Since 1986, people have gathered in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert for the so-called “Burning Man” celebration. Since its inception as a celebration of art and community, it has grown into a cultural phenomenon attracting tens of thousands of people, including elites from Silicon Valley and beyond. It is increasingly facing scrutiny as a potential conduit for demonic influence, as articulated by former attendee Nicole Shanahan and echoed in broader critiques.
Shanahan was RFK Jr.’s 2024 running mate and a former “Burner” for nearly a decade. She attributes her transformation from enthusiast to skeptic after a near-death experience led her to Christianity. She has argued that Burning Man’s allure—ecstatic dances, drug-fueled nights, orgies, and the burning of the Man effigy—masks a darker reality. This year’s festival, currently still underway, has seen its share of difficulties, from attendee deaths to damage from storms.
Burning Man, 2010 (cropped), by Kyle Harmon. CC BY 2.0.
The event’s rituals, including the Temple burn where participants surrender personal artifacts, and the summoning of “spirits,”, suggest a deceptive spiritual trap. Shanahan draws on C.S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters,” positing that demons will exploit human passions, turning the event into a “playground for demons” that directs souls away from God.
Others have also questioned whether Burning Man has transcended its artistic roots and transformed into devil worship. Festival attendees burn an effigy as a symbol of renewal, but this is now being seen by some as a pagan ritual, with occult symbols and ceremonies. Powerful elites such as CEOs, celebrities, and dignitaries who fund and attend the festival lend an aura of exclusivity that contrasts sharply with its “radical inclusivity” ethos, hinting at a controlled spiritual experiment.
Shanahan has recounted tragic incidents—deaths from accidents and overdoses—as an accepted cost for “transcendent highs.” She believes the event’s gradual descent into darkness has left her an “empty vessel,” a sentiment shared by other ex-attendees who have found redemption in Christ. The festival’s displays often mock Christian virtues with idols and irreverent altars that further fuel the demonic narrative.
Festival defenders see the event as a primordial ritual that fulfills a human need for spirituality beyond organized religion. They claim that its “gift economy” and transformative experiences foster community, although its elitist shift and safety lapses raise questions on the legitimacy of those claims.
Shanahan concludes that America’s culture, influenced by such events, may need an exorcism, a call she made before the 2024 election. She believes that the festival’s spiritual deception extends nationwide. Anyone who follows current events (not spin from the legacy media) can easily call to mind examples to illustrate Shanahan’s contention, things such as abortion, assisted suicide, the chemical and surgical castration of children, and corruption and deviancy throughout our governments, just for starters.
In the end, whether Burning Man is an artistic festival or a demonic playground depends on perspective. For many, like Nicole Shanahan, its seductive freedom masks a calculated spiritual peril, a view that is gaining traction among those who see its rituals as more than mere performance.
The danger is that if you stare into the abyss long enough and hard enough, the abyss may just stare back.