its own organic forms” (ibid.:183). Exactly the same is true of the burning of the
Man.
Describing the Australian post-rave doof phenomenon, Tramacchi (2000: 207,
210) regards fire, music, nature, and a mystical worldview to be central:
Fire provides an appropriate symbol for the psychedelic movement:
powerfully transformative, and most beautiful and useful as a tool when it is
handled with care and respect. The music and the cycles of fire-twirling seem
to draw out the moments of sunrise, golden beams dragging their way
through the branches of the rainforest trees. The music complemented the
sense of a single sacred moment being replayed again and again, eternity on
display.
(Tramacchi 2000:207)All of these events—doofs, Neo-Pagan fire festivals, Burning Man’s central burn—
proceed in a spontaneous manner. “Emerging structures and patterns are unplanned
and unspoken, taking shape in the interplay of drums and movement” (Pike 2001:
183). It is in this sense that drum and dance become recognized at Neo-Pagan
events, as they are at raves, as the heart of these gatherings. The ritual fire, like the
secret dance floor, is a place to transport participants to a higher state of
consciousness, a place that is particularly sacred, a place where self-transformation
can occur. Music, drumming, lights, fire—these are places where participants at
these events and festivals gain an experience, and a bodily knowing of loss of control
and freedom. With an ancient language, the percussive beats tell the body what to
do. The sensual and erotic surroundings of writhing human beings (dressed or
undressed in enchanting and enticing wear) and the flashing lights or fire siphon off
the distractions of the past and the future and root the mind in the moment. The
dancers become less inhibited, more comfortable with their bodies, with the dance,
with others, with the idea of others watching them dance. In the self-reflection of
social performance, they learn something about who they are, what they want, what
their place is. They gain momentary glimpses of a better world for themselves, the
potentiality of a personally better place, that which Kozinets (2002b) has called a
“youtopia.”
The creation of a sense of sacred space is, we assert, vitally important to this
transformational ability. For participants will only agree to loss of control and
freedom in a space that they feel is safe and special. Neo-Pagans define a ritual space
as a safe place “when they are able to identify their personal boundaries in a
collective context” (Pike 2001:190). The ritual fire becomes one important context
for self-expression. At ConFest, St. John (1997) described the ludic spaces which
provided a safe place for celebrants to experiment with the primitivity discovered on
site, for example in “feral” practices like going nude, covering one’s body with mud,
or body-painting. The desert environment plays an important role here, just as the
forest or rainforest does for forest raves and Neo-Pagan festivals. Emphasizing place
refocuses the mind upon the body In the Black Rock desert, the daytime heat can
EXPLORING THE SACRED AT BURNING MAN 297