Pilgrimage Centers as Persistent Places: Spiritual Magnetism, Affects, and Atmospheres

Abstract Pilgrimage centers are persistent places due in part to spiritual magnetism, defined as the power of a place of pilgrimage to attract devotees. In most studies, scholars claim that humans confer spiritual magnetism on pilgrimage centers based on events or cultural, social, or historical factors associated with a center. Here I contend that spiritual magnetism comes from the atmospheres that emerge at a center due to assemblages of humans, places, materials, objects, substances, and more. To demonstrate this, I explore how the intersection of the natural landscape, water, and human bodies at the Marian pilgrimage center at Lourdes, France, generates affects and atmospheres that have and continue to attract pilgrims. From this perspective, spiritual magnetism can be studied archaeologically and can help archaeologists better grasp the importance of pilgrimage centers throughout history. To show how archaeologists might examine spiritual magnetism at ancient pilgrimage centers, I conclude by discussing spiritual magnetism at the Emerald Acropolis, a precontact Native American pilgrimage center associated with the eleventh century city of Cahokia.