Mount Shasta in California and Arunachala in Tamil Nadu, India, are two mountains widely regarded as spiritually powerful. Shasta, a volcano sacred to local Native peoples, became a center of modern esoteric legends about Lemuria and ascended masters. Arunachala, worshipped as a form of the god Shiva, is famous as the home of the sage Ramana Maharshi.
Mount Shasta and Mount Arunachala at a glance
| Mount Shasta | Stratovolcano, Cascade Range, northern California; 14,179 ft (4,322 m) |
|---|---|
| Arunachala | Sacred hill, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India; about 814 m (2,671 ft) |
| Shasta legends | Lemurians, Telos, Saint Germain and the I AM Activity |
| Arunachala tradition | Worshipped as Shiva; Arunachalesvara Temple at its base |
| Arunachala festival | Karthigai Deepam (November-December) |
| Associated sage | Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) |
Mount Shasta: the volcano and its first peoples
Mount Shasta is a potentially active stratovolcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in northern California, rising to 14,179 feet (4,322 m). Its isolated snow-capped cone dominates the surrounding landscape. Long before it attracted modern seekers, the mountain was sacred to Native peoples of the region. The Shasta, Karuk, Klamath, Modoc and Wintu all have traditions connected with it; in Klamath lore, for example, the summit was the home of Skell, the spirit of the Above-World. Native groups continue to hold ceremonies on the mountain and have been involved in efforts to protect sacred sites on its slopes.
Lemuria, ascended masters and the I AM movement
Mount Shasta's modern reputation as a mystical mountain grew from a series of books. Frederick Spencer Oliver's A Dweller on Two Planets, written in the 1880s and published in 1905, presented itself as a narrative dictated by "Phylos the Thibetan" and placed a hidden brotherhood inside the mountain. In 1931 Harvey Spencer Lewis of the Rosicrucian order AMORC, writing as Wishar S. Cerve, published Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific, which described survivors of the sunken continent of Lemuria living within Shasta. Later writers added the hidden city of Telos.
In the early 1930s Guy Ballard claimed that while hiking on Mount Shasta he had met the ascended master Saint Germain. With his wife Edna, he founded the I AM Activity, a movement drawing on Theosophy and publishing under the pen name Godfré Ray King. It grew rapidly, faced a mail fraud prosecution that led to the U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. Ballard (1944), in which the Court held that juries may not judge the truth of religious beliefs, and influenced later New Age groups. Today the town of Mount Shasta hosts many spiritual centers. There is no geological or archaeological evidence for Lemuria, which began as a nineteenth-century scientific hypothesis about land bridges and was later abandoned.
Arunachala: Shiva as a mountain
Arunachala, whose name is usually translated "red mountain" or "red hill," is a hill about 814 meters high near the town of Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu. In Shaiva tradition the hill is not merely a place where Shiva is worshipped but a form of Shiva himself. A well-known legend tells that Brahma and Vishnu quarreled about which of them was supreme; Shiva appeared as an endless column of fire whose top and bottom neither could find, and this column later took the form of Arunachala.
At the foot of the hill stands the great Arunachalesvara (Annamalaiyar) Temple, one of the largest temple complexes in India, with towering gateway towers and inscriptions and carvings spanning many centuries. Each year in the Tamil month of Karthigai (November-December), during the Karthigai Deepam festival, a huge flame fed with ghee is lit on the summit, recalling the column of fire. Pilgrims also perform girivalam, walking barefoot around the base of the hill along a path of about 14 kilometers, especially on full-moon nights.
Ramana Maharshi
Arunachala became known worldwide through Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950). After a profound experience of the nature of the self at the age of sixteen, he left home and arrived at Tiruvannamalai in 1896, never leaving the area again. He lived for years in caves on the hill's slopes, including Virupaksha cave, and later at Sri Ramanasramam, the ashram that grew up near the tomb of his mother, who died in 1922.
Ramana taught self-enquiry, summed up in the question "Who am I?" (Nan Yar?), and often taught through silence. He wrote hymns to Arunachala, which he regarded as his guru. Paul Brunton's A Search in Secret India (1934) made him famous in the West, and his teaching remains central to modern Advaita and to the wider interest in mystical experience.
Comparing the two mountains
The two mountains are sometimes linked in modern spiritual literature as "power points" of the earth. Their traditions, however, are very different. Arunachala's sanctity is rooted in a living Hindu tradition documented over many centuries, with temple worship, festivals and pilgrimage. Shasta's older sacred status belongs to Native Californian peoples, while its esoteric reputation is largely a modern creation of Theosophical and New Age writers. Both mountains show how landscapes become sacred through story, practice and community.
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Frequently asked questions
Why is Mount Shasta considered a spiritual place?
Mount Shasta has long been sacred to Native peoples such as the Shasta, Karuk and Klamath. Since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, books such as A Dweller on Two Planets and Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific, and the I AM Activity's claims about Saint Germain, made it a center of New Age and esoteric belief.
What is the legend of Lemurians in Mount Shasta?
Esoteric writers claimed that survivors of Lemuria, a supposed lost Pacific continent, live in hidden cities inside Mount Shasta, later called Telos. The idea spread through a 1931 book by Harvey Spencer Lewis. Geologists and archaeologists have found no evidence for Lemuria or for underground cities in the mountain.
Why is Arunachala sacred?
In Shaiva Hindu tradition Arunachala is Shiva himself in the form of a hill, recalling a legend in which Shiva appeared as an infinite column of fire. The Arunachalesvara Temple stands at its base, pilgrims walk around it, and it became world-famous as the home of the sage Ramana Maharshi from 1896 until 1950.
Sources and further reading
This entry replaces an article from the original Mystica encyclopedia (online since 2001). It was rewritten from the sources above by The Mystica Editorial Team under our editorial standards. Last reviewed: September 30, 2026.