Lore 313: Tall, Tall Tales

Lore

This episode of Lore explores the intersection of science, mythology, and mystery through the lens of Mount Shasta—a towering volcano in Northern California steeped in legends of time

Key takeaways

• Time moves slightly faster at higher altitudes due to gravitational time dilation, making climbing a mountain a form of literal time travel.
• Mount Shasta is not only an active volcano but also a sacred site for multiple Indigenous tribes with rich mythologies involving giants, spirit beings, and origin stories.

Main topics

• Gravitational time dilation and its effects on aging in space
• Indigenous legends of Mount Shasta (Wintu, Modoc, Achumawi, Shasta)

Notable quotes

"In fact, believe it or not, the core of the Earth is estimated to be a full 2.5 years younger than the surface."

"Climbing a tall peak isn't just adventurous. It's a form of time travel."

Conclusion

Mount Shasta stands as a monument where science, spirituality, and myth

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) you Speaker 1 (0:13) When the crew of Artemis II took their famous trip to the moon a few months back, it got me thinking about the passage of time. Specifically, the idea that astronauts age ever so slightly slower in space. It has to do with Einstein's theory of relativity. Basically, speed and gravity impact time. So when someone is hurtling through space at crazy high speeds, time slows down a bit for them. Say that you sent one twin into space while the other stayed on Earth. The astronaut twin would be fractions of a second younger than the one who stayed behind when they returned. Meanwhile, the closer a clock is to a center of gravity, the slower it moves. In fact, believe it or not, the core of the Earth is estimated to be a full 2.5 years younger than the surface. It's called gravitational time dilation, and it's honestly heady stuff. Too heady to get deeper into here. But it made me wonder, just how high off the ground... do you have to be before time starts to shift? Well, it turns out I wasn't the only one wondering this. In 2023, roughly $2 million was granted to a team of scientists to explore exactly that idea. They wanted to see if a clock atop the towering peak of Mount Blue Sky in Colorado would tick faster than a clock down in Boulder. We'll have to wait until 2027 for the results, but this is what we already know. Time at sea level does move more slowly than it does at high altitudes. Infantessimally, for sure, but still, there's a difference. In a way, climbing a tall peak isn't just adventurous. It's a form of time travel. Then again, that wouldn't be the strangest thing to occur on a mountaintop. And if the stories are true, there might be one mountain more prone to oddity than all the rest. I'm Aaron Manke, and this is Lore. Looms over the land like an ancient god. Crowned in snow, with a cloak of hardened lava on its massive shoulders, the giant has slumbered there for nearly 600,000 years. In that time, it's become the subject of countless legends, too. Creation myths and conspiracies, ghost stories and religions, all have gathered in the great shadow of Mount Shasta. Located in Northern California, about 50 miles south of the Oregon border, Mount Shasta is the second tallest mountain in the Cascade Range. But don't be fooled by its silver metal. This leviathan is a whopping 14,179 feet high. And if that weren't intimidating enough, it also happens to be an active volcano. Now, while scientists believe it last erupted around the year 1250, the U.S. Geological Survey ranks it number five on its list of most hazardous volcanoes in the country. In other words, just because it hasn't erupted in a while doesn't mean that it won't go off again. The mountain gets its name from the local Shasta tribe, but they're not the only native population living in the mountain's foothills. In fact, the area is home to the Shasta, Wintu, Achumawi, and Modoc people, among others. And unsurprisingly, many of them have legends about the prominent peak. According to the Wintu, the very first members of their tribe emerged from a sacred healing spring right there on Mount Shasta. To this day, they hold a ceremony by that spring every August. Meanwhile, the Wintu claim that there were once giants living within the mountain and that spirit beings dwell above the tree line. In fact, humans should never go above the tree line at all, they say, except for rituals, advice that the Shasta people insist upon as well. In Modoc mythology, the great creator himself resides on the mountain, and as such, Modoc people bring offerings like water or tobacco whenever they visit. They also believe that all animals originate from a race of animal people who came down from the top of Mount Shasta and made new homes for themselves on Earth. Oh, and also living on the mountain are a creature known as the Keepers of the Woods, the Matakagmi, or as you might call them, Bigfoot. The Achumawi, on the other hand, tell of an entirely different supernatural entity residing on the slopes. They're called Isuchin and are magical black imps known for punishing those who disrespect the sacred mountain. Punish how, you might ask? Well, they might simply scare you or make you get lost on the mountain forever. Or, if they're feeling particularly cheeky, drive you fully and entirely insane. Then again, not all the mountain's legends come from its indigenous neighbors. No, it turns out some might just come from a local Mount Shasta area teenage boy with a typewriter and a tiny obsession with Atlantis. Let me explain. His name was Frederick Spencer Oliver, and let's just say he wasn't a very good student. He had trouble concentrating in class. His teachers called him lazy. But in the early 1880s, one mentor took a chance on the 17-year-old Frederick and changed his life forever. Now, let me be clear here. If you're imagining a strict tutor with a scowl and a hickory switch, you've got the wrong idea. This was no typical teacher. In fact, Frederick's mentor wasn't even, well, human. You see, the boy was actually under the careful tutelage of an invisible being known as Philos the Thibetan, former resident of Atlantis. According to Frederick, this supernatural being had begun projecting spiritual messages right into his brain. Messages the teenager transcribed into a 442-page doozy of a manuscript. And let me tell you folks, this thing is wild. First, it describes Philos' life on Atlantis way back in 11,000 BC, a high-tech world complete with public transportation and anti-gravity airships. Apparently, Atlantis even had x-rays, which, for the record, hadn't even been discovered yet when Frederick was writing. But it's in the next part of the book where things go really crazy, because that's where Frederick mentions his favorite local landmark, Mount Shasta. You see, if his book is true, the mountain has a secret. It hides a tunnel leading to a temple city deep within Mount Shasta's belly. There are walls of polished quartz veined with gold, luminous white light ebbs from no clear source, the air is perfumed, and presiding over it all is a multicultural, robe-clad brotherhood with access to all the secrets of the universe. In other words, Frederick Spencer Oliver had written one heck of a sci-fi novel. But hey, if L. Ron Hubbard taught us anything, it's that fiction and fact have a pesky way of blurring together. That's right. Plenty of people were happy to take Frederick's book all too literally. Speaker 1 (7:34) Frederick Oliver passed away at the young age of 33. But in 1905, his mother had his book published under the title A Dweller on Two Planets. And immediately, it was super popular among a very particular type of people who, suffice to say, did not consider it to be fiction. And the book's biggest fans? The Rosicrucians, an esoteric order hodgepodging together Masonic traditions, alchemy, Christian mysticism, and the theories of Paracelsus. And they went bananas for the Mount Shasta stuff as well. Not only did they gobble up Frederick's book, but they added brand new details in writings of their own. Specifically, they offered new information on an ancient race of possibly egg-laying people called Lemurians. Lemurians, they said, lived in the mountain, protected by a huge force field while traveling via a flying boat. You know, totally normal stuff. Word spread, though, and by the 30s, the conspiracies had leaked into the mainstream. No more gatekeeping that secret underground city. In fact, one man even claimed