Culture

Sacred Journeys

Join best-selling author/adventurer Bruce Feiler on an epic journey as he travels with contemporary pilgrims on six historic pilgrimages around the world and explores how these sacred landscapes and revitalized routes are reshaping faith.

Osun-Osogbo

54m 21s

The festival of Osun-Osgobo, which takes place every year in Osogbo, Nigeria, celebrates the Yoruba goddess of fertility, Osun. The festival renews the contract between humans and the divine: Osun offers grace to the community; in return, it vows to honor her Sacred Grove.

Episodes

  • Osun-Osogbo: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Osun-Osogbo

    S1 E6 - 54m 21s

    The festival of Osun-Osgobo, which takes place every year in Osogbo, Nigeria, celebrates the Yoruba goddess of fertility, Osun. The festival renews the contract between humans and the divine: Osun offers grace to the community; in return, it vows to honor her Sacred Grove.

  • Kumbh Mela: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Kumbh Mela

    S1 E5 - 54m 51s

    Every twelve years, tens of millions of men, women and children gather on the flood plain of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers in Allahabad, India, for the Kumbh Mela, the largest gathering of humanity for religious purposes on the planet. Pilgrims come from across India and around the world to bathe in the water where the two sacred rivers meet.

  • The Hajj: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    The Hajj

    S1 E4 - 54m 51s

    One of the five pillars of Islam is that each believer is called, at least once in their lives, to make the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage that starts and ends in the holy city of Mecca located in today's Saudi Arabia. The journey recreates Muhammad's own path as the native son returned to his tribal home as the leader of a vibrant new religion.

  • Jerusalem: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Jerusalem

    S1 E3 - 54m 51s

    The Hebrew Bible instructs all Jews to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year. But the city is holy to more than just Jews: Christian pilgrims began coming to Jerusalem and the Holy Land within centuries of Jesus' death, and the Al Aksa Mosque, located inside the walls of the Old City, is considered the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina.

  • Shikoku: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Shikoku

    S1 E2 - 54m 51s

    The Japanese island of Shikoku is the birthplace of the most revered figure in Japanese Buddhism, the monk and teacher Kobo-Daishi. For hundreds of years, a 750-mile pilgrimage route has circled this mountainous island, connecting 88 separate temples and shrines that claim connection to Daishi, also known as the Great Master.

  • Lourdes: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Lourdes

    S1 E1 - 54m 50s

    Lourdes has become one of the holiest Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world, visited annually by more than five million people who come in search of healing from its sacred waters. Since the end of World War II, soldiers from around the world have journeyed to Lourdes seeking healing and unity with one another at a week-long gathering known as the International Military Pilgrimage.

Extras + Features

  • I Seek: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    I Seek

    S1 - 1m 55s

    Pilgrims reflect on why they have undertaken their spiritual journeys.

  • Solitude: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Solitude

    S1 - 1m 23s

    Sacred journeys are often individual searches for the self. But is it possible to find solitude while traveling alongside thousands of pilgrims?

  • Bruce's Reflections: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Bruce's Reflections

    S1 - 1m 30s

    SACRED JOURNEYS host Bruce Feiler has done what none other has done before him: gone on six pilgrimages to six different holy places in the span of a single year.

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