This exciting new book is a detailed examination of pilgrimages in Japan, including the meanings of travel, transformation, and the discovery of identity through encounters with the sacred, in a variety of interesting dimensions in both historical and contemporary Japanese culture, linked by the unifying theme of a spiritual quest.

Introduction. Travel as Spiritual Quest in Japan Part 1: Pilgrimages, Paths and Places 1. Pilgrimage Roads in Spain and Japan 2. Pilgrimage, Space and Identity: Ise (Japan) and Santiago de Compostela (Spain) 3. The Concept of Pilgrimage in Japan 4. The Daily Life of the Henro on the Island of Shikoku during the Edo Priod as Mirror of Tokugawa Society 5. Stranger and Pilgrimage in Village Japan Part 2: Reconstructing the Quest 6. Current Increase in Walking Pilgrims 7. New Forms of Pilgrimage in Japanese Society 8. Old Gods, New Pilgrimages? A Whistle Stop Tour of Japanese International Theme Parks Part 3: The Quest for the Magic, Liminal, or Non-Ordinary 9. Pilgrimages in Japan. How Far are they Determined by Unconsciously Held Assumptions? 10. Agari-Umai, or the Eastern Tour: A Ryukyuan Royal Ritual and Its Transformations 11. Takiguchi Shuzo and Joan Miro 12. 'Hiroshima, mon Amour': An Inner Pilgrimage to Catharsis Part 4: The Quest for Vocational Fullfillment 13. 'Initiation Rites' and 'Pilgrimage' of Local Civil Servants in the Age of Internalization 14. Travel Ethnography in Japan 15. A Japanese Painter's Quest: Suda Kunitaro's Journey to Spain. Pilgrimage and Experience: An Afterword