Spiritual Entrepreneurship in the High North

• Published in: International Journal for the Study of New Religions
• Main Author: Fonneland, Trude
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Equinox Publishing 2015
• Subjects: Norway; Finnmark; Northern Norway; Tana
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v5i2.26231; https://journal.equinoxpub.com/IJSNR/article/download/12116/14191

In order to frame the relationship between tourism and New Age spirituality, I identify actors in the tourism sector who draw inspiration from New Age as spiritual entrepreneurs. A spiritual entrepreneur is a tourist entrepreneur promoting a New Age philosophy and spiritual values such as ‘self-development’, ‘holism’ and ‘deep-values’, and who present a vision of crossovers between religion, local development and tourism, combining local traditions with global trends. The article is an analysis of two chosen spiritual entrepreneurships, namely Polmakmoen Guesthouse and the pilgrimage ‘The Seven Coffee Stops’ in Tana municipality in Finnmark, northern Norway. The article’s aim is to examine how values central within New Age here emerge as key terms in the production of unique experiences.