Guidebook for an Armchair Pilgrimage

by John Schott, Phil Smith, Tony Whitehead

Pilgrimages—real and imagined—are always popular, sometimes compulsory. Bodh Gaya, Santiago, Mecca, Jerusalem, and Puri are a few of the sites that beckon. The pilgrimage to the authentic self takes a similar path in an interior landscape. In the 15th century, Felix Fabri combined the two, using his visits to Jerusalem to write a handbook for nuns wanting to make a pilgrimage in the imagination, whilst confined to their religious houses. For Guidebook for an Armchair Pilgrimage , the authors followed Fabri’s example. First they walked together over many weeks, not to reach a destination but simply to find one. Then, in startling words and images, along lanes and around hills, into caves and down to the coast. Over the course of the 19-day Armchair Pilgrimage, they invite the reader to experience the world around them just as they did as they walked. 

134 pages, Paperback

Published August 26, 2019

Reviews

[Dan Sumption · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very singular book, a type of choose-your-own-adventure except with no choices (but plenty of meditative exercises). It follows a walk the authors made—through town and country, historic buildings and religious sites, and even at one point under the sea—and splits that journey across 19 days (ideally to be read one per day). Each day is a page or two of writing (usually visiting just one or two sites) plus some spectacular photographs to help ground you in the place. Within the texts are many prompts to stop and think, to consider the history and deeper meaning of the place, and to place yourself within the surrounding world. I've never read anything quite like it, and I'm not sure anything quite like it exists.