ABSTRACT
This chapter examines contemporary accounts written by people who claim to have seen or met Bigfoot. As these accounts make clear, encounters with Bigfoot are, above all else, spiritual experiences. Whether gentle or terrifying, Bigfoot is an embodiment of the magic and mystery of nature that survives into today’s supposedly scientific, secular era. A glimpse of Bigfoot is a brush with the divine, at once wondrous and monstrous. It transforms people’s lives, their worldviews, and their ethics, often bringing richer personal relationships and a newfound responsibility toward the environment. The religious elements of Bigfoot accounts reveal the persistence of the supernatural, marvelous, and unexplainable in the imaginaries of 21st-century Americans.
