Teaching & Learning Guide for: Cyberpilgrimage: The (Virtual) Reality of Online Pilgrimage Experience
Authors: Hill‐Smith Connie 
Published: June 2011

This guide accompanies the following article: Connie Hill‐Smith, Cyberpilgrimage: The (Virtual) Reality of Online Pilgrimage Experience, Religion Compass 5/6 (2011) pp. 236–246, 10.1111/j.1749‐8171.2011.00277.x

Author’s Introduction

Despite the profound and growing impact of the internet on contemporary ‘Western’ thought, rationalistic, physically orientated understandings of reality and experience continue to undermine notions that the internet might mediate religious experiences that are as ‘genuine’, meaningful, and transformative as offline ‘equivalents’. The absence of the physical body from cyberspace may be relatively unproblematic for some online religious practices; but ‘cyberpilgrimage’, the practice of undertaking pilgrimage online, is another matter. Interestingly, however, cyberpilgrimage can be viewed as continuing older traditions of semi‐ratified virtual pilgrimage stretching back to medieval Europe, and perhaps beyond. The primacy in (terrestrial) pilgrimage experiences of imagination and mind is well‐attested and recent years have, moreover, seen huge on‐going leaps in technologies ‘linking’ mind and body to computerised systems. The challenge which cyberpilgrimage represents to theory and wider thought is not only great but increasing. This guide suggests an approach to teaching about cyberpilgrimage and the place of ‘the physical’ in cyberspace, especially within religious contexts, with the aim of fostering debate into this vital, compelling, and fast‐evolving new field in Religious Studies.

Author Recommends

 Beebe, Kathryne, ‘Reading Mental Pilgrimage in Context: The Imaginary Pilgrims and Real Travels of Felix Fabri’s “Die Sionpilger”’, Essays in Medieval Studies, Vol. 25, pp. 39–70, 2008.

An excellent article elucidating the ‘imaginative pilgrimages’, under Felix Fabri’s direction, of cloistered nuns in medieval Europe.

 Brasher, Brenda E, Give Me That Online Religion. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 2001.

A useful and accessible guide to online religious rituals, including a chapter relating virtual pilgrims’ own tales of their undertakings.

 Campbell, Heidi, ‘A New Forum for Religion: Spiritual Pilgrimage Online’, TransMissions, Summer 2001.

A highly relevant and insightful analysis of cyberpilgrimage accounts.

 Dawson, Lorne L. and Douglas E. Cowan, Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet. New York/London: Routledge, 2004.

An exceptionally useful anthology that includes a number of important chapters, notably: Christopher Helland’s Popular Religion and the World Wide Web: A Match Made in (Cyber) Heaven. Chapter 3, pp. 23–35; Mark MacWilliams’Virtual Pilgrimage to Ireland’s Croagh Patrick. pp. 223–237; and Stephen O’ Leary’s Cyberspace as Sacred Space: Communicating Religion on Computer Networks. Chapter 4, pp. 37–58.

 Høsgaard, Morten T and Margit Warburg, Religion and Cyberspace. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.

Another useful anthology, which includes (among universally high quality chapters) Lorne Dawson’s The mediation of religious experience in cyberspace. Chapter 2, pp. 15–37.

 Helland, Christopher, ‘Diaspora on the Electronic Frontier: Developing Virtual Connections with Sacred Homelands.’The Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 2007. Available online: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/helland.html.

An exceptionally useful overview of how various religious groups, including cyberpilgrims, are using the internet for long‐distance rituals and practices, helping them to connect with each other and to their respective faith traditions.

 Hill‐Smith, Connie. ‘Cyberpilgrimage: A Study of Authenticity, Presence and Meaning in Online Pilgrimage Experiences.’The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Summer 2009. Available online: http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art21(2)‐Cyberpilgrimage.html.

An article by myself, which introduces the topic of cyberpilgrimage and discusses the ‘authenticity issue’. The article also presents some theoretical proposals and explores what is happening in cyberpilgrimages, in a variety of respects.

 MacWilliams, Mark. ‘Virtual Pilgrimages on the Internet’. Religion: An International Journal, 2002, 32(Elsevier Press): pp. 315–336.

A highly useful paper exploring cyberpilgrimage within the framework of Turnerian liminoid theory of pilgrimage.

 Mecham, June L, ‘A Northern Jerusalem: Transforming the Spatial Geography of the Convent of Wienhausen’, in Sarah Hamilton and Andrew Spicer (eds.), Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2005, Chapter 7, pp. 139–160.

An illuminating chapter exploring the (manuscript‐led) reflective, contemplative pilgrimages undertaken by nuns of the Wienhausen convent in medieval times.

 Morinis, Alan, ‘Introduction: The Territory of the Anthropology of Pilgrimage’ in A. Morinis (ed.), Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992.

A highly respected anthropological view of pilgrimage, which includes Morinis’ typology of pilgrimage or ‘sacred journeys’ and establishes the primary importance of the mind, particularly with regard to the transformative aspects of pilgrimage.

Online Materials

 http://www.yfc.co.uk/labyrinth/online.html Website offering an ‘Online Labyrinth’ cyberpilgrimage experience, run by ‘Youth For Christ’. The Online Labyrinth recreates a terrestrial labyrinth pilgrimage at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.

 http://secondlife.com Virtual world game which includes several cyberpilgrimages, ranging from pilgrimages around Shinto shrines to a highly informative and absorbing virtual hajj.

http://www.cyberfaith.com/weblinks/landjesuswalked2.html  Cyberpilgrimage website aimed at school groups and adult converts to Catholicism.

http://cyberpilgrims.blogspot.com/2011/01/twelve‐seattle‐area‐pilgrims‐leave‐sea.html  A cyberpilgrimage website run by the ‘First United Methodist Church of Seattle’, in which participants walk in the Seattle area, totalling up the miles in lieu of real‐life pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostela.

Sample Syllabus

This syllabus includes readings appropriate to both general‐level courses (indicated by A) and advanced or seminar courses (B).

Week 1.

 What is Cyberpilgrimage?

Connie Hill‐Smith, ‘Cyberpilgrimage: A Study of Authenticity, Presence and Meaning in Online Pilgrimage Experiences’. The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Summer 2009. Available online http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art21(2)‐Cyberpilgrimage.html; and Mark MacWilliams, ‘Virtual Pilgrimages on the Internet’. Religion: An International Journal, Vol. 32(Elsevier Press), pp. 315–336, 2002.

 Cyberpilgrimage and ‘Liminoid’ Pilgrimage Theory

Mark MacWilliams, Virtual Pilgrimage to Ireland’s Croagh Patrick. Chapter 15, pp. 223–237. Dawson, Lorne L. and Douglas E. Cowan, Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet. New York/London: Routledge, 2004. Alan Morinis, ‘Introduction, The Territory of the Anthropology of Pilgrimage’ in A. Morinis (ed.), Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992.

Week 2. How the Internet is Changing Religion

 Helland, Christopher, ‘Diaspora on the Electronic Frontier: Developing Virtual Connections with Sacred Homelands’, The Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 2007. Available online http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/helland.html.

 Stephen O’ Leary, Cyberspace as Sacred Space: Communicating Religion on Computer Networks. Chapter 4, pp. 37–58.

Week 3. Religious Experience Online

 Brasher, Brenda E., ‘Cyber‐Seekers: Stories of Virtual Pilgrimage’, of Give Me That Online Religion. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 2001, Chapter 4 or Heidi Campbell, ‘A New Forum for Religion: Spiritual Pilgrimage Online’, TransMissions, Summer 2001

 Lorne Dawson, The Mediation of Religious Experience in Cyberspace. Chapter 2, pp.15–37. Høsgaard, Morten T and Margit Warburg, Religion and Cyberspace. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.

Week 4. Medieval Virtual Pilgrimage

 Beebe, Kathryne, ‘Reading Mental Pilgrimage in Context: The Imaginary Pilgrims and Real Travels of Felix Fabri’s “Die Sionpilger”’. Essays in Medieval Studies, Vol. 25, pp. 39–70, 2008.

 Mecham, June L., ‘A Northern Jerusalem: Transforming the Spatial Geography of the Convent of Wienhausen’, in Sarah Hamilton and Andrew Spicer (eds.), Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Chapter 7, pp 139–160, 2005.

Week 5. Mind, Body & Technology

 Connie Hill‐Smith, ‘Cyberpilgrimage: The (Virtual) Reality of Online Pilgrimage Experience’, Religion Compass, 2011.

 Jennifer Cobb, Cybergrace: The Search for God in the Digital World. New York: Crown Publishers Inc., 1998. Chapter 4: Nets of Silicon, Webs of Flesh; and Chapter 7: Blurring the Boundaries.

Focus Questions

 O’ Leary asserts that “cyber‐rituals do have efficacy…[T]hey do perform a function of restructuring and reintegrating the minds and emotions of their participants.” Discuss whether genuine religious experience can occur online. If so, how can we, as researchers, establish this?

 How is religion (and how are religions) being changed by the internet? What do claims that the internet is changing the way we think actually mean? Do you agree with Helland and Zaleski that the internet’s capacity for fostering autonomy with regard to religious expression and exploration will result in a diminishing orthodoxy?

 Is what happens on the internet ‘real’? How do we define reality? Is all experience in some way virtual? Does ‘physicalising’ rituals or practices create an additional layer of belief that genuinely makes experiences more real?

 “The famous mystic al‐Hallaj (857–922) described his spiritual union with God in language (‘I am the Truth’)…The official reason for his execution was his teaching that the pilgrimage to Makka could be performed spiritually while staying at home.” Malise Ruthven, Islam: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 65, 1997.

 As the internet grows in impact and reach, might cyberpilgrimage become officially ratified, either as a complementary or as a stand‐alone form of pilgrimage?

 How might developments in technology challenge rationalistic frameworks for conceptualising and discussing experience?

Seminar Activity

Divide the class into ‘research teams’ which can assume/pretend that they have been tasked with designing a cyberpilgrimage for research purposes. What sort of cyberpilgrimage would they design? How would they make it as effective, meaningful, absorbing, and ‘real’ as possible? Students may also wish to discuss what topics/kinds of cyberpilgrimage might be most appropriate/genuine/popular, as well as how they could encourage participants to share their online experiences, so that they, as researchers, could gauge the effectiveness of their cyberpilgrimage.