Claiming sacred ground : pilgrims and politics at Glastonbury and Sedona

Claiming Sacred GroundPilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and SedonaAdrian J. IvakhivA study of people and politics at two New Age spiritual sites.In this richly textured account, Adrian Ivakhiv focuses on the activities of pilgrim-migrants to Glastonbury, England and Sedona, Arizona. He discusses their efforts to encounter and experience the spirit or energy of the land and to mark out its significance by investing it with sacred meanings. Their endeavors are presented against a broad canvas of cultural and environmental struggles associated with the incorporation of such geographically marginal places into an expanding global cultural economy. Ivakhiv sees these contested and "heterotopic" landscapes as the nexus of a complex web of interestes and longings: from millennial anxieties and nostalgic re-imaginings of history and prehistory; to real-estate power grabs; contending religious visions; and the free play of ideas from science, pseudo-science, and popular culture. Looming over all this is the nonhuman life of these landscapes, an"otherness" that alternately reveals and conceals itself behind a pagenant of beliefs, images, and place-myths.A significant contribution to scholarship on alternative spirituality, sacred space, and the politics of natural landscapes, Claiming Sacred Ground will interest scholars and students of environmental and cultural studies, and the sociology of religious movements and pilgrimage. Non-specialist readers will be stimulated by the cultural, ecological, and spiritual dimensions of extraordinary natural landscapes. Adrian Ivakhiv teaches in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, and is President of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada.April 2001384 pages, 24 b&w photos, 2 figs., 9 maps, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, index, append.cloth 0-253-33899-9 $37.40 s / ?28.50 ContentsI DEPARTURES 1 Power and Desire in Earth's Tangled Web 2 Reimagining Earth 3 Orchestrating Sacred SpaceII Glastonbury 4 Stage, Props, and Players of Avalon 5 Many Glastonburys: Place-Myths and Contested SpacesIII SEDONA 6 Red Rocks to Real Estate 7 New Agers, Vortexes, and the Sacred LandscapeIV ARRIVALS 8 Practices of Place: Nature and Heterotopia Beyond the New Age

Claiming Sacred Ground Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona

Adrian J. Ivakhiv

A study of people and politics at two New Age spiritual sites.

In this richly textured account, Adrian Ivakhiv focuses on the activities of pilgrim-migrants to Glastonbury, England and Sedona, Arizona. He discusses their efforts to encounter and experience the spirit or energy of the land and to mark out its significance by investing it with sacred meanings. Their endeavors are presented against a broad canvas of cultural and environmental struggles associated with the incorporation of such geographically marginal places into an expanding global cultural economy.

Ivakhiv sees these contested and "heterotopic" landscapes as the nexus of a complex web of interestes and longings: from millennial anxieties and nostalgic re-imaginings of history and prehistory; to real-estate power grabs; contending religious visions; and the free play of ideas from science, pseudo-science, and popular culture. Looming over all this is the nonhuman life of these landscapes, an"otherness" that alternately reveals and conceals itself behind a pagenant of beliefs, images, and place-myths.

A significant contribution to scholarship on alternative spirituality, sacred space, and the politics of natural landscapes, Claiming Sacred Ground will interest scholars and students of environmental and cultural studies, and the sociology of religious movements and pilgrimage. Non-specialist readers will be stimulated by the cultural, ecological, and spiritual dimensions of extraordinary natural landscapes.

Adrian Ivakhiv teaches in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, and is President of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada.

April 2001
384 pages, 24 b&w photos, 2 figs., 9 maps, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, index, append.
cloth 0-253-33899-9 $37.40 s / £28.50

Contents

I DEPARTURES
1 Power and Desire in Earth’s Tangled Web
2 Reimagining Earth
3 Orchestrating Sacred Space

II Glastonbury
4 Stage, Props, and Players of Avalon
5 Many Glastonburys: Place-Myths and Contested Spaces

III SEDONA
6 Red Rocks to Real Estate
7 New Agers, Vortexes, and the Sacred Landscape

IV ARRIVALS
8 Practices of Place: Nature and Heterotopia Beyond the New Age

"In this account, Adrian Ivakhiv focuses on the activities of pilgrim-migrants to Glastonbury, England, and Sedona, Arizona. He discusses their efforts to encounter and experience the spirit or energy of the land and to mark out its significance by investing it with sacred meanings. Their endeavors are presented against a broad canvas of cultural and environmental struggles associated with the incorporation of such geographically marginal places into an expanding global cultural economy.". "Ivakhiv sees these contested and "heterotopic" landscapes as the nexus of a complex web of interests and longings: from millennial anxieties and nostalgic re-imaginings of history and prehistory; to real-estate power grabs, contending religious visions, and the free play of ideas from science, pseudo-science, and popular culture. Looming over all this is the nonhuman life of these landscapes, an "otherness" that alternately reveals and conceals itself behind a pageant of beliefs, images, and place-myths.". "A significant contribution to scholarship on alternative spirituality, sacred space, and the politics of natural landscapes, Claiming Sacred Ground will interest scholars and students of environmental and cultural studies and of the sociology of religious movements and pilgrimage. Non-specialist readers can explore the cultural, ecological, and spiritual dimensions of these extraordinary natural landscapes."--BOOK JACKET. Contents 6 Illustrations 8 Preface and Acknowledgments 10 PART ONE: Departures 14 ONE Power and Desire in Earth’s Tangled Web 16 TWO Reimagining Earth 31 THREE Orchestrating Sacred Space 57 PART TWO: Glastonbury 76 FOUR Stage, Props, and Players of Avalon 78 FIVE Many Glastonburys: Place-Myths and Contested Spaces 106 PART THREE: Sedona 156 SIX Red Rocks to Real Estate 158 SEVEN Vortexes and Crossed Currents: Sedona’s Multichannel Wilderness 186 PART FOUR: Arrivals 222 EIGHT Practices of Place: Nature, Heterotopia, and the Postmodern Sacred 224 Notes 254 Bibliography 298 General References 298 News Publications and Local Periodicals 328 Interviews 329 Index 330 About the Author 340 Recent years have seen a growing popular fascination with so-called 'earth energies' associated with sacred or powerful places. Two such locations are Glastonbury, England, and Sedona, Arizona, each luring tens of thousands of pilgrims annually, and spawning growing communities of New Age devotees. In this richly textured account, AdrianIvakhiv focuses on the activities of these pilgrim-migrants, both spiritual and political