
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


This episode is special because all three of us have personal experience -- in Santa Fe, the Black Rock Desert, or Lewes, England -- watching giant effigies burn down in a symbolic cleansing ritual reputed to have dark, murderous roots. Yet this ubiquitous form of expression is also clever, satirical, and a way to showcase public art and bring a community together. From Wicker Man to Zozobra, what kind of strangeness have humans conjured up, only to burn down?
By Ben Radford, Celestia Ward and Pascual Romero4.8
9191 ratings
This episode is special because all three of us have personal experience -- in Santa Fe, the Black Rock Desert, or Lewes, England -- watching giant effigies burn down in a symbolic cleansing ritual reputed to have dark, murderous roots. Yet this ubiquitous form of expression is also clever, satirical, and a way to showcase public art and bring a community together. From Wicker Man to Zozobra, what kind of strangeness have humans conjured up, only to burn down?

4,037 Listeners

2,663 Listeners

113 Listeners

1,901 Listeners

3,205 Listeners

429 Listeners

945 Listeners

351 Listeners

964 Listeners

2,856 Listeners

1,118 Listeners

2,597 Listeners

1,985 Listeners

2,656 Listeners

759 Listeners