This podcast is part one of a discussion about the significance and spiritual implications of an annual phenomena known as the Burning Man Festival. 

Burning Man Festival is a huge outdoor event that began in 1986 that now attracts tens of thousands of participants, known as "Burners," who gather to experience everything from decadence, drugs and promiscuity to art, music, and spiritual transformation.

Is this a New Religion? It may be a mistake to characterize the festival as merely an opportunity for debauchery or an excuse to throw the ultimate wild party to end the summer. In some ways, Burning Man has begun to function as both a parody of religion as well as a surrogate for traditional religion.

Lee Gilmore, author of Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man, explained, that "the biggest [misconceptions] is to brand Burning Man as nothing more than a giant party rife with intoxicants, nudity, and bald hedonism." While acknowledging all those practices are part of the festival, they are not central to the ultimate experience that is at the very least "spiritual" if not a "semi-religious cultural happening."*

Listen in as Brady Blevins, Senior Apologist at Watchman Fellowship and Steve Matthews, author of our 4-page Profile on Burning Man, discuss some of the social, cultural and spiritual questions raised by Burning Man and other transformational festivals.

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* Lee Gilmore, "Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?" Religion Dispatches, June 16, 2010, http://religiondispatches.org/burning-man- religious-event-or-sheer-hedonism/

Photo Credit: NK Guy, www.dezeen.com