In an increasingly fast-paced and hyper-production-driven world, many yearn to return to something timeless, slow-paced, connected, and meaningful. For some, this call manifests in a desire for pilgrimage—a spiritual journey that challenges not only the body but also the mind and soul. As I prepare for my upcoming pilgrimage on Japan’s ancient Kumano Kodo trail this month, I’m also looking ahead to its sister pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago in Spain, which I will lead in June 2025, hosted by Sacred Earth Journeys. These two ancient routes—spanning continents, cultures, and centuries—offer more than just beautiful landscapes and cultural immersion; they present an opportunity to reconnect with deeper, often forgotten, but essential, parts of ourselves. More than this, these pilgrimage trails are initiatory training grounds, preparing us for a new, rapidly emerging future.

In this month’s blog reflection, we’ll explore the rich history of both the Kumano Kodo and the Camino de Santiago trails, delve into the fascinating connection between these two sacred pilgrimages, and discuss the profound psychological, physical, and spiritual benefits that pilgrimage offers. We’ll also touch on how the changing attitudes toward travel—from leisure to purpose—presently emerging from the collective unconscious represents a broader paradigm shift that will dramatically change how we see the world and our role in it.

Whether or not you feel drawn to embark on such an outward journey yourself, pilgrimage as a broader archetype holds timeless lessons for navigating the sea change of our modern life, offering a meaningful counterpoint to how we have been conditioned by the digital age and, more broadly, the materialistic paradigm that is now sunsetting.

The History of the Kumano Kodo and Camino de Santiago

Kumano Kodo: Japan’s Sacred Network

The Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trails, located on Japan’s pristine Kii Peninsula, have been traveled for over a thousand years by everyone from emperors to peasants to ascetic monks seeking spiritual renewal. The Kumano region is often referred to as the “land of the gods” due to its association with Shinto nature spirits and Buddhist teachings on impermanence, no-self, and liberation; it is a territory considered among Japan’s most sacred ground. Unlike many modern pilgrimages, which often have a single destination, the Kumano Kodo is a network of interconnected routes, each leading to the Kumano Sanzan—three ancient shrines revered in both Shintoism and Shingon or esoteric Japanese Buddhism. These three shires, Hongu, Nachi, and Hatayama beckon the pilgrim to reflect in three corresponding stages on one’s past, present, and future as they walk towards each landmark. By the tour’s completion, the pilgrim has consolidated and processed their past, emptied and made themselves fully available to the present, and begun to seed and incubate a vision for themselves and the world for the future. A process in line with the alchemical motto, solve et coagula, to dissolve and reconstitute, which I’ll soon return to. On our pilgrimage next month, we have elected to venture off the beaten path and directly into the secret heart of Kumano to its most enchanted, spirit-inhabited, and energetic enclaves. Our pilgrimage has a novel agenda: to pair our Tibetan Vajrayana master Geshe Tenzin Zopa featured in the Unmistake Child documentary in a historic dialogue with a local trickster and shaman named Kosho Tateishi featured in the Shegendo Now documentary. The aim is to meld minds and traditions in an archetypal symbol of mandalic unity and diversity, just as we did in Indonesia last year, blending Buddhist and Shiva streams of tantra.

What makes the Kumano Kodo particularly unique is its blending of spirituality and nature. Just like my experience with Balinese tantra, the local Shugendo religion fuses Shinto animism, shamanism, and Shinto tantric Buddhism, taking pilgrims through enchanted forests, across rivers, and over mountains, encouraging a deep connection to the land and local spirits as part of the spiritual journey. Pilgrims often walk in silence, voluntarily endure intense weather and physical challenges, and even bathe under frigid waterfalls—not only out of respect for the sacred practices of Shugendo but also to overcome worldly desires, the tyranny of preferences, and the constant chatter of ego, so they can create stillness through discipline to better hear the voice of their inner soul. As I write in my forthcoming book Return with Elixir, this scared destination of finding home—the soul—is what pilgrimage shares in common with psychedelics. Both represent inner journeys of awakening. While the latter is radical and direct but not for everyone, the former is more gradual, less reality-obliterating, but perhaps more accessible.

Camino de Santiago: Spain’s Timeless Route

On the other side of the world lies the Camino de Santiago, another pilgrimage that dates back over a millennium. The Camino culminates at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where the remains of the virtuous St. James the Apostle are said to rest. It became a major Christian pilgrimage route in medieval Europe, drawing the devout from France, Spain, and Portugal on trails that can extend beyond 600 miles, with some dating back to the 9^th century. While many still walk the Camino for religious reasons, its appeal today extends far beyond any particular faith tradition.

One of the most powerful aspects of the Camino is how it serves as a metaphor for life itself, with its twists and turns, ups and downs, unexpected bumps, and profound breakthroughs; the journey reflects the everyday tragedies and triumphs we encounter in daily life. The reason I’ve elected the Camino ‘Walk of Renewal’ to coincide with the launch of Return with Elixir is that my book reveals the universal key—solve et coagula—that opens every esoteric gate the world over, and, in so doing, provides us direct access to engage with any spiritual tradition or wisdom culture through the collective language of archetypes and universal motifs.

Chief among these motifs is the mystical reference solve et coagula, 'dying to be reborn', allowing one’s ordinary identity to dissolve, to be spiritually renewed. With this universal motto as our path, we have a compelling rationale for doing Tibetan-style visualizations and Buddhist prayers in churches along the Camino, perhaps the most celebrated, well-traveled Christian pilgrimage route in the world, because we can cut straight through to its universal heart, embodying agape (love) and apotheosis (becoming divine), rather than get stuck at its superficial distinctions, and idiosyncratic dogmas. For this reason, we could similarly one day venture to the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid on the Giza plateau to chant Tibetan mantras, discuss the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and participate in rebirth visualizations enhanced by intensive yogic breathwork and sound bath, with there being no contradiction, because the mystical traditions of all cultures have similarly pursued a radical alteration in consciousness, dramatically aimed at immortality.

Walking the Camino is physically demanding, but it’s not the physical difficulty that brings people back again and again—it’s the profound transformation that takes place within the human heart when the thick crust of self-protection and dissociation is broken through to the common, supple ground of vulnerability beneath. Pilgrims often speak of the Camino as a place where their hearts and minds become aligned through trial, where the noise of modern life fades away, and a clearer sense of purpose emerges from hardship, compelling them to make a radical shift in their lives upon returning home or offering their unique gift to the world.

The Pilgrimage Mindset

Pilgrimage is not always straightforward, pleasant, predictable, or even enjoyable. How would it be beneficial or distinctive if it were? The difference between tourism for pleasure’s sake and pilgrimage for growth is a state of mind. Recently, one of my friends, a seasoned pilgrim, went to Tibet to circle the sacred Mount Kailash. The night before the large group of fifty embarked from Chengdu, China, their jumping-off point to Tibet’s Autonomous Region, not one but both tour leaders had their permits unexpectedly pulled and were not allowed to accompany the group. These tour leaders were among the main draws for the journey; without them, what kind of tour would this be? Many people were understandably frustrated and disheartened, but some got "stuck" in an eddy of mind-created suffering, fixated on the unanticipated loss and change in plan from what was expected.

My friend, however, was able to pivot rather quickly into the “pilgrimage mindset,” seizing the challenge as an opportunity to work with whatever misfortune arose as a means to awaken her mind. She noted to me after the tour, having reached and circumambulated holy Kailash, that she was proud of herself—not just for enduring the immense physical difficulties, but mostly because she had found her mind to be a reliable source of stability, true refuge, while so many others on the trip succumbed to the whirlpools of anger and disappointment. In essence, my friend had become the sacred destination herself, not a physical place to arrive at but a set of inner qualities to cultivate and embody along the way. She didn’t pay her money to be a passenger, observer, or visitor, spoon-fed throughout the ride by her more accomplished teachers; she was an active participant, guiding and refining herself like pottery along the spin of the journey. As I’ve said before, “The pilgrimage is empty, like life, you experience what you make of it.”

The Connection Between the Two Pilgrimages

While the Kumano Kodo and Camino de Santiago exist in vastly different cultural and religious contexts, they are recognized as “sister pilgrimages” through their shared UNESCO World Heritage designation. But the connection goes deeper than just an official title. Both pilgrimages lead to sacred sites, yet, as we see from my friend’s living testament at Kailash, it’s our approach to the journey that transforms us and not the destination. Both routes demand something from the pilgrim—whether that’s endurance, vulnerability, or simply the willingness to come undone, to be recast anew. As I write in Return with Elixir, we must possess a willingness to lose control and, ultimately, to lose ourselves so that we can find a deeper, more robust self we never knew existed. In both cases, Japan and Spain, the pilgrim is not just a tourist or traveler but a co-author, artist, or alchemist, active in the creative work of self-redesign in a multidimensional journey that unfolds both inwardly and outwardly.

The crux of Return with Elixir is that we are all pilgrims looking for our long-lost soul. Unlike King Odysseus yearning for his beloved home and family on Ithaka Island after a ten-year absence and odyssey, we are equally lost in the wasteland of modernity, filled with angst, yet unaware of what we’re missing. We’ve been filling the abyss of the heart with material possessions and transient experiences that don’t last or satisfy our deeper yearning, but our modern culture has failed to orient us to the possibility that there are other worlds beyond the five senses and innate qualities of mind, buried like treasure, that when cultivated, can offer lasting satisfaction. We need a map, compass, and guide to reacquaint ourselves with the inner landscape and the ultimate, sacred destination within.

As we walk outwardly through bucolic landscapes, we are following the paths along what I call the inner ‘soulscape,’ best articulated by mythologist Joseph Campbell, from departing the ordinary world through sacred initiation, facing an ordeal, uncovering a buried treasure, and returning home to benefit others. Mystic Carl Jung traced a similar circumambulation, departing ordinary consciousness and calcified ego, venturing into the netherworlds of the shadow to confront our greatest fears, piercing the veils of the collective unconscious where we can reclaim the soul, a sense of wholeness, then coming back into a more adaptable ego to live authentically in the world. These two systems, combined with the cycle of the Tibetan process of conscious death, sublime liminality, and altruistic resurrection and the cosmological precession of the so-called Great Year, lasting 24,000 years, are the four maps compiled in Return with Elixir’s 440 pages, a field guide for rebirth.

The Dual Personalities of Kumano and Comino

The concept of “dual pilgrimage” encourages people who have completed one route to walk the other. If you join me in Japan this year, perhaps you will also come to Spain next year, if you join us in Spain in 2025, perhaps, if there’s enough interest, we’ll run Japan again at a future date and alternate back and forth over the years. You’ll get a taste of the unique vibe of each tour as you forge deeper along your singular grail quest. As I reflect on this, I’m struck by how these pilgrimages serve as unique counterpoints to each other. In Japan, the focus is often on nature, subtlety, solitude, and quiet introspection. In Spain, it’s the vibrancy, sensuality, community, and shared experience of transforming hardship and loss. Yet, both paths offer opportunities for self-discovery and transformation, reminding us that the path to awakening takes many forms and even many lifetimes, so one can venture on different kinds of pilgrimages, again and again.

The Benefits of Pilgrimage: Physical, Psychological, Spiritual, and Communal

Physical Benefits:

At first glance, pilgrimage might seem like a purely spiritual exercise, but the physical demands of walking for days, or even weeks, are substantial. Walking long distances is not only beneficial for cardiovascular health but also has a grounding, meditative quality. The rhythm of walking—step after step, day after day—helps quiet the mind and allows for a deep focus that can be rare in modern, busy life. In the Tibetan tradition, preliminary practices include 100,000 prostrations, with their physical benefits and rhythmic cadence being well articulated.

Moreover, being immersed in nature, whether in the lush forests and natural springs of the Kumano Kodo or the wide-open plains and rolling hills in the heartland of northern Spain, helps reset the body’s circadian rhythms and reduce stress. Numerous studies have shown that time spent in nature can reduce cortisol levels and boost overall well-being.

Psychological Benefits

On a psychological level, pilgrimage provides the opportunity for deep reflection and self-inquiry. The quiet space away from the demands of work, family, and technology allows for thoughts, emotions, and memories to surface—some of which may have been long suppressed, perhaps even for good reason. Now, on pilgrimage, the context is rendered safe, like in psychotherapy, by the consciousness and care of willing participants, who volunteer to support one another’s 'regression in the service of growth'. As I like to say, in therapy, psychedelics, and pilgrimage, sometimes ‘we have to go back (to reclaim long-lost fragments of ourselves) in order to move forward, more whole. In this way, pilgrimage can act as a vehicle for psychological healing, encouraging the kind of introspection and integration that leads to emotional growth and greater resilience.

Spiritual Benefits:

Both the Kumano Kodo and Camino de Santiago are infused with spiritual significance, and for many pilgrims, walking these routes is a way of deepening their connection with the divine, by whatever name. Yet, even for those who do not identify with a particular faith tradition, pilgrimage offers an opportunity to connect with something greater than oneself. Whether that’s God, one’s guru, nature, wonder, or the collective human spirit, the act of pilgrimage transcends the individual and taps into universal themes of soul-seeking, transformation,  renewal, and altruism for the benefit of others.

I recount many extraordinary transpersonal experiences in Return with Elixir: visions, synchronicities, dreams, visitations, and the like. I don’t boast about them, or I claim to possess any special authority. I chose to discuss them precisely because I think they are more common and more human than people feel safe to admit. As we recalibrate from our overly materialistic paradigm to include more of our lost spiritual sensibilities, I anticipate “non-ordinary” or extra-sensory experiences will become more commonplace.

Communal Benefits:

One of the most unexpected gifts of pilgrimage is the sense of community that emerges along the way. In a world where loneliness and isolation are becoming increasingly common, pilgrimage offers an antidote. Whether it’s the simple act of sharing a meal with fellow pilgrims or engaging in deep, heartfelt conversations with strangers along the path—or as we did in 2022 when our group danced and sang aloud with a blaring loudspeaker in the aisle of the bus at night en route from Varanasi to Bodhgaya, India, where Buddha gained enlightenment—the connections formed on pilgrimage are often deep and long-lasting. “This is how we roll into Bodhgaya,” I said to the gang proudly, perhaps a historic first!

In the case of the Camino de Santiago, I’ve read and heard the communal experience is particularly profound. Pilgrims from all over the world, from every walk of life, come together to walk and endure together the same challenging path. Differences among us, though important, are held within a collective field of shared humanity and solidarity. Can you think of anything more important today to heal polarization and mounting division than an underlying sense of unity that accepts and respects our diversity? This shared journey creates bonds that can transcend race, language, cultural barriers, economic status, and even historical wounds. In the past, I’ve toured with Jews and Muslims, Tibetans and Chinese, folks from very different economic backgrounds, devout religious folks and secular humanists—those who might ordinarily have been at odds—and we have all been able to find common ground of mutual respect.

Why Pilgrimage Now? The Changing Nature of Travel

One of the reasons more people are consciously or unconsciously embarking on pilgrimages is that modern life, our conventional institutions, and the underlying materialistic paradigm have reached their limits and are beginning to break down. More on this shift from the Picean to Aquarian Age is discussed in Part One of Return with Elixir and accounts for the utter breakdown in trust, certainty, solidity, and morality, we are experiencing worldwide right now. Our current worldview fails to support us or prepare us and our children for an inevitable paradigm shift that is already underway. Increasingly, we need more:

1. Tolerance for cognitive dissonance, ambiguity, and uncertainty allows us to navigate the deluge of information overload without feeling overwhelmed and ripens our discernment.
2. Emotional self-regulation, flexibility, and resilience are essential to managing the increased stress demands of our complex, multifaceted lives.
3. Deeper relational bonds and authentic, meaningful interpersonal experiences—both with others and with the environment—reflect our interconnectedness. This is especially important as technology pulls us into greater isolation despite the false promises of “connectivity.”
4. A focus on what makes us human rather than reducing us to machines. As AI and automation ramp up, we need to cultivate human intelligence (HI)—qualities like empathy, beauty, awe, wonder, creativity, and service, exemplified by the emerging Rachen World Peace Stupa project.
5. A spiritual worldview that transcends the purely materialistic paradigm. We need a more integrative approach that values both science and spirit, liberation and love, helping us navigate the inevitable hardships ahead with self-generated and coherent mythologies of meaning and purpose.

To this last point, where New Age spirituality fails to provide the depth, lineage, or coherent cosmology necessary for lasting transformation, authentic spiritual traditions—particularly esoteric traditions that provide direct access to the experience of the divine—allow us to connect with a transcendent principle without relying on intermediaries. Each of us needs our own direct encounter with the numinous, soul or Spirit; this reflects a broader decentralization that is one of the hallmarks of the incoming Aquarian Age.

People flock to the desert or island paradises for massive, annual festivals such as Burning Man, Wanderlust, or the Bali SpiritFest, following a similar unconscious or conscious call to adventure as those who embark on pilgrimage. The difference is that ultimately, New Age spirituality is more like cotton candy: it tastes great initially but offers little, lasting nutrition. Inevitably, it fails us not because of malintent but because it lacks depth, originates from no established lineage, has not cultivated time-tested legitimacy or authority through peer validation, offers no singular initiatory curriculum, nor a coherent cosmology and mythos. Its sort of a whatever you want goes free for all, that feels liberating, but shortlived. Therefore, I’ve always recommended we turn eventually to authentic spiritual traditions, and rather than internalize their dogmas hook, line, and sinker, make efforts to refine and update them, going back to go forward, making the necessary updates and innovations that keep long-standing institutions like Tibetan Buddhism alive, relevant, and vibrant, no matter what time period or culture it interacts with.

That’s how I see my work and role evolving: to revive the ancient wisdom or mystery schools of old through books and courses while integrating them with modern psychology and neuroscience and to create a community for healing and transformation on the road through sacred pilgrimage.

Ready to Embark?

In conclusion, the Kumano Kodo and Camino de Santiago stand as powerful testaments to the enduring human spirit's quest for meaning, connection, and transformation. These sacred trails offer not just the beauty of nature and rich cultural heritage but also profound opportunities for self-discovery and spiritual renewal. As we navigate an increasingly complex world, these pilgrimages remind us, more and more, of the importance of slowing down, reflecting, and reconnecting with ourselves, others, and what Jung called the Anima Mundi—the enchanted universe—around us. But more than that, pilgrimage is preparing us for the new future, with each step, we learn to face trials on the trails, learning how to adopt the pilgrimage mindset for the ultimate journey of life, death, and rebirth.

Stay tuned for my updates on our mind-bending Kyoto-Koyasan-Kumano pilgrimage with Geshe Tenzin Zopa in a few weeks via my Instagram. Meanwhile, I invite you to join me on the Camino de Santiago in June 2025 with Sacred Earth Journeys or our next tour with Geshe Tenzin Zopa to the Himalayas in October 2025. Whether you seek spiritual awakening, personal growth, or simply the joy of walking alongside fellow pilgrims from diverse backgrounds, these journeys promise to be transformative experiences to enrich your soul. Together, let’s traverse this timeless route, going back, in order to go forward so we can embrace today’s challenges with more resilience and creativity and co-envision a brighter future.