkist until other materials took over that function. In the 1990s, a spiritual community next to the Hilt townsite called Alcyone attracted spiritual seekers for several years.