This Secret Pilgrimage.

If we were to visit Oxford, Cambridge or the City we would have great difficulty in driving safely. This is because we would find tourists wandering about in a kind of trance state, photographing everything but seemingly unaware of their immediate surroundings.

Places such as this induce trance in recent visitors and creativity in those who stay longer. Wherever we see beauty we find genius and wherever we find genius we see beauty.

I have just returned to Oxford myself and feel strangely changed by the experience. A tourist visits a place to escape from his troubles for a while a pilgrim hopes to return a different person. This makes me a pilgrim without knowing it- and it makes all the other tourists pilgrims too.

We may track the rise and fall of nations by counting pilgrims. There were a fair number of North Americans seeking a re connection with their past but these were outnumbered by central Europeans (mostly Polish) who come to the UK to work but who still have an explorers curiosity. Most noticeable of all were the Chinese. I predict a great future for all these countries.

#londongentlemanrevival #flaneurism #psychogeography #flaneur #oxford

A photo posted by Richard Ford (@richard.ford) on Sep 25, 2016 at 2:00am PDT

This secret pilgrimage has been going on for centuries so we cannot credit it to clever marketing or the Morse TV show.

It points to something real, thatt has no name but whatever it is can make or break empires. The Soviet Union produced nothing of the same power and neither did the Cultural Revolution of China. Both are now gone.