Energy and transformation in alternative pilgrimages to Catholic shrines: deconstructing the tourist/pilgrim divide

Abstract

In recent years an increasing number of travelers have visited sites considered ‘power places’, with the intention of tapping into their energy and the experiential transformation and healing associated with such sites. This article is based on fieldwork among pilgrims influenced by the international Goddess movement, visiting Catholic shrines in Southern Europe; the analysis reflects an ethnographic perspective on how these pilgrims conceptualize their journeys. Their approach to sacred sites is by no means unique but rather the expression of an engagement both with pilgrimage and tourism, one in which both the notions and experiences of energy and transformation play key roles. I will argue that in the context of these sacred journeys, the use of an energy language to make sense of travel experiences and the emphasis on personal transformation allow the pilgrims to deconstruct oppositions implicitly associated with the tourism/pilgrimage dichotomy [Badone, E. (2004) Crossing boundaries: Exploring the borderlands of ethnography, tourism and pilgrimage. In E. Badone & S. R. Roseman (Eds.), Intersecting journeys: The anthropology of pilgrimage and tourism (pp. 180–189). Urbana: University of Illinois Press].

Keywords:

• pilgrimage
• tourism
• energy
• transformation
• Catholic shrines
• goddess spirituality
• new age

Acknowledgments

This article is based on my thesis, published as Looking for Mary Magdalene: Alternative Pilgrimage and Ritual Creativity at Catholic Shrines in France (Oxford University Press, 2013). Some parts of this text appear in the introduction and in Chapter 8 (pp. 252–253) of the book, and some citations appear throughout the work as a whole; exact references can be found throughout this text. An earlier version of this article was presented at the International Symposium, ‘Sacred Tourism, Secular Pilgrimage: Travel and Transformation in the 21st Century’ (2011), organized by Sofia Sampaio, Cyril Isnart and myself at the Center for Research in Anthropology of the Lisbon University Institute, and I thank especially Dionigi Albera, Ellen Badone, Maria Cardeira da Silva, Nora Demarchi, Nelson Graburn, David Picard and Fréderic Vidal for their useful comments. I would like to thank Cyril Isnart, Sofia Sampaio and Valerio Simoni for their patience, their support and their attentive remarks and suggestions. I am grateful to Susan Scott for her help with editing.

Funding

This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology [grant number PEst-OE/SADG/UI4038/2014].

Notes

1. For a detailed discussion of the importance and meaning the pilgrims ascribed to Black Madonnas see Fedele (2013b).

2. For a scientific rebuttal of the theory of ley lines, see Williamson and Bellamy (1983); for a detailed discussion of the evolution of the theories about ley lines and of ley hunters, see Ivakhiv (2001).

3. The fact that Lovelock has chosen the name of a Greek goddess to identify the earth as a living being has led people to identify the planet with the goddess and, further, with the general idea of ‘Mother Earth’; see also Hanegraaff (1996, pp. 155–158). For more details about the conceptualization of Mother Earth see Fedele (2013d).

4. Woolger's ‘Magdalenetour’ was the most expensive organized pilgrimage I accompanied; Italian pilgrims slept in cheaper hotels and Dana's group slept in hostels, summer camps and once even on the beach. Pilgrims traveling on their own usually chose cheap accommodations.

5. Poem by Margot Henderson, used with the author's permission, Fedele (2013a, pp. 236–237).