Camino de Santiago: novels promoting spiritual and religious tourism���The Changing Nature of Pilgrimage in a Globalizing World�The Institute for Pilgrimage Studies William & Mary, Virginia-USA 2021��

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Vitor Ambrósio

Estoril Higher Institute for Tourism and Hotel Studies (ESHTE), Portugal

CiTUR - Centre for Tourism Research, Development and Innovation, Portugal

vitor.ambrosio@eshte.pt

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Isilda Leitão

CiTUR - Centre for Tourism Research, Development and Innovation, Portugal

isilda.leitao@eshte.pt

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Summary�

�Keywords – Camino de Santiago, Novels, Spiritual Tourism, Religious Tourism

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• Some Academic Perspectives on Pilgrimage
• Literary Creativity and the Way to Santiago
• Aspects that inspire authors and induce readers to walk the Camino
• Reflections to be considered in the Article

Some Academic Perspectives on Pilgrimage��

• For Mattoso (2000), pilgrimage is incompatible with scientific rationality (which sought to discredit it), as there is a deep impulse in it that instigates people to move in space and time.

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• According to Branthomme (1982), the pilgrim walks physically and morally; the journey and the break with daily life imposes unforeseen events, risks, and sacrifices, but widens his vision beyond the familiar horizon, a look that will bring him lucidity about himself.

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• Ostrowski (2000) alerts to the difficulties related to a pure pilgrimage, fulfilled with religious acts. For many specialists, the pilgrim needs physical, psychic, and spiritual hygiene, as the pilgrim is also driven by the curiosity to see new places, meet new people, even to be entertained, that is, to also have touristic practices.

Some Academic Perspectives on Pilgrimage��

• According to Ke Zhang et al. (in press), the Way of Santiago is generally believed to be a transformative journey through which pilgrims experience a sense of freedom because the Camino allows individuals to accept the natural rhythm and limitations of the body (Slavin, 2003; Carbone et al, 2016).

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• Wilson and Sullivan (2021) refer in their article for the Associated Press that mental health experts agree that the pilgrimage can lead to emotional healing for both religious and not religious faithful. The authors still add that preliminary results from a survey of 100 pilgrims point to a reduction of stress and depression that surpass those seen after regular holidays. This survey was part of a study done by clinical researchers from universities in Spain and Brazil.

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Some Academic Perspectives on Pilgrimage��

Some Academic Perspectives on Pilgrimage��

Literary Creativity and the Way to Santiago���

• Walking the Way of Santiago is a latent desire in many people. Becoming a reality depends on many factors, but no doubt, watching a movie or reading books about the Camino helps to trigger that challenge.

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• Among other movies, one may refer The Milky Way (La Voie Lactée), a 1969 surrealist film directed by Luis Buñuel, or The Way, a 2010 film directed by Emilio Estevez.

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• According to Ke Zhang et al. (in press) many Chinese pilgrims (40%) learned for the first time about the Camino from the movie The Way.

Literary Creativity and the Way to Santiago���

From the Middle Ages to the present day, the Camino was and continues to be a symbolic, religious and tourist attraction, whose fascination did not escape to intellectuals of different nationalities and religious beliefs.

• Among others, one may refer:
• Geoffrey Chaucer (England) – Writer, Diplomat;
• Lev of Rožmitál (Bohemia) - Nobleman;
• Hieronymus Münzer (Austria/Germany) - Doctor, Humanist;
• Juan Bautista Confalonieri (Italy) - Priest;
• Miguel de Unamuno (Spain) - Writer;
• José Saramago (Portugal) – Writer (Nobel Prize);
• Paulo Coelho (Brazil) – Writer;
• David Lodge (England) – Writer.

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Coelho, Paulo 1999, O Diário de um Mago, 3^rd edn, Pergaminho, Lisboa.

Paulo Coelho, 1987, The Diary of a Magus���

• The work reflects, between the real and the imaginary, the three months pilgrimage, along the French Way (departing from Saint-Jean Pied-de Port), that Paulo Coelho walked to Santiago de Compostela.
• We say real, because there are clear allusions in the text to places that are part of this religious itinerary, but it is also a path where the surreal goes hand in hand with the real, and where religion and “witchcraft” frequently intersect. Where solitude is as important as companionship.
• It is a path of physical pain, typical of those who walk the Camino and who overcome this great obstacle, but above all a Way of spiritual learning and self-knowledge.

Lodge, David 1997, Terapia, 2^nd edn, Gradiva, Lisboa.

David Lodge, 1995, Therapy�

Lodge, David 1997, Terapia, 2^nd edn, Gradiva, Lisboa.

• To all appearances, 58 years-old Laurence Passmore life is going rather well. He is a successful television writer with two grown children, he has an exclusive house, a superb car, and he enjoys a vigorous sex life with his wife, Sally.
• What money can not buy, and his many therapists can not deliver, is contentment. Is it a spiritual crisis or just one of the midlife variety?
• After many controversial and even disturbing situations, this man finds peace by delving deep into his past; he tries to atone for his poor behavior toward his first love, an Irish Catholic named Maureen. Tracking her down in the present, he joins her on a religious pilgrimage on the Way to Santiago. The spiritual journey matures his own sense of religion as understood from Kierkegaard.

Coelho, P. 1999, O Diário de um Mago, 3^rd edn, Pergaminho, Lisboa. Quotes.

Coelho (1987) pictures the pilgrim as a being who seeks to find his own path.

• All that was needed was the final effort. (…) In Ponferrada the bandages are changed (pp. 166-167).
• When you travel, in a very practical way, you are experiencing the act of Rebirth (p. 36).
• The great secret of this journey (…) is a secret that needs to be lived to be understood (p. 172).
• The secret is this (…) you can only learn when you teach (p. 172).
• I walked so many miles to discover things that I already knew, that we all know, but that are so hard to accept. Is there anything more difficult for man, Lord, than finding that he can attain the Power? (p.198).
• You made me see that the pursuit of happiness is personal, and not a model we can give to others. (p.198).

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Lodge, D. 1997, Terapia, 2^nd edn, Gradiva, Lisboa. Quotes.

Lodge's novel (1995) defines the pilgrim according to the phases proposed by Kierkegaard: the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious.

• The aesthetic is interested in having fun and enjoying the picturesque and cultural pleasures provided along the way (p. 257).
• The ethical faces the pilgrimage, above all, as a test of his soul-strength and self-discipline, assuming a very competitive attitude with others along the Way (p. 257).
• The true is the religious one, but religious in the Kierkegaardian sense - Christianity is a “nonsense”, because if it were entirely rational, there would be no merit in being a believer (p. 257).

In short, the aesthetic does not pretend to be a true pilgrim; the ethicist is always thinking about whether he is or not a pilgrim; the real pilgrim is simply a pilgrim (p.257).

Reflections to be considered in the Article�

• To present the various academic and religious perspectives related to the Pilgrim and to the Pilgrimage.
• To display different forms of literary expression about the Camino de Santiago, from the Middle Ages to the present day.
• To discuss the elements that inspire authors and induce readers to go on the Santiago Way. If possible, with real evidences from walkers / pilgrims.

Until now, findings suggest that the Camino can be seen as a physical, spiritual, religious challenge, or a combination of two of these aspects, or even a combination of the three aspects mentioned.

�Thanks for �your Attention.

This paper is financed by National Funds provided by FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology through project ref. UIDB/04470/2020 CiTUR.