ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at new sources of the sacred, attracting new kinds of pilgrimage in modern societies. It reviews the rediscovery and reinterpretation of older places of pilgrimage. The chapter discusses the breakdown of the western world of a common Christian culture, whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. It reflects a blurring of the lines between different Christian traditions or even between different religions and spiritualities and increasing willingness to borrow from sources previously regarded as alien. In the polarized societies of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries pilgrimages were often a means of affirming group identity. This individualism and indeed rejection of claustrophobia inducing collectivities leads to an eclecticism in which individuals draw their meaning from many different sources. In Glastonbury, for instance, there are not only Christians and New Agers, but also New Age Christians. Some New Agers claim that the energy generated by Glastonbury is so powerful that they need to get away from time to time.
