The Burning Man
For the past ten years earth-worshipping pagans have migrated from Canada, Brazil, Germany, Russia, and 25 other countries, to an isolated corner of Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where a four-day-long New Age techno-fest known as “The Burning Man” has been conducted.
Recent attendance at The Burning Man surpassed 15,000 wiccans, satanists, goddesses (white witches), nudists, and a consortium of other lost party-goers, who converged on the hot Nevada desert for a Labor Day weekend of “glorious Hell on earth.”
The number of participants at the Burning Man gala has nearly doubled each year since 1986, and this year organizers hope to break an attendance of 30,000.
Starting on Saturday, March 25th, planning meetings and volunteer recruitment for Burning Man 2000 will be held in San Francisco. This year’s Burning Man theme is The Body and will include a solar plexus of a gigantic horizontal figure, drawn on the playa. A laser outline of The Body will hover thirty feet overhead.
THE QUEST FOR HELL
The Burning Man is a no-holds-barred New Age “Woodstock” style festival, where neo-pagans, wiccans, transvestitie entertainers, and back-slidden Christians go to trance, perform rituals, burn sacrifices to pagan gods and goddesses, dance in the nude, engage in sex, and otherwise “express” themselves and become one with Gaia.
Attendees set up theme camps such as “Lost Vegas,” “Motel 666,” and “Crucifixion With a Celebrity” (where one can purchase a picture of a crucified obese Elvis). Hamburgers are sold by devil-worshippers at the McSatan cafe, and T-shirts are available that proudly proclaim, “Praise The Whore.”
The Burning Man itself is a 40-foot-high effigy of the “Spirit Cave Man” (sacred to local Indians and New Agers) which is torched, together with just about everything else, at the close of the festivities.
George Otis Jr., president of The Sentinel Group (a Christian research agency), attended the Burning Man festival with a colleague. He wrote of the experience:
On Saturday night, the hell-themed [festival] reached its crescendo in the form of a drama….These people were literally celebrating the fact that one day they would enter hell. To simulate their journey, the camp’s center stage was transformed into the “Vestibule of Hell.” The guest of honor was none other than “Papa Satan.”….As the lecherous Papa Satan bowed in mock chains before a placard reading “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,” a group called “Idiot Flesh,” [supposedly Christians] dressed as hooded executioners, began to play a discordant dirge accompanied by flashing strobes. When the crowd started its torchlight procession toward the Gates of Hell and an eerie, sculpted castle called The City of Dis, I sensed an unmistakable chill in the air. Our march had been joined by unseen, malevolent guests….nudist and a moving sea of devil banners [also] moved around us….At the tri-tower City of Dis, our descent into the Inferno reached a demonic sanctuary….While massive loudspeakers pumped out a hellish bass tone accompanied by tormented screams….people dressed as demonic insects celebrated by copulating with other captured souls. It was a scene that looked as if it had been plucked from a horrific nightmare. Mesmerized by the evocative music, the performers began to chant, “Devil’s delight, fire tonight!” Wood piles inside the towers of Dis were ignited, causing orange flames to belch forth from the eyes and mouths of demonic gargoyles built onto the turrets. As the heat became more intense, the entourage danced around the towers. Satan had defeated the church.
Otis continued the report by confessing, “I had to remind myself that what I had witnessed at the Burning Man Festival was happening right here in the United States–not in the temples of India or the deserts of Sinai.”
Otis also admits that he met many friendly, creative and intelligent people at the Burning Man festival, and he encourages believers to contend for such lost souls in prayer.
UNDERSTANDING THE BURNING MAN PHENOMENON
A spirit of mysticism has been present in the United States for generations. Like an insidious cancer—unseen, patient, deadly—it has grown. Indications of its presence have been felt occasionally, and confirmations of its actuality have been documented from Washington D.C. to Portland Oregon.
One can trace old city-name origins, such as Ceres, Alexandria, Mars, Fortuna, and Media, and discover the early influence of Burning Man-like mysticism within the United States.
By looking at sites such as the House of the Temple, the home office of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, one discovers early versions of Burning Man-like occultism. Located several blocks from the White House on 16th Street in Washington D.C., the House of the Temple contains eight candelabrum fashioned after Hermes, the “god of light,†as well as various other artworks reminiscent of the Temple of Dionysus. Statues of the goddesses, Isis and Nephthys, stand hallowed inside.
Down the street and around the corner one finds additional evidence of Burning Man-like mysticism: an enormous obelisk (phallic Egyptian symbol of fertility) known as the Washington Monument.
From there one travels across country to Portland, Oregon, where a huge statue (â€Portlandiaâ€) indicative of the goddess Hecate stands overshadowing the entrance to the City of Portland Office buildings. On the Portland City Seal, “Lady Commerce†holds a trident under a six-pointed star. Both are important instruments of Hecatian witchcraft.
To the South, in California, Athene (Minerva), the manly goddess of war, greets humans with a prominant position on the Great Seal of the State of California. Other states boasting similar Great Seals and goddesses include New York (Liberty and Justice); Oklahoma (Themis); New Jersey (Ceres and Liberty); and Florida.
Even the Great Seal of the United States depicts an array of equally abstruse symbols, including an unfinished Egyptian pyramid overshadowed by the “All-Seeing Eye†and bearing the cryptic phrase, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, “A new order of the ages.â€
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
As we approach the culmination of the “new order of the ages,†cult experts forecast a staggering revival of idolatry and eastern mysticism. As church attendance declines across the United States, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Theosophists, Christian Scientists, and BurningMan-like adherents, expand to meet the desires and mystical interests of Americans. Tarot card reading is at an all-time high. Psychic phone lines are jammed with over $300 million in calls per year, and celebrities like LaToya Jackson and Dionne Warwick lend credibility to psychic consultations. Even the U.S. Government showed interest in such phenomena. During the 1995 budget cuts, the C.I.A. was forced to release a $20 million project (“Operation Stargateâ€) aimed at studying the usefullness of psychics in gathering military secrets from foreign powers.
The wives of two U.S. Presidents, Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton, were subject to public examination after it was discovered they consulted with astrologers and psychics. Hillary Clinton went so far as to channel “conversations†with the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt.
The obvious widespread interest in such paranormal activity substantiates what New Age expert Judy Vorfeld says: “Dabbling in the realm of the occult is currently stylish. Even some Christians seem unable to avoid the attraction of this colorful, seductive world.â€
The colorful seduction of mysticism is reaching into every fiber of our culture. From Burning Man festivals to public school Environmental Education to faddish television good-guys, today’s generation is bombarded with a New Age Occultianity (western Christian beliefs mixed with occultism) that popularize the supernatural. Beloved comic book heros such as “Spawn†teach our youth the dangerous Persephonian idea that a person can be in league with the devil, and still be a good person. Such doctrines of “harmonizing duality†are extremely popular (comics of Spawn have sold over 100 million copies) and blend nicely with the syncretistic goals of the Burning Man Movement.
THE REAL BURNING MAN
Americans must realize that powerful and ancient entities are behind such anti-Christian activities. In the air above and the earth beneath are nefarious progenitors of Burning Man mysticism. “Gods†to some and “demons†to others, such forces have numerous titles. They can appear in hideous forms or as beautiful angels of light. They are the “wicked spirits†(poneria: the collective body of demon soldiers comprising Satan’s hordes), “rulers of darkness†(kosmokrators: governing spirits of darkness), “powers†(exousia: high ranking powers of evil), and “principalities†(arche: commanding generals over Satan’s fallen army) of Ephesians 6:12. As the “gods and goddesses” of the underworld, they live today and encourage mysticism among pagans, witches, New Agers, church-goers, and Burning Man participants, in at least the following ways:
Aphrodite—sensuality, fertility rites, wiccan rituals, sacred prostitution.
Amun-Ra—masturbation, self realization, environmentalism, Darwinism.
Apis—animal worship, animal rights, animal channeling, occultianity.
Apollo—humanism, oracles, channeling, psychics, drugs, visualization.
Artemis—goddess worship, animal worship, animal rights, lesbianism.
Asclepius—holistic medicine, psychic dreaming, spirit-guide animals.
Athene—goddess worship, feminism, the spirituality movement, lesbianism.
Baal—oracles, polytheism, abortion, fertility issues.
Demeter—environmental education, earth worship, goddess worship.
Dionysus—excessive wine, freudianism, ecstasy, pornography, lesbianism, abortion.
Eros—eroticism, mystical sex, body worship, body piercing, sacred prostitution.
Gaia—earth worship, environmentalism, paganism, pantheism, sweat lodges.
Geb—environmental movement, animal rights, eco-paganism.
Hades—devil worship, occultism, spiritism, necromancy.
Hathor—goddess worship, earth worship, animal rights, animal worship.
Hecate—witchcraft, necromancy, crystals, spells, druidism, feminism.
Heka—mysticism, demonism, animal rights, environmentalism.
Hypnos—hypnotism, psychic dreaming, prognostication, e.s.p., clairvoyance.
Imhoteb—mystic healing, animal dancing, holistic medicine, vision quests.
Isis—wicca, witchcraft, goddess worship, magic, channeling, visualization.
Min and Qetesh—fertility rites, body worship, sensuality, pornography.
Osiris—occultianity, necromancy, anthropomorphism, occultism, spiritism.
Persephone—animism, zoroastrianism, dualism, magic, necromancy.
Ptah—universalism, pantheism, mysticism, holistic medicine.
Sekhmet—environmentalism, mystic medicine, animal worship.
Seth—homosexuality, rebellion, earth worship, environmental movement.
Vatchit—devil worship, channeling, trancing, visualization, necromancy.
Zeus—satanism, transexualism, pantheism, oracles, animal worship.
By whatever names they may otherwise be called, the underworld spirits elevated in the Burning Man festival are gathering the combined efforts of the kingdom of Satan into a conspiracy of apocalyptic proportions. As a consequence, we are experiencing an unprecedented revival of paganism at a time when the United States is considered the most advanced economic and technological power in the world.
Why is the Burning Man growing in popularity? There is an ominous answer. Billy Graham declares, “Lucifer, our archenemy, controls one of the most powerful and well-oiled war machines in the universe. He controls principalities, powers, and dominions. Every nation, city, village, and individual has felt the hot breath of his evil power. He is already gathering the nations of the world for the last great battle in the war against Christ—Armageddon.â€
Defeat awaits the real Burning Man. “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev. 20:10).
By Thomas Horn