Paper short abstract:

This paper explores two different expressions of the global in the context of local sacred places: the ideas, aesthetics and praxis underlying the creation of sacred space and the articulation of local-global connections at Glastonbury Festival and the Pilgrimage Path at Luss, Scotland.

Paper long abstract:

In the wake of the apparition of Our Lady to Bernadette at Lourdes in 1858, Lourdes Grottoes began to be replicated in churches in Europe, America and elsewhere. These were frequently built by priests or parishioners who had had the experience of visiting Lourdes and who wanted to enable parishioners who would not be able to make the journey to have that experience at home. This phenomenon might be considered an example of the local becoming global and then re-localised or relocated. It underlines the fact that virtual pilgrimage and time-space compression are not new ideas, that the relationship between the local and the global can take a variety of forms.

This paper explores two rather different contemporary approaches to expressing the global in the context of local sacred places: the ideas, aesthetics and praxis underlying both the creation of sacred space and the articulation of local-global connections at the Glastonbury Festival in south west England and the Pilgrimage Path at Luss, Loch Lomond, Scotland. In both cases there is an assumption that the place itself is special or sacred, and there is an awareness of global as well as local sacredness, fed by insights from and awareness of a variety of religious and spiritual traditions. However, the aesthetics, assumptions and practicalities of 'space making' are distinctly different in the two locations, and an exploration of these lies at the heart of the paper.