In view of such experiences, it is natural to ascribe a healing effect to pilgrimages in life crises. In pilgrim forums, there are already calls for health insurance to cover the costs. “However, it is still too early to speak of a therapeutic effect of pilgrimage,” says psychologist Tatjana Schnell, who teaches as a professor at the University of Innsbruck and at the MF Specialized University in Oslo. “The research isn’t quite there yet.”
Pilgrimage means getting involved in a transformation
The fact that psychology has so far hardly dealt with the mass phenomenon could be due to a traditional fear of contact with religious topics. When Tatjana Schnell began to establish “empirical research into meaning” within psychology two decades ago, she was warned that this could endanger her scientific credibility and her career. In the meantime, empirical research into meaning has gained international recognition.
Schnell carried out the first psychological longitudinal study on pilgrimage together with her student Sarah Pali at her institute in Innsbruck. They recruited 85 prospective pilgrims between the ages of 17 and 70 via pilgrim forums on social media and interviewed them beforehand, immediately afterwards and four months after their return home. On average, they walked 400 miles (646 kilometers) to Santiago via the Camino de Santiago.
More than half described themselves as little or not at all religious before starting the pilgrimage. “But even if I’m not religious, I have the opportunity to consciously engage in a religious ritual,” explains Tatjana Schnell, “as a tried and tested form that’s always been there and to which I can abandon myself.” The difference to one She recognizes the willingness of the pilgrims to engage in an inner transformation: “I’m ready for something different to happen to me along the way.”
The results of their longitudinal study suggest that this transformation is indeed occurring. 59 percent of those surveyed stated that they had gained clarity about themselves on the Way of St. James. “The main effect of the pilgrimage was the fulfillment of meaning,” says Schnell. This occurs when people can experience their lives as “coherent, meaningful, oriented, and belonging.” After the pilgrims returned home, this sense of meaning decreased significantly, but it was still far above the level that they had indicated before the pilgrimage. This effect was particularly evident in the seven percent of those surveyed who, before starting the trip, were in a full-blown crisis of meaning and felt depressed or anxious, and in some cases even had suicidal thoughts. After the pilgrimage, they all stated that they had overcome the crisis of meaning.
»You dress in a different identity«(Tatjana Schnell, sensory researcher)
The psychologist Tatjana Schnell sees the pilgrimage as a perfect example of a rite of passage. It extends over three phases: threshold, purification, integration. In the threshold phase, the pilgrims parted from their apartments, their smart clothes and their cars and equipped themselves with hiking boots, rucksacks and staffs as pilgrims: »You put on a different identity.« On the way the purification then takes place: Under There is no social hierarchy for the pilgrims, so they often have existential conversations and can break away from their social status. This is followed by the integration phase. »At the end of this rite of passage, people have the experience: I am a different person!«