Burning Man

An Unintended Religious Movement

By Adam Kennedy

Introduction:
Burning Man, and other festivals like it, are emerging as a new global religious
movement that seeks to undo the stifling nature of culturally accepted norms by instituting art,
freedom of expression, and liberation of sexuality, as the main tenets of their religious creed.
This movement serves to combat the social alienation that the participants feel exists as a result
of the dominator hierarchy and the prevailing socio-economic system. This alienation, which is
clearly spelled out in Karl Marxs writings on social utopia, is a direct result of a modern rational
worldview taken to its extreme. The capitalist system that is supported by the very framework of
this rational perspective is a structure that these burners feel they have, for lack of a better
word, been burned by, and goes counter to the very nature of creativity and self-expression, on
which these participants base their faith. Burning Man, its founders, followers, and allies, are
attempting to subvert this alienation by building a tribal community whose foundations precede
the modern perspectives of capitalism and ruling class systems, essentially creating the new out
of the old.
According to Marxist ideology, the summum bonum of the liberation from this alienation
is the annihilation of religion, as well as, other systems of control. This begs the question, is
Burning Man just another religious movement that seeks to escape the reality of class structure,
or because of its propensity for liberating individuals from the more oppressive ideals of
contemporary society, does it actually personify Marxs idea of no religion, thereby constituting
a religionless religion? In this paper I will examine Burning Man as a microcosm that
exemplifies, even temporarily, the idea of Marxs utopian vision, and prove that it does in fact fit
the criteria that Marx spells out.

Burning Man is a weeklong festival held in the Black Rock desert in northern Nevada.
This festival takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy, which is aptly
called, The Man. Burning Man began in 1986 at a Summer solstice ceremony where Larry
Harvey, the events founder, burned an 8-foot wooden statue as a spontaneous act of radical selfexpression. This first event, which was held on Baker Beach in San Francisco, California, had
about 20 people in attendance. Since its inception the festival has grown from those few friends
on the beach to over 50,000 yearly participants. The festival as it stands today is a gathering
where artists, musicians and other creative individuals can gather and share their love of
creativity, self-expression, and community.
What began as a yearly art festival quickly turned into a metaphor for social evolution.
This temporary city in the desert was emerging as a community of like-minded individuals who
were experiencing for themselves massive transformative benefits.
It is not without significance that deserts have a long history as loci of
transformative possibilities from Moses to Mohammed and from Christ to
Carlos Castaneda and Burning Man plays to these ideational sensibilities.
Participants today often speak of being on the playa in a way that references
this sense of environmental and cognitive otherness, helping to set the stage for
transformative experiences (Gilmore 20)
As Burning Man gained more popularity, it turned into a rite of passage for many spiritual
seekers who had heard about the life changing effects that this event engendered. It wasnt long
before the festival in the desert had earned a place in the heart of its participants and the city of
the Burning Man became elevated to the status of spiritual pilgrimage. Contemporarily, the
Burning Man phenomenon has garnered a following that is religious in nature. While Burning
Man may not have originally intended to be a religious event; the festival itself, and the people
connected to it, have formed a new religious movement that has grown and flourished in the

most organic of ways. In many ways this movement represents a valued expression of Marxist
philosophy.
Karl Marx defines religion as, an outward expression of an inner state of being, and a
reflection of external processes that impact a person. Religion is both a component of social
division and an individual internal state. Furthermore, Religion is the sigh of the oppressed
creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the
opium of the people. (Pals 134) According to Marxist theory religion exists as a structure, or
rather superstructure, put into place by societal elites whose only aim is to keep the working
class, who Marx terms the base, in line so that the machinery of capitalism can continue to run
smoothly, thereby perpetuating the system. In Marxs opinion, if and when the people realized
they were being oppressed, they would immediately recognize their inherent alienation, and
create a revolution to overthrow the ruling class system. This equalizing of power would then, in
Marxs opinion, cause the now equal class to cease their work, shun their religious beliefs, and
society would become a Utopia. In short, the alienation that is felt by the working class is a direct
result of the systems of control put into place by the ruling classes, and religion is one of those
major systems.
A Religionless Religion
Burning Man, with its location in the barren desert, and its propensity for transforming
the lives of the participants involved, has many parallels with ancient religious rituals and
iconography. The burning of a wooden effigy in festivals can be traced back to ancient Scottish
practices, Druid ceremonies, and many other early European observances. (Gilmore 23) There
are also the elements of tribal dance, shamanic ceremony, artistic expression, and other-

worldliness. Along with these aspects, Larry Harvey founder of Burning Man has written and
enacted a set of guidelines known as the Ten Principles.
These principles were crafted, not as a dictate of how people should be and act, but as a
reflection of the community's ethos and culture as it had organically developed since the event's
inception. (Harvey, Web) The Ten Principles are as follows: Radical Inclusion, Gifting,
Decommodification, Radical Self-Reliance, Radical Self-Expression, Communal Effort, Civic
Responsibility, Leaving No Trace, Participation, and Immediacy. (Harvey, Web) Taken all
together, these components fit together and resemble the ancient earth worshipping religions of
early tribal cultures, even though the leadership of Burning Man claims that it has no religious
affiliation.
Despite its clear symbolic references to ancient transformative rites, the festival
remains explicitly unaffiliated with any religious movement. Instead, both
participants and organizers consistently reject any one fixed meaning for the
event, locating it outside the realm of doctrine and dogma. But these refusals of
canonical significance notwithstanding, neither the Burning Man festival nor the
effigy for which it is named emerged out of a vacuum. The Man conveys allusions
to a wide range of mythological and prehistoric rites of sacrifice and regeneration
that can be traced to ancient sacrificial bonfires, carnivals, festivals, and other
similar cultural acts. (Gilmore 22)
It is arguable in this context that Burning Man has more than enough components to
make it a bonafide religious movement. This fits directly with Marxs definition of
religion that he puts forth; however, it is seemingly counter to the notion of the Burning
Man experience itself. The event is designed specifically to cause the attendee to question
the very societal structure that he or she has known their entire life by forcing them to
apply their own meanings to the event as a whole. Furthermore, the Ten Principles set
forth are, not a dictate of how one should act, making them less like commandments
and more like suggestions of how to live a better life. So, instead of an opiate of the

masses, Burning Man seems to be more like a kick to the face that uncovers the everpresent deficiencies in the culture as a whole.
Feelin The Burn
The crossroads where Burning Man exists is a complex phenomenon because it is here
explicated as a religious movement, whose sole purpose is the emancipation of the intransigent
values that are maintained and perpetuated by the superstructure, of which religion is a part. This
event is unique, in that, while the owners of Burning Man are in the business of making money,
they are also, as discussed previously, charged with the monumental Marxian task of waking
people to their oppression and providing them with an alternative. This task is implicit in the
very burning of the man, which at first glance would seem to be a metaphor for the system
itself, but as we learn,
The Burning Man is famous for our never having attributed meaning to him, and
thats done on purpose. He is a blank. His face is literally a blank shoji-like
screen, and the idea, of course, is that you have to project your own meaning onto
him. Youre responsible for the spectacle. With the Man remaining a blank canvas
an open signifier devoid of explicit or fixed meaning the amorphous image
continues to be available for multiple interpretations, as individuals are invited to
transfer their own impressions and feelings onto it. (Gilmore 19)
However, while the man turns to ash in the middle of the city, and as individual meanings are
duly applied to the phenomenon, all around the perimeter of the city art is being created,
displayed, and destroyed. Music is performed loudly and the masses are all in rhythmic unity.
The community as a whole is thriving, and people are freely expressing themselves in anyway
they choose. This succinct metaphor, no matter what meaning is attributed, is no doubt powerful
and sustaining and accounts for Burning Mans success for the last three and a half decades.
The Desert Of The Real

Merriam Webster defines utopia as, an imaginary place in which the government, laws,
and social conditions are perfect. (Webster, Web) In Marxs explication of the social structure,
he stated, in essence, that the full emancipation of the human condition would be fully realized
once the masses became aware of their oppression. The result, in Marxs view, would be a
realized utopian society wherein the economic, political, and social stratifications that were and
still are current in society would be equalized, and religion would be seen as the mechanism of
control, which he so fervently believed it to be. As history has shown however, there were flaws
in his theory that kept his utopian vision from being realized, namely that it takes away human
agency, because the communal goals are always placed above the individual.
There are several significant elements in the Burning Man festival that would suggest that
it might have found a way around this particular pitfall, and thus fit into Marxs category of
utopian society. The event is setup in a way that incorporates individual and communal values.
It is a participation-only week of pandemonium that eschews the stage and
spectator arrangement more common in other arts and music arenas. Every
attendee is invited to create the art, the audio, the experience they desire. The
result is a non-stop city of sights and sounds where anything goes, where there is
something for everyoneeveryone, that is, who seeks something different from
that served up by the strip mall and pop radio standard. (Prenatt 10)
Beyond this integrated social structure that has developed organically from the outset, there is
also the very important economic aspect, which was one of Marxs main requirements of his
utopic vision.
The attendees are expected to live as participants of a full-participation gift
culture in which no money is exchanged and all members are present in order to
provide gifts and services to each other and to live as their most outgoing,
creative, artistic selves. (Prenatt 10)
With no money changing hands throughout the entire week, and everyone relying on each other
for all of their survival and sustainable requirements, the need for a capitalist economic model is

done away with, and replaced instead with a full-participatory gift economy that levels the
playing field and results in an egalitarian community.
One of the defining characteristics of a utopia is that it is an imaginary place, and thereby
could never exist in the real world. However, Burning Man at least temporarily does exist and
still meets the requirements of the no place of utopia. There is another term known as
Heterotopia coined by the French philosopher Michel Foucault that could help shed light on this
conundrum.
There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization places that do
exist and that are formed in the very founding of societywhich are something
like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all
the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously
represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places,
even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. (Foucault 24)
Heterotopias are "other spaces", which people may inhabit at particular times, or as Foucault
argues in the modern era, inhabit as a result of being regarded as deviant. (Foucault 24) A
Heterotopia can also be a single real place that juxtaposes several spaces; (the example that
Foucault gives here is a garden, because it is a real space meant to be a microcosm of different
environments with plants from around the world.) In this case, Burning Man fits into the
category of heterotopia because it is an inverted vision of society, that exists in time and space,
albeit temporarily, and is a single real space that does indeed act as a global microcosm.
Burned By Burners
One would think that a utopian society would be the sort that everyone would want to
join and be a part of. However, there are some out there who find issue with Burning Man, and
are very vocal about the event and the problems they feel it causes. The utopia of Burning Man is

what pop psychology calls a "positive environment," promoting and affirming the members' bad
habits. (Skinner, Web) These bad habits can include anything from drug use, to promiscuous sex,
to bike theft. There are also many complaints from religious organizations about the corruption
of morals by those who would rather live a debaucherous lifestyle, rather than abide by the
generally accepted norms of right and wrong.
There is also the issue of the post-modern identity crisis. The idea that you can reinvent
yourself at will is a post-modern notion, and the very foundation of Burning Man proceeds from
the assumption that you were socially constructed to begin with. Any personal characteristic
sexual bent, character trait, or religious beliefis only a choice away from being something
totally different. (Skinner) This kind of radical reinvention, in the critics opinion, leads to
rampant narcissism. The invented identity is not really dealt with or changed; the individual
simply runs away from his or her problems rather than dealing with them head on like a mature
adult.
The identity problem of these young rebels is the narcissism of small
cosmetic differences. What the oh-so-hip R.U. Sirius calls "postpolitical
tribalization" is actually the superficial vanity of tiny social cliques who fear that,
without visible markers, strangers might mistake them for another equally selfabsorbed clique. (Skinner, Web)
Conclusion
The radical social experiment known as Burning Man has been touted as an effective
method of social evolution by the majority of the participants that have attended the event. Some,
if not most, of these attendees have made this spiritual pilgrimage a number of times, and truly
feel that it continues to transform their mundane existence. What began as an attempt at radical
expression by one man has now evolved into a global and cultural phenomenon with far reaching
religious, social, philosophical, economic, and artistic implications. This zone of liberation in the

desert, with its utopian and heterotopian aspects, speaks to the oppressed creatures sighs of
discontent. while they inhabit the city it allows them to decide for themselves their identity,
purpose, and direction in life. While the party rages they are also reminded that there are
principles of living that contemporary society may have forgotten, and gently nudges them to
remember what life is all about.
If, for a moment, we suspend our judgment about the possible problems that can, and
often do go wrong within a temporary city of 50,000 screaming participants - who set things on
fire - we can peer under the surface of this event and see a larger force at work. We can see,
clearly embedded in the foundations of Burning Man, the resurgence of the real reason that no
human being can exist in a vacuum - namely community. This temporary community stands as a
respite to the broken society that these participants have been forced to endure. Once inside the
sacred city walls of this otherworldly festival, identities become more fluid and malleable, and
the seekers who have journeyed here find something that is unique, utterly life affirming, and
transformative. Burning Man is a religious movement, but it is an evolved sort of occasion that
resists the dogmatic and stringent rules that beguile traditional religious organizations. In the end,
this festival is as close to a utopia as the human race will ever be able to engender, and perhaps if
the festival continues to be a success, it could serve as an example for future generations and
become the norm, thereby creating a better model of religion.

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