The Pilgrimage
Paulo Coelho, 1987
Paulo has his sword taken away at the very moment he reaches for the reward. To get it back, he walks around seven hundred kilometres along the ancient pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela. His guide Petrus teaches him simple exercises, the fight for a dream, and a love that is stronger than fear. This is a book about how the goal finds the one who has learned to walk.
Who it is for
For people who hurry so hard toward a goal that they have stopped noticing the road, and for people with a dream put off until later.
To teach is to show: “This is possible.” To learn is to make it possible for yourself.
The Sword Taken Away at the Last Second
Paulo is thirty-eight. He has been through many trials, and today he awaits his final initiation into the RAM order. He has already buried his old sword in the ground. Now his master must hand him a new one, a sign that the student is ready. Paulo stretches out his hand, and the master steps on his fingers.
The master explains: you should have given up the sword. Then Paulo would have shown that his heart was pure, and the sword would have become his. But he reached for it greedily, and now he will have to search for it again. The Tradition's path is not for a few chosen ones; it is for everyone. And the power Paulo is so proud of is worth nothing, because it has been given to everyone.
On the master's instruction, Paulo's wife took the sword to Spain and left it at an agreed place. To find it, Paulo must walk around seven hundred kilometres along the Camino de Santiago, the ancient road that every pilgrim walks. It leads from the French town of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, where, according to legend, the apostle James is buried. For seven months Paulo delays, and only then sets off. On the road a guide will meet him who calls himself Petrus.
Coelho walked this road himself in 1986, and a year later he described it in The Pilgrimage. According to the publisher, it was this book that led Coelho to The Alchemist. Ahead are Petrus's simple exercises, a conversation about how dreams die, a fight with a black dog, and the answer to the question of where the sword is. The answer will turn out to be nothing like the one Paulo expects.
A Person on the Road Is Born Again
Petrus turns out to be an Italian, also a member of the order. For the first days they walk through the Pyrenees, and one evening he teaches Paulo the first exercise of the order. It is called “Seed”.
Kneel down and sit back on your heels. Lean forward so that your head touches your knees, and stretch your arms back along your body. You will take the pose of a child who is not yet born. Breathe calmly and deeply, and imagine yourself a seed in dark soil. Then the seed begins to sprout, and together with the shoot you slowly straighten and stretch upward, toward the sun, until you become enormous. Petrus asks you to repeat this for seven days in a row, and each time to live through, in a new way, your first meeting with the world.
Why should an adult picture himself as a seed? Petrus explains through the road itself. Travelling, a person goes through a second birth without noticing it. Everything around is new, so he looks around more attentively. He accepts other people's help more easily and values small signs of kindness. And because everything is new to him, he sees beauty and rejoices simply to be alive.
Remember your first day in a foreign city. You do not know where to buy bread or how to ask the way, yet you remember every street and every face. A month later the same city is no longer visible: your eyes have grown used to it. The exercise “Seed” brings back that first morning, in the place where you have long stopped noticing anything.
Paulo does it evening after evening, and he still does not grasp the main thing. He thinks about the sword, while Petrus in these days is already teaching him something quite different. What exactly Petrus was doing, Paulo learns a little later, and it will be an unpleasant discovery for him.
About the author
Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian writer and the author of The Alchemist. In The Pilgrimage he described his own pilgrimage of 1986, and a year later he published The Alchemist.
All books by this author: Paulo Coelho
Terms from the book
- James
- Initiation
- RAM: A small mystical order to which Coelho says he belongs in the book. The sign of its rank is the sword.
- Camino de Santiago: The Way of Saint James, an ancient pilgrim road through northern Spain to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. People have walked it since the Middle Ages.
- Pilgrim: A person who goes to a holy place, often on foot, out of faith, a vow or an inner change.
- Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port: A small town in south-western France at the foot of the Pyrenees. The French route of the Camino de Santiago begins here, and Paulo sets out from here.
- Santiago de Compostela: A city in north-west Spain where, according to legend, the apostle James is buried. The end point of the pilgrims' road.
- Petrus: Paulo's guide on the road, an Italian and a member of the same order. Petrus is the nickname under which he travels with Paulo.
- Pyrenees: Mountains on the border of France and Spain. Paulo and Petrus spend the first days of the road in them.
- Emissary: In the book, a helper spirit that every person has: a strength to lean on in earthly matters. It is an image from the book, not a religious teaching.
- Agape: The Greek word for the highest, all-embracing love. In the Christian tradition it names God's love for people, people's love for God, and love for one another.
- Eros: The Greek word for passionate love, the attraction to another person.
- Philia: The Greek word for friendship love, the attachment between people who are close.
- Legion: The name of an unclean spirit in the Gospels. Asked by Jesus, he answers that his name is Legion, because there are many of them. This is the name Petrus gives to the dog that pursues Paulo.
- Galicia: A region in north-west Spain. Santiago de Compostela lies in it, on the last stretch of the road.
- El Cebrero: A mountain village at the entrance to Galicia, one of the highest points of the Camino. The English edition of the book uses the name El Cebrero.
- Chapel: A small church building for prayer, usually without a permanent parish.
All terms
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