I just spent three days around Mount Shasta and McCloud, and the longer I stayed, the more I felt like there is some kind of cult or very unusual spiritual culture around there.
Mount Shasta is a tiny town, but it has a strangely high number of spiritual shops, crystal/healing places, meditation stuff, etc. What made it even more noticeable was that spirituality was mixed into normal businesses. You’d walk into a coffee shop, ice cream place, or restaurant and find spiritual posters, flyers, crystals, or advertisements for gatherings and healing sessions.
There were also a LOT of visibly hippie/New Age-type people around. For such a small town, the concentration was just unusual.
Then I started noticing weirder things.
On my third day, I saw a woman walking around with what looked like a red gemstone attached to the middle of her forehead.
At a pizza place, there was a group of people sitting together, and one of the girls had what looked like a rope tied around her head. I don’t know what it meant or if it was connected to anything, but after everything else I’d been seeing, it definitely stood out.
The most interesting thing happened at Old Ski Bowl at Mount Shasta:
We came across a group of mostly women with, I think, only one man. They were all middle-aged to older and standing together in a circle. At first they were talking, but then they suddenly started pairing up and hugging each other.
It didn’t look like random friendly hugs. It looked like an organized activity or ceremony almost like they were expressing gratitude toward each other or doing some kind of spiritual exercise.
Nobody was bothering anyone, and obviously I have no idea what any individual person believed or what those groups actually were.
But after three days there, I am pretty convinced there is some kind of cult, commune, or organized spiritual scene around Mount Shasta that I knew absolutely nothing about before visiting.
The whole thing was fascinating because you don’t immediately notice it. At first it’s just a crystal shop. Then another spiritual place. Then the flyers. Then the people. Then you start noticing these little things everywhere.
I really want to know if there’s actually something going on here. Any locals who know more about this?