Beyond Belief: the cults of Burning Wo/Man by Erik Davis

Beyond Belief
The Cults of Burning Man


This piece appeared in AfterBurn: Reflections on Burning Man, edited by Lee Gilmore and Mark Van Proyen (University of New Mexico, 2005). An earlier version appeared as a self-produced chapbook given away at Burning Man 2003.


For without corruption, there can no Generation consist.
—Corpus Hermeticum

I tell you: one must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star!
—Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"


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Black Rock cliché has that you can't say anything very penetrating about Burning Man because its diversity and contradictions undermine any generalizations you might be tempted to make. This truism is solid enough, and should be mulled over by any Burner foolish enough, like me, to venture into a written analysis of the yearly festival. Yet behind this notion of impossible generalizations lurks a higher and more important injunction: to keep the event free from the prison of interpretation and explanation, from the insidious net of Meaning. This refusal is prophylactic. By setting our bullshit detectors on high alert, Burners ward off pretension, self-consciousness, and all of the pre-packaged "experiences" that have come to define late capitalist subjectivity. This tactic also helps sustain the event's tribal vibe. On the playa, we are united in our evasion of significance.

Thus it is with some trepidation that I turn to one of the more vexing questions that one might ask about Burning Man: can or should we speak of the event as a sacred gathering? Even if we acknowledge the vagueness of terms like sacred, spiritual, and religious, it is still safe to say that, from the outside at least, Burning Man comes off as exceptionally profane. Ironic and blasphemous, intoxicated and lewd, Burning Man's ADD theater of the absurd might even be said to embody the slap-happy nihilism of postmodern culture itself. Moreover, many Burners would agree with this characterization. According to my own anecdotal inquiries and observations, a good portion of committed attendees would deny that spirituality or sacred emotions have any bearing on their rollicking good times.