Life changes after the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, including a deeper sense of spirituality

ABSTRACT

While it is widely known that pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago changes people, there is limited research exploring the transformative aftereffects of the experience. The purpose of this article is to contribute to filling this research gap by comparing life changes in beliefs, philosophy and behavior to life changes after three different kinds of exceptional human experiences (EHEs) from methodologically similar studies. Life changes after the pilgrimage experience are compared with life changes after unitive/mystical experiences (U/MEs), combat near-death experiences (cNDEs), and hypnotically-induced death experiences (HDEs). To measure life changes reported by pilgrims who had traveled the Camino de Santiago, an online survey (n = 630) was conducted using the established instrument for assessing aftereffects of the EHE, the ‘Life Changes Inventory-Revised’ (LCI-R). Findings suggest that pilgrimage experience may be comparable in aftereffects to other types of EHEs. In all four comparative studies, the most striking changes involve an increase in appreciation for life; a heightened quest for meaning and sense of purpose; more concern for others; greater self-acceptance; as well as a deeper sense of spirituality. Also, all four yielded a decrease in concern with worldly achievement. In the present study this decrease tends to be strongly associated with an increase in spirituality but not religiousness.

KEYWORDS:

• Spirituality
• transformative aftereffects
• exceptional human experiences
• pilgrimage
• Camino de Santiago
• Life Changes Inventory

Introduction

In this article, I focus on pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago (in English, the ‘Way of St. James’) which is one of the most popular pilgrimage routes in Europe. It consists of a network of pilgrims’ ways leading to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the legendary site of the remains of Saint James. The most popular of the routes is Camino Frances, an almost 800 km long route that takes about four to five weeks of walking. It runs from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on the French side of the Pyrenees.

Since 1987, when Camino was proclaimed the first European Cultural Itinerary by the Council of Europe, the yearly number of pilgrims has risen from less than 3000 to over 347,000 in 2019 (Pilgrim’s Reception Office 2020). This figure is the yearly number of pilgrims who reached the city and obtained their Compostela certificate,¹ issued by the Chapter of the Metropolitan Church of Santiago. Although the majority of pilgrims were of Spanish nationality (42%), a Compostela was issued to pilgrims from 190 different countries; 94% had traveled on foot and less than 6% by bicycle.

Background

Walking pilgrimage as a spiritual experience

Challenger (2014) sees renewed interest of Europeans (and others) in pilgrimage as part of a social change in the West, as a break from a vision of secular modernity. He attributes Camino's popularity to a persistent longing in human beings for spiritual experience. As Susanne van der Beek et al. (2017) point out, Camino de Santiago is a very attractive site for academic research of pilgrimage in diverse late-modern societies because it offers many different incentives for spiritual experiences, including different religious rituals and symbols, beautiful natural landscapes and local architecture, and conversations with other pilgrims and the local population.

Oviedo, de Courcier, and Farias (2013, 433) point out, however, that individuals with ‘various, often contrasting, motivations and expectations walk side by side’ on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route, so the increase in the number of pilgrims over the last three decades cannot be read simplistically as either confirming a ‘post-secularisation trend or a religious revival’. This view is endorsed by recent studies. For example, Miguel Farias et al. (2019) claim that both atheist and religious pilgrims are exploring different forms of transcendence on the route. Kim, Yilmaz, and Ahn (2019, 1) found that the majority of pilgrims have some form of spiritual connection with Camino and concluded that: ‘Camino continues to be a religious place driven by inner goals, albeit in a more personal, interpretive, and spiritual way.’

Almost fifty years ago, Turner and Turner (1978) pointed out that, even if a pilgrim denies the spiritual component to his or her motives for pilgrimage, the potential for some ‘spiritual event’ during the pilgrimage is still present. At least in this sense, every pilgrimage has a spiritual component. Several authors have looked at the actual spiritual experiences of pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago. As Sean Slavin (2003) points out, for example, being ‘on the way’ starts with a feeling of being isolated from surrounding society. Slavin focused on the very practice of walking as a spiritual experience by showing that it generates its own particular kind of experience. One of the central themes of this experience is the shift in focus away from the material world towards a spiritual one. Importantly, this shift tends to happen, in Slavin’s view, predominantly due to the practice of walking itself, even for pilgrims who initially seek no form of spirituality through the Camino.

Margry (2008, 43) observes that, for most pilgrims on foot to Santiago de Compostela, ‘the journey rather than the destination has become the definitive element of the pilgrimage.’ Coleman and Eade (2004) had previously argued that a promising approach to pilgrimage studies is through focusing on movement as the central element of pilgrimage. This entails, among other things, more focus on pilgrims’ experiences and the transformative effects of the pilgrimage.

However, it is not just the practice of walking that produces spiritual effects. As Susanne van der Beek (2017) points out, the Camino is famous among its pilgrims for being a place where little miracles happen. These Camino miracles often revolve around chance encounters, help offered in a seemingly hopeless situation, or other instances of unlikely good fortune. While most people might see such occasions as merely a coincidence, the pilgrim is supposed to be able to ‘unmask’ such coincidences and see them for what they truly are: proof that one’s life is guided by a greater force.

Transformative aftereffects

It is widely known that pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago can create life-lasting changes. Greenia (2014, 437) describes one aspect of the pilgrimage as ‘open-endedness’ – a sense of incompleteness of the pilgrimage experience, which often surprises the pilgrim at the end of their journey. As Nancy Louise Frey (1998, 168), an anthropologist who conducted an anthropological study of pilgrims on the Camino (and also walked the path several times herself) observed: ‘I didn't go on a pilgrimage to change, nor did I want to create a break in my life, but that was one of the results.’

While the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage has been the subject of several scientific studies, only a few studies explore the transformative aftereffects of the experience. One is a study by Kim, Kim, and King (2016) examining the pilgrimage of Camino de Santiago from the perspective of values. They assessed 104 potential recipients of the completed Compostela certificate when they reached the end of the journey in Santiago and concluded that even though ‘values tend to be persistent, they may still shift over the course of meaningful and memorable experiences’ (152). They suggest that the experience of walking over an extended period of a month reinforces social bonds, as well as increases appreciation for nature and a deeper sense of spirituality.

Schnell and Pali (2013) studied the effects of the pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago on a sample of 85 pilgrims, two of whom traveled by bicycle and the remaining 83 on foot. The mean journey length amounted to 646 km. Schnell and Pali assessed aftereffects of the pilgrimage using the SoMe (Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life) Questionnaire. The data confirmed that immediately after peregrination, as well as four months later, pilgrims experienced life as significantly more meaningful. Most pilgrims also strengthened their commitment to self-transcendence and self-actualization. These effects occured independently of the motivation for pilgrimage.

Lucrezia Lopez (2013) touches on the transformative effects of Camino by way of examining 63 travel diaries that Italian pilgrims have published on the internet. This study also highlights the dominance of walking since only 8% of these pilgrims completed the Camino by bicycle. Lopez found that pilgrims tend to describe their pilgrimage as an experience that transformed their lives and priorities. Most pilgrims agree that the Way teaches them how to live differently and generates a new system of values.

To examine self-reported transformative aftereffects of the Camino, Brumec (2021) conducted an online survey (n = 500), targeted at English-speaking pilgrims who walked at least 500 km of the route. She observed notable changes in values as measured by the Short Schwartz's values questionnaire (Lindeman and Verkasalo 2005). The pilgrims reported a substantial increase in values associated with universalism and benevolence and a decrease in the importance of values that emphasize the pursuit of self-interest, success, and dominance over others (power and achievement).

Exceptional human experience

The concept of ‘exceptional human experience’ (EHE) encompasses spontaneously emerging unusual experiences. These have been noted by researchers and practitioners in different disciplines and conceptualized variously as, for example, religious (James 2008 [1902]); mystical (Stace 1961); anomalous (Cardeña, Lynn, and Krippner 2017); and peak experiences (Maslow 1994). The term EHE was coined by Rhea White (1993, 1994, 1998). She started to research exceptional human experiences after she had a near-death experience in a traffic accident in which her friend was killed. She found out that these kinds of experiences resulted in lasting life transformations and today ‘are studied particularly for their meanings and their transformational potentials in the lives of the experiencers’ (Palmer and Hastings 2013, 333).

White (2000) identified approximately 200 types of EHE and organized them into nine categories, including mystical and unitive experiences and unusual death-related experiences. She argued that EHEs could spontaneously occur in virtually every life situation. However, she noticed some triggers were often referred to by those who experienced them. Some of the most important include exposure to scenes of natural beauty; visiting sacred places (such as shrines and cathedrals); and intense involvement in meaningful long-term repetitive activities (such as running or walking).

The concept of EHE has found substantial empirical support. Existing research suggests that the aftereffects of EHEs involve changes like (1) an increased sense of life meaning and purpose; (2) changes in values and attitudes, especially in terms of less materialistic and more altruistic values and in terms of higher social trust; (3) increased feelings of self-actualization; (4) increased interest in spirituality; (5) an increased level of spiritual beliefs (like belief in life after death or belief in a higher force or being); and (6) increased sense of wellbeing (Braud 2012; Greyson and Ring 2004; Kennedy, Kanthamani and Palmer 1994; Kennedy and Kanthamani 1995; Klemenc-Ketiš 2010; Palmer and Braud 2002; Taylor and Egeto-Szabo 2017; Waldron 1998). Most of these have also been identified as transformative aftereffects of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage experience (Brumec 2021; Kim, Kim, and King 2016; Lavrič and Brumec 2020; Lopez 2013; Schnell and Pali 2013).

Recently Brumec, Lavrič, and Naterer (forthcoming) have shown that pilgrims on the Camino report a variety of exceptional experiences. Their study suggests that these experiences are related to the aftereffects of walking the Camino and that the EHE perspective has proven fit for the study of the pilgrims’ experiences and their aftereffects. Brumec et al. suggest it is a useful approach to the study of psychological aspects of pilgrimage or similar phenomena in contemporary societies, and conclude that future research could benefit from applying an EHE framework.

The present study

Purpose

In this study I aimed to compare life changes in beliefs, philosophy and behavior reported by respondents after the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage experience with life changes reported after three different types of exceptional human experiences, assessed using Greyson’s Life Changes Inventory-Revised (LCI-R) (Greyson and Ring 2004). The studies used for comparison were:

1. the study of life changes after unitive mystical experiences (U/ME, n = 163) by Schneeberger (2010);

2. the study of life changes after having hypnotically-induced death experiences (HDE, n = 32) by Ohkado and Greyson (2018);

3. the study by Goza, Holden, and Kinsey (2014) about life changes after having combat near-death experiences (cNDE, n = 68).

To my knowledge, these three studies are the only studies to have reported detailed LCI-R scores.

Also, I sought to investigate the relationship between life changes in spirituality, religiousness, and concern with worldly achievement. On the basis of previous studies, I expected (a) respondents with a pilgrimage experience to report a higher increase in spirituality than in religiousness and (b) respondents who reported a decrease in concern with worldly achievement to report a substantial increase in spirituality and religiousness. In addition, I hypothesized that spirituality would score higher than religiousness. I also expected a negative correlation between both latter domains and concern with worldly achievement. The way in which I am using the concepts of ‘spirituality’ and ‘religiousness’ is discussed below in the Methods section under the heading Measures.

Reasons for using LCI-R in this study

According to White, experiences like walking (or cycling) the Camino include at least three triggers of EHEs: walking as a long-standing recurring activity; intense exposure to natural beauties; and many opportunities for visiting sacred places. Recently Scriven (2021) captured these triggers in the term ‘walking pilgrimage’, which he describes as a combination of physical activity in natural and spiritual landscapes, together with personal and spiritual encounters.

It seems clear that there are many typical triggers of EHEs present among pilgrims on the Camino, and that is the first main reason for choosing the EHE perspective in the present study.

The LCI-R questionnaire (Greyson and Ring 2004) (now the established instrument for assessing aftereffects of EHEs) was created to study the life changes associated with near-death experiences (NDEs) and later expanded to measure life changes associated with spiritual or transpersonal experiences. Since the pilgrimage Camino de Santiago offers the latter kind of experience, using the questionnaire seems justified.

As spirituality is a component of the pilgrimage experience, I aimed to measure the direction and magnitude of change in that domain. Since LCI-R measures change in spirituality, that is the third reason for choosing it.

Fourthly, the literature suggests that religious experiences are not the central ones for most pilgrims on the Camino (Farias et al. 2019; Oviedo, de Courcier, and Farias 2014; Schnell and Pali 2013). Hence, I opted for a perspective that entails a wider range of pilgrims’ experiences and transformative aftereffects.

The fifth reason for choosing that perspective is that LCI-R distinguishes the domains of religiousness and spirituality. Accordingly, I could explore the relationship between those two concepts.

And finally, I aimed to explore whether pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago causes very similar life changes in the direction of change across all nine measured areas as some other types of EHEs. Using the same instrument justifies that comparison.

Method

The present study is a comparative, correlational, survey-based study to examine life changes in beliefs, philosophy and behavior among respondents who walked the Camino de Santiago one or more times.

Measures

As noted above, life changes were assessed using The Life Changes Inventory-Revised (LCI-R), developed by Greyson and Ring (2004). Created to study the life changes associated with near-death experiences (NDEs), its use has since been expanded to measure important life changes associated with spiritual or transpersonal experiences.

The LCI-R consists of 50 items that present a value that may have been affected by the respondents’ near-death experience. It yields scores for 9 value clusters that represent common domains of transformation following NDEs. The authors developed them based on an iterative process of interviews with NDE experiencers and preliminary factor analyses of LCI-R responses done on separate samples. For example, as many experiencers responded on earlier versions of the LCI that they should distinguish between religious and spiritual feelings, they retained the original item about religious feelings and added a companion item about spiritual feelings to help respondents differentiate the two values.

Thus, the spirituality cluster includes: (1) spiritual feelings; (2) interest and concern with spiritual matters; (3) desire to achieve a higher state of consciousness; (4) belief in, or inner sense of, a higher power; (5) inner sense of God's presence. In other words, it represents an individual’s subjective experiences in an attempt to understand life’s ultimate questions that transcend the usual concerns of everyday life. By contrast, the religiousness cluster includes (1) religious feelings; (2) interest in organized religion; (3) tendency to pray; and (4) involvement with church or religious community.

Besides spirituality and religiousness, there are seven other common domains of transformation following EHEs: appreciation for life; self-acceptance; concern for others; concern with worldly achievement; concern with social/planetary values; the quest for meaning/sense of purpose; and appreciation of death.

The LCI-R originally yields an Absolute Change Score that represents the overall magnitude of change reported by respondents. The Absolute Change Score has a range of 0–2 and does not indicate the direction of change, that is, whether the change represents an increase, a decrease, or no change since respondents’ EHEs.

Comparative studies

The results of all three studies used for comparative purposes in this study (see details above in the section on ‘Purpose’) show that having unitive mystical experiences (U/MEs), hypnotically-induced death experiences (HDEs), or combat near-death experiences (cNDEs) cause effects in several different areas of the respondents’ lives. They report an increased appreciation for life; a heightened quest for meaning and sense of purpose; more concern for others; greater self-acceptance; and a deeper sense of spirituality (Table 1). A significant decrease was reported in concern with worldly achievement. The area of religiousness, involving specific behavioral, doctrinal, and institutional features, was the only area where the direction of change was not the same for all the different experiences: after HDEs, the respondents became less involved, and after cNDE more involved, in religious practice; they did not report a change in religious practice after U/MEs.

Table 1: LCI-R Scores (Δ = from -2 to +2) and SD.

Stimulating experience	Pilgrimage (n = 630)		UME* (n = 168)		cNDE* (n = 20)		HDE* (n = 20)
	Present study		Schneeberger (2010)		Goza. Holden, and Kinsey (2014)		Ohkado and Greyson (2018)
Scale	Δ	SD	Δ	SD	Δ	SD	Δ	SD
Total LCI-R	1.18		NA		1.07**	(±0.36)	1.13**	(±0.55)
Absolute sum for 7 clusters***	5.46		6.46		3.65		6.81
Concern with Worldly Achievement	-0.53	(±0.55)	-0.48	(±0.53)	-0.25	(±0.57)	-0.33	(±0.86)
Religiousness	0.28	(±0.67)	0.01	(±0.92)	0.40	(±1.20)	-0.48	(±0.98)
Concern with Social/Planetary Values	0.46	(±0.49)	NA		NA		0.38	(±0.68)
Spirituality	0.78	(±0.66)	1.16	(±0.70)	0.73	(±0.97)	1.14	(±0.83)
Quest for Meaning/ Sense of Purpose	0.86	(±0.60)	1.17	(±0.63)	0.57	(±0.91)	1.26	(±0.69)
Concern for Others	0.90	(±0.48)	1.22	(±0.53)	0.43	(±0.86)	1.15	(±0.70)
Self-Acceptance	0.97	(±0.59)	1.14	(±0.63)	0.50	(±0.79)	1.30	(±0.69)
Appreciation for Life	1.14	(±0.54)	1.28	(±0.38)	0.77	(±1.00)	1.15	(±0.76)
Appreciation of Death	NA		NA		NA		1.12	(±0.65)

*UME = unitive/mystical experience; cNDE = combat near-death experiences; HDE = hypnotically-induced death experiences.

**The total scores do not include the figures concerning ‘Concern with Social Values’ and ‘Appreciation of Death’ for comparison because they are not available for all compared studies.

***Sum of absolute changes in 7 clusters (Δ = from -2 to +2) with figures available for all compared studies (Concern with Worldly Achievement, Religiousness, Spirituality, Quest for Meaning/ Sense of Purpose, Concern for Others, Self-Acceptance, Appreciation for Life).

Regarding reliability, psychometric findings were mainly consistent in all three related studies. They found acceptable Cronbach’s α reliability scores in seven value clusters and too low reliability of the value cluster Appreciation of Death. For the ninth value cluster, Concern with Social/Planetary Values, adequate reliability (albeit low, but acceptable) scored only in the study by Ohkado and Greyson (2018).

Procedure

I developed an internet-based questionnaire using 1KA, an online survey software tool. The questionnaire was labeled as ‘Life Changes Inventory’. The survey was targeted at those who walked at least 500 km of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. The questionnaire was available in English and Slovene languages. Data were collected from September to December 2020. A link with the online questionnaire was placed on several Camino de Santiago groups existent on Facebook. Four of them serve English-speaking pilgrims²: American Pilgrims on the Camino (over 26,000 members); Australian Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago and beyond (over 4300 members); Camino de Santiago All Routes (over 55,700 members); and Camino de Santiago (over 30,300 members). I also placed a link on the group named The Way of St. James-Camino Slovenia (Pot sv. Jakoba-Camino Slovenija, with over 8500 members), which serves Slovenian-speaking pilgrims.

Respondents were asked to consider 50 items, each of which presented a value that may have been affected by their pilgrimage experience. They responded to each item in terms of a five-point scale indicating whether and to what degree they felt they had changed. For example, one of the questions was ‘Since my pilgrimage experience, my desire to help others has … ’. Respondents also answered 5 demographic questions and whether they walked the Camino de Santiago once, or more times.

For factor analyses, I exported the relevant data to SPSS. Factor analysis done on the LCI-R for the current study did not support nine factors, therefore I conducted reliability analysis using Cronbach’s alpha on each of the hypothesized clusters. The three-item ninth cluster (Appreciation of Death) was dropped from subsequent analysis due to inadequate reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = −0.097).

I explored the direction of change as well as the magnitude of change, so response options reflect both direction and magnitude of change within each cluster. Scores on each of the 50 individual items are calculated as follows: ‘strongly increased’ (assigned a value of +2); ‘increased somewhat’ (assigned a value of +1); ‘not changed’ (assigned a value of 0); ‘decreased somewhat’ (assigned a value of −1); or ‘strongly decreased’ (assigned a value of −2). The score for each of these 8 value clusters represents common domains of transformation following the pilgrimage experience.

Respondents

In terms of gender, the respondents (n = 630) consisted of 38% male and 62% female. 63% of respondents were over 55 years old; 22% between 46 and 55; 9% between 36 and 45; 4% between 26 and 35; and 2% up to 25 years of age. They were well educated as approximately 78% had more than college qualifications. The majority of the participants were employed (51%) or retired (39%). About 42% of the respondents had walked the Camino de Santiago once, and 58% more than once.

Results

Changes

Respondents (n = 630) reported significant changes (Δ = from −2 to +2) in their values, beliefs, and behaviors after the pilgrimage Camino de Santiago. As shown in Table 1, there are seven individual clusters in which the positive change since the pilgrimage experience was reported. There were significant increases in respondents’ concern with Appreciation for Life (Δ = +1.14, SD = ±0.54); Self-acceptance (Δ = +0.97; SD = ±0.59); Concern for Others (Δ = +0.90; SD = ±0.48); Quest for Meaning/Sense of Purpose (Δ = +0.86; ±0.60); and also Spirituality (Δ = +0.78; ±0.66). The smallest increases showed Concern With Social and Planetary Values (Δ = +0.46; ±0.49) and the area of Religiousness (Δ = +0.28; SD = ±0.67). The only decrease was measured in the Concern with Worldly Achievement cluster (Δ = −0.53; SD = ±0.55).

Among all items, far in the first place was an increase in respondents’ appreciation of the ordinary things of life (Δ = +1.58). Second was appreciation of nature (Δ = +1.21). Both items comprise the Appreciation for Life cluster.

All seven items comprising the cluster Concern with Worldly Achievement showed a decrease. The largest decreases were in the concern with the material things of life (Δ = −0.83); ambition to achieve a high standard of living (Δ = −0.72); and interest in what others think of me (Δ = −0.64). These were followed by a decrease in competitive tendencies; desire to become a well-known person; interest in creating a ‘good impression’; and interest in achieving material success.

The Absolute Change Score

To compare the global effect of different types of EHEs, I could not use the Absolute Change Score as the mean of the absolute values of the 50 items since it is available only for my study. The total scores for two studies – by Goza, Holden, and Kinsey (2014) and by Ohkado and Greyson (2018) – do not include the mean of the absolute values of the 50 items since the figures concerning the value clusters Concern with Social/Planetary Values and Appreciation of Death are not available. Also, in the study by Schneeberger (2010), a total score statistic was not used in the analyses because the inter-item correlation matrix indicated a poor correlation of many items. Therefore, to compare the global effect of different types of EHEs, sums of means of the absolute values for all the seven clusters for which the scores are available in all the comparative studies were calculated. It represents the overall magnitude of change and transformation for seven domains reported by respondents following four different types of stimulus experiences. The results indicated a greater degree of the global effect after HDEs (Δ = 6.81) and UMEs (Δ = 6.46). The global effect measured after pilgrimage experience was smaller (Δ = 5.46) and the smallest was measured after cNDEs (Δ = 3.65).

Reliability of cluster scores

Regarding the LCI-R, all four studies yielded Cronbach’s α values concerning the Appreciation of Death cluster below the acceptable level of 0.6 (Table 2). The studies by Schneeberger (2010) and by Goza, Holden, and Kinsey (2014) did not give figures concerning the five-item cluster Concern with Social/Planetary Values due to inadequate reliability. My study barely exceeded the acceptable level with Cronbach’s α value 0.627. The score for Ohkado and Greyson (2018) is a little higher (α = 0.676) but still the second-lowest than for all other clusters.

Table 2. Coefficients of correlations between the eight clusters (n = 630).

Cluster	Religiousness	Spirituality	Quest for Meaning/ Sense of Purpose	Appreciation for Life	Concern for Others	Self-acceptance	Concern with Worldly Achievement
Religiousness	1
Spirituality	0.547**	1
Quest for Meaning/ Sense of Purpose	0.279**	0.674**	1
Appreciation for Life	0.338**	0.676**	0.657**	1
Concern for Others	0.298**	0.558**	0.613**	0.672**	1
Self-acceptance	0.177**	0.457**	0.612**	0.480**	0.438**	1
Concern with Worldly Achievement	−0.078	−0.320**	−0.259**	−0.323**	−0.206**	−0.284**	1
Concern with Social/Planetary Values	0.154**	0.281**	0.411**	0.456**	0.392**	0.253**	−0.055

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01, two-tailed.

Note: The strongest coefficients are underlined.

With the deletion of two items in the value cluster Concern for Social/Planetary Values from both studies, the studies by Schneeberger and also by Goza, Holden and Kinsey improved the reliability of that cluster to the acceptable reliability. The two deleted items scored practically no change in my research: item concern with the threat of nuclear weapons (Δ = −0.02) and item interest in political affairs (Δ = +0.03).

Cluster intercorrelations after the pilgrimage experience

Finally, correlational methodology was used to address hypothesized intercorrelations between the value clusters of the LCI-R after the pilgrimage experience. As seen in Table 3, several of the LCI-R cluster scores showed statistically significant intercorrelations for all life change areas. There are only two exceptions: Concern with Worldly Achievement is not significantly related to Religiousness and Social/Planetary Values. The two strongest positive correlations were recorded in Spirituality.

Table 3. Cronbach’s α reflecting reliability of LCI-R Scores.

	Present study	Schneeberger (2010)	Goza, Holden, and Kinsey (2014)	Ohkado and Greyson (2018)
Total LCI-R	0.899	0.879	0.956	0.927
Concern with Worldly Achievement	0.772	0.758	0.724	0.889
Religiousness	0.803	0.821	0.939	0.871
Concern with Social/Planetary Values	0.627	NA*	0.501	0.676
Spirituality	0.863	0.829	0.907	0.885
Quest for Meaning/ Sense of Purpose	0.800	0.720	0.805	0.725
Concern for Others	0.906	0.905	0.910	0.956
Self-Acceptance	0.703	0.703	0.776	0.728
Appreciation for Life	0.709	0.724	0.752	0.923
Appreciation of Death	−0.097	−0.261	0.019	0.176

*Cronbach’s alpha value is 0.755 after dropping two items from the cluster.

Comparison and discussion

The present study shows that those who experienced one of the four compared types of EHEs often report increased appreciation of life and a deeper sense of spirituality; a heightened quest for meaning and purpose; and greater self-acceptance, together with more concern for others. In the other direction, respondents reported a significant decrease in concern with worldly achievement. Religiousness is the only domain where the effects of the related stimulus experiences are controversial. A considerable decrease is shown after HDEs; there is no change after U/MEs; there is a slight increase after pilgrimage experience; and a considerable increase after cNDEs.

In line with expectation, likewise in all three comparative studies, respondents with a pilgrimage experience to a larger extent report an increase in spirituality than in religiousness.

Regarding correlation in the present study, several of the LCI-R cluster scores showed relatively high intercorrelations. Based on a comparison of correlation coefficients, the three domains with the strongest intercorrelations were the domain of spirituality, the quest for meaning and sense of purpose, together with the appreciation of life. In line with that, I suggest that an increase in respondents’ interest and concern with spirituality, their belief in a higher power and their desire to achieve a higher state of consciousness contributed to the increase not only in the understanding of life’s purpose in general but also in the respondents’ sense of purpose and meaning. The substantial increase in spirituality also contributed to the considerable rise in respondents’ appreciation for nature and the ordinary things of life, reverence for all life forms, and a sense of the sacred aspect of life.

Since the value cluster Concern with Worldly Achievement includes items that support personal success together with control or dominance over people and resources, it is interesting that respondents who reported a substantial increase in religiousness did not also report a decrease in concern with worldly achievement. Intercorrelation between the two has a negative direction, but is not statistically significant, as their value is almost negligible.

Concerning the Appreciation of Death cluster, factor analysis of related studies yielded problems consistent with those I identified earlier. No item deletion could improve the reliability of that cluster to the point of acceptability.

For three Appreciation of Death value cluster items, I measured the greatest change in the item fear of death (Δ = −0.42). The decrease is the strongest negatively correlated with items from the spirituality cluster. But interestingly, it is positively correlated with the deleted two items in the domain of Concern for Social and Planetary Values in the studies by Schneeberger (2010) and by Goza, Holden, and Kinsey (2014). In the present study, the decreased fear of death contributes to the decrease of those two items – interest in political affairs and concern with the threat of nuclear weapons. These findings suggest that future researchers may need to revise the LCI-R further to correct the problems that all four comparative studies identified.

Finally, reported transformative aftereffects of pilgrims to some extent align with the results of the aforementioned studies on pilgrimage. The results support pilgrimage Camino de Santiago as a values and attitudes changing experience (Lopez 2013; Kim, Kim, and King 2016; Brumec 2021), especially in terms of less materialistic and more altruistic values, appreciation for nature, and an increased interest in spirituality. Most pilgrims also strengthened their sense of life meaning and purpose (Schnell and Pali 2013).

Limitations

This study is not without its limitations. One of them was my initial assumption that I could validly determine the life changes in beliefs, philosophy and behavior after their pilgrimage experience using an occasional sample drawn from Camino de Santiago pilgrims. However, the survey was conducted exclusively in an online format so survey participation was limited to individuals who had access to, and were able to navigate, the survey online.

Another hurdle is the limited sample of members; the survey covered only those pilgrims who were members of one or more of five groups on Facebook. The membership of the selected groups is quite large (over 125.000). Hence, pilgrims on whom the Camino experience had had the more positive impact may have been more likely to decide to take part in these Facebook groups and to answer the questionnaire. It would be worthwhile to collect data from pilgrims on the Camino and compare the results with those obtained in this study to see if there are significant differences.

The present sample appears to differ from the profile of the pilgrims who obtained the Compostela certificate in terms of gender, age and employment status. According to the Pilgrim’s Reception Office (2020), in 2019 there were 51% male and 49% female pilgrims (my sample: 38% male, 62% female). Pilgrims under 30 years old represented 27%, and over 60, 19% (my sample: under 35 – 4%; and over 55 – 66%). Regarding occupation, 18% of those to whom the certificate was awarded were students, 13% retired, and 1% unemployed (my sample: 3% were students, 43% retired, and 7% unemployed). However, I must not overlook that, for two reasons, the comparison of my sample with the dataset provided by the Pilgrims’ Reception Office is justified to a certain extent. Firstly, the official source is based on the number of Compostelas awarded and not all pilgrims go to the office to request the certificate. Fernandez and Garcia point out that 10.4% do not (Santos 2002, 48). And, secondly, to get the Compostela pilgrims must do the last 100 km on foot, while my survey was targeted at those who walked at least 500 km.

The online format also prevented respondents from being able to get immediate answers to any questions they may have had about the survey procedure. Furthermore, the online survey software tool which was used enables duplication of IP addresses to be blocked. Although this can prevent the same person from repeatedly responding to the survey, this option only works for a maximum of 24 hours.

As the study was anonymous, there is the possibility that respondents could have falsified their responses, or misinterpreted survey items despite their intention to answer honestly. Also, any retrospective report of subjective experience may be vulnerable to memory decay, distortion, or fabrication. In addition, reliance on retrospective self-reports of life changes may limit confidence in findings.

Regarding this limitation, I should notice that further researches of life changes after the pilgrimage experience (as opposed to near-death experiences) could reduce to a certain extent the limitation of retrospective self-report. LCI-R can easily be adapted for the measurement of beliefs, philosophy and behavior before and after the experience. In that case, the direction and magnitude of life changes can be calculated since participants could be asked to rate the importance they would give to the valuable items as life-guiding principles before and after the experience.

Another limitation relates to the transferability of my findings, given that I relied solely on English and Slovenian-speaking pilgrims. The questionnaire was not available in, for example, Spanish even though the top nationality on the Camino de Santiago is Spanish (Pilgrim’s Reception Office 2020). Nevertheless, I see no obvious reason why EHEs should significantly differ between pilgrims from different countries.

However, despite all the limitations, this does not mean that it is not possible to suggest the direction and the extent of life changes that occurred after the pilgrimage experience at the level of the entire sample.

Conclusion

The findings of this study suggest that pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago can facilitate positive life changes, encourage individuals to care for the planet and its people, and reduce their concern with personal success, control, and dominance over people and resources. Hopefully, continued exploration of pilgrimage experiences and similar phenomena will further illuminate ways of enhancing the quality of life.

Moreover, the data appear consistent enough to consider the walking pilgrimage experience as a spiritual experience that may be comparable in aftereffects to different types of EHEs.

Regarding the questionnaire, on a relatively large (n = 630) sample, LCI-R was found to be a useful instrument for quantifying life changes following a pilgrimage experience. Also, it can be used for the measurement of personal transformation following a variety of spiritual experiences and practices.

To conclude, despite its limitations, the present study brings empirically grounded new knowledge about the transformative aftereffects of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage experience. Studies measuring life changes before and after the journey are now needed to validate and potentially modify the findings of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Snežana Brumec

Snežana Brumec is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, Slovenia. In her PhD thesis she focuses on sociological analysis of social phenomenon tied to pilgrimage at the Camino de Santiago as an expression of spirituality in late modernity.

Notes

1 To obtain the Compostela you must: make the pilgrimage for religious or spiritual reasons, or at least with a searching attitude; do the last 100 km on foot or horseback or the last 200 km by bicycle; and you must collect the stamps on the Credencial del Peregrino from the places you pass through to certify that you have been there (The Compostela). Pilgrims Welcome Office, n.d.: https://oficinadelperegrino.com/en/pilgrimage/the-compostela. [Accessed 27 December 2021].

2 Some of them are private but visible in Facebook searches, so I obtained the permission of the site administrator to post a link on their site.