of rave also adopts terms and figures from Neo-Pagan literature, refer encing
influential high priests of modern chaos magick such as Aleister Crowley, along with
psychedelic shamanic philosophers like Terence McKenna (ibid.: Tramacchi 2000).
So although the “techno” in “techno-pagan” is widely considered to refer to
technology, it might also (for the purposes of this volume at least) index post-rave
techno culture, which appears to be important in incubating a nascent Neo-
Paganism. As Hutson explains,” ‘techno’ is a catch-all term for any type of
‘electronic music’ dominated by percussion rhythms” (1999:53). The “electronic”
element of techno “refers to the fact that most techno (in the catch-all sense) is
produced synthetically by mixing beats from drum machines with other pre-
recorded sounds” (ibid.:53).
Providing a key link between all of these gatherings, music and dance are
important to the rites of Neo-Pagans as well. As Pike notes, “Neopagan identity is
primarily expressed at festivals through music and dance” (2001:5). Drumming
defines festival space at Neo-Pagan events, inspiring festal dance and movement as
techno music does during raves. Burning Man, stubbornly pluralistic, inclusive, and
diverse, summons all of these forms of musical expression to coexistence and
interpenetration. The result is a music oeuvre that is ineffably diverse, but in which
strong beats (percussive sounds) predominate. These strong beats, located in
important meeting places like the Center Camp, barrel fires, dance camps, and at
the burning of the Man, successfully signal ritual occasions when people gather and
a more auto-expressive, improvisational, and uninhibited style of dance can take
shape. The form of the music and the context of the dance both provide elements
that can contribute to our understanding of the modern contradiction between the
material world and the spiritual, between science and the sacred, between faith and
reason. Hutson suggests that the DJ can be seen as a “techno-shaman” who is a
“mixed symbol of human and machine” (1999:71). The techno-shamanic DJ spins
“tribal” beats on sophisticated equipment, and this
synthesizes our desire to be spiritual with our rootedness and dependence on
the material. The DJ thus serves as a model of the place of machines in the
world and a model for how the soul can be integrated with them.
(Hutson 1999:71)This emphasis on the DJ as role model is overly institutional and authoritarian
considering the self-directed and idiosyncratic types of experiences emerging at
Burning Man and Neo-Pagan gatherings. Nonetheless, Hutson’s analysis begins to
suggest the type of interesting explorations that can be germinated from a closer
analysis of the energetic and creative outcomes resulting from the interplay of
culturally charged opposite categories such as natural and artificial, human and
machine, animal and human, and science and religion.
The fact that these cultural paradoxes—and the resultant need to negotiate or
somehow resolve them—are in some sense widespread or even universal points to an
important realization about techno-paganism as it has previously been defined.
EXPLORING THE SACRED AT BURNING MAN 295