There is a renewed interest amongst scholars in the practice of pil-grimage. Over the past two decades, pilgrim numbers have risen significantly, whilst forms of ''implicit'' or ''alternative'' spirituality have gained visibility and now coexist with organised religions, sometimes sharing the same ritualistic space. There is probably no better place to look at the coexistence of old and new forms of ritual expression than in the Camino to Santiago. To better understand the meanings attributed to this pilgrimage, we undertook a survey with over 470 pilgrims at various locations along the Camino. The findings confirm that individuals with various, often contrasting, motivations and expectations walk side by side on this pilgrimage route. We suggest that the results cannot be read simplistically as either confirming a ''post-secularisation'' trend or a religious revival.

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According to the Intuitive Belief Hypothesis, supernatural belief relies heavily on intuitive thinking—and decreases when analytic thinking is engaged. After pointing out various limitations in prior attempts to support this Intuitive Belief Hypothesis, we test it across three new studies using a variety of paradigms, ranging from a pilgrimage field study to a neurostimulation experiment. In all three studies, we found no relationship between intuitive or analytical thinking and supernatural belief. We conclude that it is premature to explain belief in gods as ‘intuitive’, and that other factors, such as socio-cultural upbringing, are likely to play a greater role in the emergence and maintenance of supernatural belief than cognitive style.

In the past thirty years the camino to Santiago de Compostela has been recreated as an eclectic pilgrimage, open to both religious and atheist travellers. Following previous work on motivational orientations and religion (Farias and Lalljee 2008), we conducted a study examining atheist vs. religious pilgrims' motivations to walk the Santiago way. We assessed pilgrims (N = 360) at various parts of the northern Spanish camino using a questionnaire that measured motivations to go on pilgrimage. In addition, we measured levels of positive and negative affect, physical exertion and emotional problems. Atheists scored significantly lower on Community and Religious types of motivations. However, in several measures no differences were found between groups. We suggest that both atheist and religious pilgrims are exploring forms of horizontal and vertical transcendence characterised by a desire to connect to nature and one's deeper self.

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