Pilgrimage - Introduction to the Pilgrims' Museum in Santiago, Galecia, Spain

Nowadays, pilgrimage is widely viewed in a metaphorical sense, as an evocation of places that have marked our life and memories. But we should not forget that pilgrimage was originally a profoundly religious experience. All religions that have expanded beyond a single territory, single race or single culture have given rise to this form of communion with the sacred.

There are indications that pilgrimage existed in prehistoric times, and we have documentary evidence of its existence in the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. Te Christian and Muslim pilgrimages that arose in the Middle Ages were in many cases to survive until the present day, like those to the holy places of India and China.

Pilgrimage is a ritual journey, undertaken alone or as part of a group, with the aim of achieving purification, perfection or salvation; a religious experience in which a series of bonds are established, between a place of this world and a higher sphere, between an individual traveler and a community, between a flesh-and-blood pilgrim and he who is reborn, purified by the consummation of his goal. These bonds re what distinguish pilgrimage from other types of journey or travel.

Pilgrimage requires a sacred journey, a sacred place and a sacred goal. The sacred place itself may take any of various forms; a tree, a spring, a mountain, or the temple or city in which holy relics are revered. It is a visible manifestation of contact between the human and the divine. But on the journey, metaphor of earthly life – a personal transformation is initiated and effected through a series of rites that culminate in the moment of arrival. There, his goal attained, the pilgrim is reborn, a new wo/man.