Chapter 4: Pilgrimage and Imagination: You Can’t Have One Without the Other

Pilgrimage relies on the important psychological function of imagination. To set the stage, I present a cultural-psychological approach toward understanding how pilgrimage as a human cultural phenomenon became possible. I present the study of pilgrimages within a cultural psychology cannot be meaningful if sharp distinctions relying on time, types and places are applied to the various expressions of the phenomenon. The title of the chapter is meant to suggest that as humans have imagination, pilgrimage becomes understandable through inquiry that emphasizes how human conduct is meaningful. I re-illuminate pilgrimage from various angles to introduce it as also a cultural constrain system that allows for imagining oneself as another or a better human being. Two sections follow where the notions of tool and arena of the constrain system, are presented at the level of societies, bodies, and mind, and in the last section I go further by suggesting a comparison of medieval pilgrimage with contemporary practices to advocate for either as cultural constrain systems that rely on imagination. My aim is to clarify how pilgrimage expresses culture and imagination through a cultural psychological perspective, and to show how culture and mind are interrelated.