The product of her subsequent ethnographic study of the festival is Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man, out recently from the University of California Press. Based mainly on structured interviews and informal conversations with festival participants—as well as surveys of more than 300 people who participate in the Nevada festival or one of several regional spin-offs—the book makes the case that spiritual imagery, thinking, and ritual abound at Burning Man, even if the organizers and most participants soundly reject any effort to tie the event to any sort of religion. Yes, some people come to Burning Man just to hit wild parties or dance to internationally known electronic and techno music acts. But, Gilmore notes, Black Rock City is also a place where people encounter crosses, labyrinths, Buddhas, and voodoo imagery, stumble upon tents devoted to meditation, yoga, or discussions of life’s great mysteries, and often find themselves undergoing profound personal transformation. The event is capped, on its closing night, with the solemn burning of a carefully sculpted temple on which many have affixed or inscribed tributes to lost loved ones. (via The Burning Man Festival as Modern Desert Pilgrimage - PageView - The Chronicle of Higher Education)
This is interesting because…
