Sedona, Arizona: New Age Pilgrim‐Tourist Destination Curtis Coats In 2007, an article in The New York Times noted, “New Age‐style sacred travel, or metaphysical touring, is a growing branch of tourism” (Todras‐Whitehill, 2007). This article profiled some of the tourists (predominantly middle‐aged, upper middle class and female), some of their beliefs and practices (pantheistic and New Age), and some of the sacred destinations to which they traveled. This article will examine in greater detail one of these sacred destinations, Sedona, Arizona, a place that has been dubbed a “spiritual Mecca” (Sedona Chamber of Commerce, 2006a), a “soaring pantheistic cathedral” (Garner, 2006), and “the Vatican City of the New Age” (Ivakhiv 2001, p. 173). In this article, I will briefly “map” this place by sketching the socio‐historical sources of its “spiritual magnetism”1 (Preston 1992). Sedona is located 119 miles north of Phoenix, Arizona, and 114 miles south of the Grand Canyon. It sits in the high desert region of the Verde Valley, at the base of Oak Creek Canyon, so the limestone cliffs of the Colorado Plateau form the north side of the city. Sedona is situated in and around the Coconino National Forest. In fact, nearly half of the city’s nineteen square miles is publicly owned, lending to Sedona’s reputation as rural, rugged, and pristine. On May 18, 2003, USA Weekend Magazine named Sedona the “most beautiful place in America.” A rather lengthy quote from this article captures the natural beauty and mystery ascribed to this place. Ever since the early days of movies, when Hollywood has wanted to show the unique beauty of the West, it has gone to Sedona… Beginning with The Call of the Canyon in 1923, some hundred movies and TV shows have been filmed in and around town. We fell under Sedona’s spell, too, and while debating our No. 1 spot kept returning to it for the same reasons Hollywood does: The area’s telegenic canyons, wind‐shaped buttes and dramatic sandstone towers embody the rugged character of the West—and the central place that character holds in our national identity. There’s a timelessness about these ancient rocks that fires the imagination of all who encounter them. Some 11,000 years before film cameras discovered Sedona, American Indians settled the area. Homesteaders, artists and, most recently, New Age spiritualists have followed. Many cultures and agendas abound, but there’s really only one attraction: the sheer, exuberant beauty of the place. People come for inspiration and renewal, tawny cliffs rising from the buff desert floor, wind singing through box canyons, and sunsets that seem to cause the ancient buttes and spires to glow from within. We hear the canyon’s call and cannot resist. (Author Unknown, 2003, http://www.usaweekend.com) In this quote, the beauty of Sedona is mixed with its history and mystery. The quote captures common characters in the collective memory of Sedona—ancient settlement by American Indians, brave homesteaders soon followed by Zane Grey, then Hollywood, artisans and New Age Spiritualists. Red Rock country captivates—in fact, mystifies—many who come there. Sedona is often described as a place whose beauty borders on mystical, whose history is fused with myth. As Ruland‐Thorne (2004) wrote: “A wise soul once observed ‘God may have done some fine work in the Grand Canyon, but he prefers to live in Sedona’” (p. 59). Sedona’s “spiritual magnetism” (Preston 1992) gained momentum as a New Age tourist industry in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Page Bryant began channeling about “vortexes,” which her channel guide, Albion, called “special places on earth where the life force of the planet was particularly strong and is coagulated into funnels of energy” (Bryant 1991, p. 4). Self‐help guru Dick Sutphen had talked about “mysterious power spots” in Sedona in 1976, but Bryant is often credited with naming and starting the popularization of the vortexes (Ivakhiv 2001, p. 174). Since then, various authorities, including the Chamber of Commerce, have offered definitions of these power spots to curious tourists and dedicated spiritual seekers. For example, according to the Chamber of Commerce definition, a vortex, is…“an area of enhanced energy...
Read full abstract