The Imaginal Studies Pilgrimage:
Ritual, Initiation, And Transformation

The mystery of pilgrimage rests in the soul's essential engagement with place, memory, and meaning. In certain places there are reverberating voices which are especially distinct and condensed with meaning. Greece is the home of many such mystery centers. The mystery centers of Ancient Greece were a crucible for transformative learning—a contemporary term for initiation.

Pilgrimage is distinct from tourism as it is not intended as entertainment but as ritual or transformative practice. Tourism is a cultural phenomenon that is based on consumption. As tourists, we often consume the places we visit without being affected by the meanings inherent in those places. In contrast, Pilgrimage is about integration and meaning-making. Pilgrimage requires ritual and transformative practices that allow one to be affected by the deeper meanings that saturate the places being visited. Through pilgrimage we are able to awaken archetypal, cultural, and personal knowings that would not otherwise be accessible to us.

Following their 2005 pilgrimage, Aftab Omer and Melissa Schwartz will lead a two-week pilgrimage to the mystery centers of Ancient Greece this spring, April 29-May 12, 2007. This pilgrimage, Initiation and the Mythic Imagination: A Pilgrimage to the Mystery Centers of Ancient Greece, will be an intimate journey to the birthplace of classical mythology that will serve as a window into the mythic imagination and its role in contemporary possibilities for personal and cultural transformation.