Abstract
As the epiphenomenon of a current malaise de civilisation, spiritual retreats epitomise the manifold quests for personal well-being as well as an existential longing for harmony that are based in the sacralisation of everyday life. This chapter shows that these spiritual quests for a fantasised elsewhere echo and catalyse individuals’ journeys within the frame of an hermeneutic of the self that draws on issues of authenticity and authority. This process is transposed into a space and time matrix where the geographical circulation parallels a circular view of time. If spiritual retreats have sacralised the orientalist encounter with alterity, in postcolonial and globalised settings, they resituate the tension between the seeker and the local in a space of creativity that is promoted by the shared experience of co-presence in the world.
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Mossière, G. (2016). Time, Space, and the Fantasised Other in Me. In: Beaman, L., Sikka, S. (eds) Constructions of Self and Other in Yoga, Travel, and Tourism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32512-5_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32512-5_9
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