Encounters in the Desert
Report on attending Burning Man 2025, our 2nd time at the event
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you." ~Acts 17:22-23
The current state of things
We left August 19th, and arrived home on September 6. That’s 19 days. Then I had about 12 hours to unpack, re-pack, and leave again for a conference on ministry security in Missouri. For this update, I want to focus on our time at Burning Man.
Before I begin, however, I will mention the Charlie Kirk assassination. On Wednesday morning during our security conference, we woke up to news that Russia had sent 19 drones into Polish airspace as a deliberate escalation, and that Israel had bombed a residential area in Qatar, a neutral country. Then later in the day, the news came out about the Charlie Kirk shooting.
As Neil Howe discusses so well in his book, this Fourth Turning period is the time in which there is tremendous upheaval in the institutions that we have trusted in to be unchangeable over the last 80 years. During the last major crisis (the Great Depression), a political populist named Huey Long, who was a likely rival to Franklin Roosevelt, was assassinated in 1935. At the end of that decade, World War 2 broke out. In Adolph Hitler’s speech to the workers of Berlin in 1940, he said, “We are involved in a conflict in which more than the victory of only one country or the other is at stake; it is rather a war of two opposing worlds.” World War 2 followed shortly afterwards.
I bring out these 2 historical incidents in order to recognize the pattern of challenges that we face as we go through the crisis. It does not diminish the severity of those events, nor does it reduce the tragedy of a young man having his life taken from him, leaving 2 young children without a father, all because he had the courage to speak what he believed, whether or not one agrees with his beliefs. It has happened on both sides of the political spectrum. Yet it highlights that the turmoil we are going through as a nation and in the world is nowhere close to being resolved. Because of social media, people are able to choose their own narrative of what they want to believe, and the algorithms will reinforce it, exacerbating extreme opinions, hence the shooting. We do not yet know how all this will end. Yet there is one thing we do know – the only way to get past this crisis period is to go through it. We will be vigilant and watchful over the coming weeks and months ahead.
Burning Man
Now, finally after nearly a month of travel, I am home. This is the beginning of my reflection on the events of Burning Man 2025.
Burning Man is this mix of World Economic Forum ideology, combined with a giant Mardi-Gras-like party, combined with the Woodstock-like idea of all the world coming together in peace, love, and unity. Embedded underneath is this searching for spirituality – “spirituality without religion,” as the proponents of Burning Man like to claim.
Regarding the achievement, it is impossible not to marvel at what people are able to create out there in the desert. It is an incredibly harsh environment; yet, people are able to come together to build a city, and live in it for 1 week every year. There are many representations of a wide variety of art. Elaborate camp pavilions are built, where lectures are given and discussions are had on world-changing ideas. Parties go on all night every night, as festival goers revel in the idea of connecting with the energy and flow of the human spirit. In the midst of it all, people must work together to survive because of the harsh environment. The entire event is put together by volunteers. One cannot help but be amazed at the level of human ingenuity necessary to pull off the event successfully.
The big mistake would be to marvel at all of this and fail to recognize that this great level of human ingenuity and creativity is a reflection of how we are made in the image of our Creator. That is the true reason why human beings are able to create, innovate, and figure out how to survive. Standing in opposition to this truth, there is a philosophy embedded in the culture of Burning Man that says the reason we as humans are able to do this is because we are so great in and of ourselves. Our evolution that put us on the path to greatness is assumed to be partly a result of accidents, but also a result of many of our own choices. Because of this, the choice lies before us to choose the next great leap in human evolution, which is the basis on which we will survive as a species in the universe. Intrinsic to this philosophy is the idea that God is not necessary, or perhaps that God and creation are one and the same, because it is up to us to save ourselves.
It is unfortunate that our minds so easily drift away from God and give credit to ourselves for things that we really don’t deserve credit for. It is also only at times of great crisis, like a pandemic, worldwide depression, or war, that we tend to recognize that we are in fact very dependent beings.
So why do people come to Burning Man? Mostly they come because they are searching for something. They may or may not know what they are searching for. Those who are searching for a big party, hedonistic pleasures, drugs, sex, etc., will no doubt find what they are looking for. Those who are searching for something else may get caught up in the hedonistic pleasures and party atmosphere which end up distracting them from their true search. Others don’t let themselves get distracted by all those things, for they know that they are searching for some sort of spiritual enlightenment.
It is necessary to briefly discuss the broad historical context in order to frame this in the right way. When the world moved to a modernistic, materialistic framework as the basis of knowledge, it gave us the industrial revolution and great advances in medicine, bringing millions out of poverty. At the same time, it gave us 2 world wars in which we slaughtered each other on an industrial scale. It also gave us Marxism, an ideology that is singularly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of innocents around the world for the past 150 years. It took away meaning, and told us that human beings are only a product of naturalistic processes. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the youth generation that was coming of age said “Enough,” and rejected modernism for post-modernism. However, post-modernism is all questions and no answers, resulting in a short lived narrative compared to other philosophies. As post-modernism has faded away in recent years, humanity’s search for meaning has taken a new turn. It is seeking out a new spirituality, without really understanding what that is or where it comes from. In the emergence of the new worldview, there is resistance to finding meaning in Christianity, as the common narrative says that Christianity is just a set of rules to take advantage of you. The result is that people search for meaning and spirituality somewhere else.
This is where Burning Man enters the picture. Burning Man, and the “re-enchantment” worldview that it represents, says that you can have spirituality either without religion, or without God, or perhaps by believing that God and creation are the same thing. It looks to either the ancient pagan past before Christianity, or to Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, or other monistic belief systems. In many cases there is a blend of multiple varieties of all of these in the mind of the participant.
For those seeking spiritual enlightenment at Burning Man, there are basically 3 categories. There are those who really believe they find it, through hearing the doctrine at workshops, meditation, psychedelic drugs, the music, getting into the energy and flow of the event, and/or feeling like they connect with the future of humanity. Then there are those who see all of those things, and even though they don’t actually feel the connection, they convince themselves that they do. The ideas presented and acted out on the playa are very powerful and enticing. After being inundated with sensory overload for 9 days straight, the people in this group convince themselves that they found the answer, and then commit themselves to the cause, even though deep down they don’t actually feel it. The 3rd category are those who see all the enticements, and try and get involved and connect to the idea, but are honest with themselves in that they don’t connect, can’t feel it, and don’t believe it. These are the ones who become disillusioned with the entire construct.
Some things we observed
What is an example of how this plays out in someone’s experience? It would take several pages to describe it all, so I will limit it to a brief explanation. Let’s take the example of the art at The Man, i.e. the effigy at the center of Black Rock City that is burned at the end of the event. Underneath the platform where the effigy stands, there were multiple stations where participants could go and read the art, participate in an activity, and try and feel a connection to the future. One station was called the “regen-era”, and had a placard in the middle of several art pieces that said this:
“In the story of the regen-era, the sages speak of a time on this earth when people were disillusioned. The race for progress had perpetuated a mechanistic culture of extraction – leaving people disconnected from each other and nature.
But the poetry of regen-era’s living presence brought hope into our world with the revelation that we are not trapped in the dance towards utopia or oblivion – but rather, there is another path, illuminated through the collective realization that we have always been interdependent and interconnected and together we can evolve into a life affirming society.”
So people stand there, read the philosophy, and look at the art. The implication is not just for the art in that one station under The Man, but for all the art out there on the playa. This gets them in the mood of doing more than just admiring the art on the playa, but of actually participating with it.
Next to the “regen-era” was a wooden image of the famous Asian good luck cat, called the Maneki-neko (招き猫), which is Japanese for “beckoning cat.” (We frequently saw small versions of these all over the place when we lived in the Philippines, but this one was very large and made of wood.) In front of it was a lever, and an attendant, possibly the artist, was calling people to pull the lever back and forth in order to unlock some fortune that was in a box stored under the cat. When a participant would maneuver the lever to the degree that she was satisfied, she would indicate that she had connected with something higher, like a higher power, or perhaps a muse of some sort, and would make loud proclamation of good fortune for the participant. Then she would follow by giving the participant a small box which contained the fortune. People were having quite a bit of fun over this.
Interspersed with all of this activity are the options of nudity (a very small number of people actually go nude, but there are enough that you notice them), and participating in a wide variety of drugs. Many participants at Burning Man, as well as many of those who set it up, think of it as a “Temporary Autonomous Zone,” or TAZ. Even though the reality is that the laws of the United States do apply there, people like to imagine that because they are in a TAZ, they can pick and choose which laws they want to abide by. So even though the laws do apply, it would be impossible to enforce decency laws and make everyone wear clothes there.
In the same way, laws on the use of controlled substances may apply, but would be impossible to enforce there. We could smell marijuana practically everywhere the entire time, and we heard lots of people talking about using drugs, whether they were drugs like cocaine or psychedelic drugs like mushrooms. Given that we were on federal land, federal laws apply, which means that using or possessing class 1 substances is against the law. However, because enforcing controlled substance laws is a relative impossibility at the event, law enforcement overlooks these offenses. So the result is that those who believe they are in a TAZ while at Burning Man are kind of right, for all practical purposes.
What law enforcement doesn’t want to let go, however, is serious criminal activity. At Burning Man this year there was a murder, which I believe was a first for the event in its history. People have died because of accidents or drug overdoses there in the past, but as far as we know, this is the first time there has been an actual murder. From what we have heard, this is an ongoing investigation. I expect that it will never be solved. After all, the crime scene today is just a spot of sand in the desert, and who knows where the perpetrator could have fled to. Not only that, very little is known about the victim or why he was murdered, except for the fact that he was a Russian national.
Some of our activities
While at the event, we would go out to participate in as much as we could (but of course maintaining our spiritual purity without compromise). On Thursday evening I went down to the Earth Guardians camp to observe a Native American dance. It was hot, and I was tired while waiting for the event. I sat in the only chair available and began talking to the lady sitting next to me. We talked about what the event was like, how we were enjoying it, and chatted about some of the things we were seeing. Then she motioned to me that her companions were her family – a sister with the sister’s husband and their child. They were originally from a Latin American country, but were now American citizens and had lived in the USA for a couple of decades. She asked who I was there with, and I told her I was there with Ginny and several other friends.
The conversation then turned to who we might want to bring with us to Burning Man. I mentioned that while there were people I would enjoy attending the event with, there were others that I believed would not do well at the event. This was because I said that I know people who would go there looking for an answer, and due to the sensory overload, would likely convince themselves that they found the answer at the event, even though that is not really the answer.
To this she asked me, “What is the answer?” I honestly did not expect this question. We were just talking and sharing our thoughts.
So I told her. “Jesus. Jesus is the answer.”
She looked at me with a questioning look, clearly wanting more of an explanation. I continued, “He is life. He is love. He connects us to God. He is the source of all that is good. He gives us peace. He rose from the dead. He is the answer.”
At that point, the native dance began, and our conversation was cut off, but there was no hostility in her response. This is only one example of many conversations that went the same direction. People wanted to know why we were there, and we wanted to know why they were there. This is just part of the culture of meeting people. They also wanted to know if there is an alternative to the doctrine and dogma that drives the event. We would give them that, when they asked. We did not have to hand out tracts. We did not have to stand somewhere on a platform preaching sin and repentance. We did not have to debate anything with anyone. We do not have to claim x number of salvations. We did not have to try and “take over” the temple area in some kind of spiritual power play (as we heard reported that some Christians were doing). God was at work, and we wanted to be available for Him to work through us. This mostly happened through normal conversations. The normal conversations, however, often went very deep.
The key element is that the spirituality people are searching for can only be found through Christ.
A miraculous encounter
One other story to relate. On Thursday morning, our ministry partner, Carl Teichrib, was standing outside his tent getting ready to make coffee. There was a couple walking by, looking at their phone. As they passed by our camp, they stopped, looked at Carl, and he looked back. Then they said, “Carl?”
It turns out this was a couple that had been searching for an alternative understanding to the worldview that is presented by the Burning Man. They would likely fall within that 3rd category of descriptions I noted above. While they had been talking together earlier, they had found the youtube interview of Carl by Melissa Dougherty about Burning Man, which had been released just a couple of weeks before we all went to the event. They had decided they wanted to find Carl, but had no idea where to look. As it turned out, they were camped just about 300 feet from where we were, and just happened to be walking by in the morning, watching his video interview, when Carl was standing outside his tent!
You have to understand that it is exceedingly rare to find people you are looking for at Burning Man unless you have their contact information and know where they might be camping. So this is way more than a coincidence.
I came out of my trailer that morning and found Carl sitting there under our camp canopy talking with this couple. As I joined in the conversation, we learned their story. We invited them to the workshop that we were going to be holding the next day, which we called “Stories of the Supernatural.”
In my next post I will go into what happened the next day, along with a recording of our conversation at the workshop we held. I can confidently say that that this couple, along with 2 others, were deeply touched, not by the Burning Man event, but by the connection that God orchestrated between us and them at our camp. The workshop discussion on the supernatural was phenomenal. And as far as our new friends, we are all staying in contact.
There is so much more to tell. Over the next few posts, I want to share about some of the seminars we attended, their connection to world events, and some changes in ministry for us moving forward. Even though the world is going through incredible turmoil right now, and we are experiencing it acutely in our own country, God is on the throne and we will make it through. I have great confidence in this.
Serving Him,
George
Be sure and check out our new ministry website (still being worked on, but there is enough on there to explain how the Lord is directing us):
Also check out our ministry partner Carl Teichrib’s substack here:
More art pieces at Burning Man
I really enjoyed listening to your report. I prefer to listen so I can do two things at once. 🤓