Tourism and Pilgrimage: a question of motivation

One thing that I am concerned about in my studies on pilgrimage is the materialistic undertones that this practice can be painted with.  In my previous post I spoke of pilgrimage as the search for the transcendent - that which is greater than oneself.  This seems to be a grand and noble purpose, one that surely resonates with many would-be pilgrims out there.  Yet, I have discovered that if I type the word "pilgrimage" into the Google search engine, I end up with something that looks something more like a tourism guidebook 9 times out of 10.  Why is this?

Perhaps a look into the traditional, academic definition of pilgrimage would be helpful. The Encyclopedia of Early Christianity describes it as a "journey taken as an expression of religious devotion to a place believed to be especially sacred or holy" (Ferguson, 734). Penelope Dransart helps expand the traditional definition of pilgrimage by listing 6 common types of pilgrimage: (328-329)

1. The devotional pilgrimage: an encounter with, and veneration of, a shrine divinity, holy person, or symbols.  Examples include Christian pilgrimages to the holy land.
2. The instrumental pilgrimage: the pilgrim travels to a shrine for a specific reason.  Examples include pilgrimages to shrines for healing.
3. The normative pilgrimage: a part of the calendrical life cycle of a person.  Examples include the annual community pilgrimages that take place in Latin American Catholic traditions.
4. The obligatory pilgrimage: an imposed pilgrimage, like the penitential pilgrimages that used to be proscribed as a form of punishment in the middle ages.
5. The wandering pilgrimage: does not have a destination, but the pilgrim sets out to obtain some spiritual illumination or to emulate a holy person who did similarly.
6. The initiatory pilgrimage: intended to change the social status of the pilgrim.  An example would be the Native American vision quest, where one travels and fasts to the point of instigating a hallucinogenic experience in order to be recognized as an adult within the community.

I find these categories helpful for understanding the traditional role of pilgrimage in different cultures.  They certainly do exemplify the point that there can be many different types of pilgrimage!  And yet these categories make pilgrimage seem easily compartmentalized and reproduced, as though one could sell the experience.

In medieval times Christian pilgrimage was regarded as an important practice for the sanctification of the soul.  It was thought that if one could go visit the places where holy people lived or died, a little of that holiness might rub off on the pilgrim.   Daniel Taylor writes that "the greatest danger of pilgrimage, always, is the temptation to live off someone else's experience with transcendence... We want to materialize and quantify the holy so we can keep an eye on it" (Taylor, 17).  This approach threatens to paint holiness as a commodity, something that can be obtained if a person can be the first one to visit all the holy sites. Eugene Peterson challenges this understanding with his definition of 'holy':  "the all-encompassing, all-embracing life of God that transforms us into a uniquely formed and set-apart people...It is something lived” (Peterson, 127). 

So why do you go on pilgrimage?  Is it to acquire something: to treat the pilgrimage itself as a form of currency for an experience of transcendence; something perhaps to write about in your journal?  Or, are you going because you want to be changed - to be challenged to the very core of your being to live a different, deeper and fuller life that is uniquely inspired by the transcendent God?  One way is totally selfish and plays into a tourism mindset, traveling for the sake of broadening my own experience.  The other requires sacrifice as one surrenders the self to a calling that is beyond what they can imagine, or control.

Jim Forest provides a description of pilgrimage that really resonates with me:

You can walk to some great shrine on a journey that takes weeks or months and fail to become a pilgrim.  Walking a pilgrimage route, wearing a pilgrim's badge, and sleeping in pilgrim hostels are not what make a pilgrim.  Pilgrimage is more an attitude than an act... Pilgrimage is a conscious act of seeking a more vital awareness of God's living presence.  As was said in medieval times, "If you do not travel with the King whom you seek, you will not find him at the end of your journey." (Forest, 13, italics my own)

I write these things not to downplay the importance of shrines and holy places in the experience of pilgrimage.  I write this so that we can examine our reasons, our motivations, behind taking the journey.