Jan 12 2009
Un Peu Sur Moi
I’m already blogging in a couple of places - The Daily Blast, Bunnycat Suicide and The One With The Romany Name being just three examples. I decided, however, to set up a blog for the academic side of things, as I’m currently trying to throw together a chapter for a volume of psychology, and the more input I can get from as many sources as possible is incredibly useful.
A bit about the project I’m working on… it’s with the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at the University of Oxford, with a team of post-doc researchers working in the field of Psychology of Religion. All very interesting. The Pilgrimage Project is looking into the different motivations and experiences of people in sacred space - specifically, comparing pagans’ views with those of Catholics. So far I have found the research enlightening in a number of ways; largely, I’ve just found it fascinating to learn about what other people believe. On this blog I’ll be sharing mainly any interesting things I find along the way; any comments you might have about them would be greatly appreciated!
The following is a description of the Pilgrimage Project lifted from their website, in case you wanted to know more:
In the early 21 st century, there seems to be a renewed interest in questions surrounding religious practice and spiritual seeking. Issues of religious faith and identity, given particular resonance in a post 9/11 context, dominate our newspapers and television programmes. Religious voices may also be heard amongst those agitating for peace in the Middle East , within campaigns for debt-forgiveness, or in highlighting the social plight of newly arrived migrants or asylum seekers. Furthermore, books abut religion and its practice as widely divergent as Dan Brown and Richard Dawkins continue to monopolise bestseller lists and find a place on our bedside tables. An increasing curiosity about pilgrimage is also part of this curiosity about spirituality, with traditional pilgrimage sites recording unprecedented numbers of pilgrims in their millions, the continued popularity of places of ecumenical meeting such as Walsingham and Taizé, and the revitalization of pilgrimage paths traversing Europe from Czestochowa to Santiago de Compostela.
This project seeks to engage with these broad issues surrounding contemporary religious questioning and spiritual questing, asking (as did Chaucer so long ago) why ‘folks long to go on pilgrimage’ and describing their experiences of ‘strange strands’ and ‘sundry lands’. As psychologists, historians, sociologists and theologians, we are exploring the complex interplay of these motivations to travel to sacred sites, ranging from the desire for healing and spiritual help through to tourism and the desire for community and expressions of altruism. In addition, we are also seeking to show how people’s experiences of this pilgrimage process and sacred sites vary according to their spiritual and religious background, the practices that form part of this experience and the ways in which they understand and narrate their spiritual journey before, during and after their journeys.
As one of the first, broadly comparative studies of the pilgrimage experience across cultures and between different spiritual traditions, we hope to describe the people and experiences at these sacred sites and to identify common and contrasting features of this religious landscape. Our qualitative and quantitative studies will encompass the predominantly Catholic pilgrimage sites of Lourdes and Fátima; ecumenical Christian and New Age practices at Glastonbury, alternative spiritual gatherings (particularly neo-pagans and druids) at Stonehenge and the ancient Christian, but now widely accessible pilgrimage route of Santiago de Compostela.
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