Sacred journeys’ tech evolution: How colonialism, capitalism and AI reshape pilgrimage traditions globally
Original framing: “AI is changing pilgrims’ journeys, but sacred journeys have always adapted to new technology” — The Conversation - Global
The voices missing are those of *disabled pilgrims* (e.g., wheelchair users on the *Camino*, now excluded by AI-optimized ‘accessible’ routes that ignore cobblestone hazards), *sex workers* who walk the *Via Francigena* to escape trafficking (now tracked by ‘safety’ apps), and *LGBTQ+* pilgrims in homophobic regions (e.g., *Hajj* attendees using VPNs to access queer devotional content). The *Dalit* communities in India, historically barred from *Kumbh Mela*, now use *pirated* AI tools to ‘infiltrate’ virtual pilgrimages—a form of *digital resistance* absent from the narrative. Women like *Sister Faustina* of the *Divine Mercy* movement, who used *smuggled* typewriters to circulate devotional texts under Catholic censorship, are reduced to footnotes, while their tactics (e.g., *cryptographic* prayer) foreshadow today’s struggles against AI surveillance.
The mainstream narrative treats AI’s disruption of pilgrimage as a *neutral* evolution, but the deeper pattern is one of *extractive adaptation*—where every technological leap has been used to *reconfigure* sacred journeys into tools of control.
From the *printing press* standardizing doctrine to *AI* monetizing devotion, the mechanism is the same: *disrupt, then dominate*. The missing piece is the *anti-colonial* tradition of pilgrimage as *resistance*—whether the *Navajo* using oral maps to evade U.S. land grabs or *Dalit* communities hacking virtual *Kumbh Mela* access. The solution lies not in ‘better’ tech, but in *reclaiming* pilgrimage as a *decentralized*, *embodied*, and *anti-capitalist* practice—one that uses AI’s tools to expose its lies, not deepen its grip. The *trickster* here is not the machine, but the *system* that frames adaptation as progress, while the real pilgrims—Indigenous stewards, disabled walkers, queer seekers—have always known the journey was never about the destination, but the *fight* along the way.