In her newly published book Theater in a Crowded Fire, Lee Gilmore tells the story of the infamous Burning Man Festival, reclaiming its reputation as a specifically spiritual event. Religion Dispatches interviews Gilmore:
Part of my intention has been simply to tell the story of Burning Man and to shed light on its immense ritual diversity. But ultimately I hope to challenge comfortable assumptions about the nature and location of religious practice.
The popular term “spiritual but not religious” only goes so far in describing an event like this. I think Burning Man shows us the enduring importance of ritual as a vehicle through which humans connect with one another and as well as with a mysterious “more,” while also showing us how these expressions are increasingly displaced outside the bounds of the dominant Western cultural concepts of “religion.” Burning Man is on the vanguard of contemporary religious movements that resist easy classification by favoring eclecticism and hybridity. Yet in articulating a clear ethos that places a core emphasis on building and supporting community—both inside and outside the confines of the week-long event—Burning Man manages to be individualistic and idiosyncratic without being solipsistic.
Read the entire article here.