Pilgrimages—real and imagined—are always popular, sometimes compulsory. Bodh Gaya, Santiago, Mecca, Jerusalem, and Puri are a few of the sites that beckon. The pilgrimage to the authentic self takes a similar path in an interior landscape. In the 15th century, Felix Fabri combined the two, using his visits to Jerusalem to write a handbook for nuns wanting to make a pilgrimage in the imagination, whilst confined to their religious houses. For
Guidebook for an Armchair Pilgrimage
, the authors followed Fabri’s example. First they walked together over many weeks, not to reach a destination but simply to find one. Then, in startling words and images, along lanes and around hills, into caves and down to the coast. Over the course of the 19-day Armchair Pilgrimage, they invite the reader to experience the world around them just as they did as they walked.