Description
Book SynopsisAnne Fedele offers a comprehensive ethnography of alternative pilgrimages to French Catholic shrines dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene. Drawing on more than three years of extensive fieldwork, she describes how pilgrims from Italy, Spain, Britain, and the United States interpret Catholic figures, symbols, and sites according to spiritual theories and practices derived from the transnational Neopagan movement. Fedele pays particular attention to the life stories of the pilgrims, the crafted rituals they perform, and the spiritual-esoteric literature they draw upon. She examines how they devise their rituals; why this kind of spirituality is increasingly prevalent in the West; and the influence of anthropological literature on the pilgrims. Among these pilgrims, spirituality is lived and negotiated in interaction with each other and with textual sources: Jungian psychology, Goddess mythology, and ''''indigenous'''' traditions merge into a corpus of theories and practices centered upon th
Trade ReviewOver the course of the book Fedele provides a sophisticated account of the re-imagination of sacred sites and the elaboration of new rituals to enact and embody the pilgrims' developing ideas about feminine spirituality. * Journal of Anthropological Research *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ; INTRODUCTION ; 1. "GOING TO SEE MARY MAGDALENE": STARTING OUT ON A PILGRIMAGE ; 2. THE LOST CONNECTION WITH THE FEMININE ; 3. THE SAINTE-BAUME AND ITS MANY LAYERS ; 4. PILGRIMS DEALING WITH THEIR CHRISTIAN BACKGROUNDS ; 5. CELEBRATING MENSTRUAL BLOOD ; 6. WOUNDED MAGDALENES ; 7. EMBRACING THE DARKNESS ; 8. ENDING THE PILGRIMAGE AND RETURNING HOME ; CONCLUSION ; REFERENCES ; MAPS
