Sometime it really pays off to be a perpetual student of religion and the occult. Travel, especially, can be unexpectedly transfigured if you equip yourself with a well-honed sacred radar, especially one tuned to animist and esoteric frequencies. With this sort of spirit-tech in hand, or in mind, even banal and hyper-touristy environments can pack a spectral punch.
[… T]he sacred is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve also had convulsive epiphanies at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, the gritty bare-bones ruins of Eleusis, and a James Turrell Skyspace in Seattle. There is a lesson in this for the sacred tourist: the entire earth is filled with portals.