- The Daily Knight
Tech Elites Recreate Pagan Burning Man in Home Gatherings
The desert pagan ritual, Burning Man, comes home as artists distribute the private Soul Salons to A-list entrepreneurs and Tech Elites in California.
An artist guides her spiritual disciples at Soul Salon. Image source, Zak Krevitt for The New York Times
Burning the Wicker Man and other pagan symbols, as sacrifices, wasn't enough for the tech elites and entrepreneurs in California. They wanted to bring the experience home.
Like a modern "age of aquarius," music festivals like the Burning Man & Electric Forest have taken thousands of millennials hostage with a powerful culture of sex, drugs, and emotions. Not only has this culture greatly degraded our youth's potential, but has created a platform for it to loosen it's reliance on music festivals and create more private experiences.
Chad Mureta, an app developer from Silicon Valley, shared with The New York Times that the Soul Salons are "like drugs, without taking anything."
As reported by Alex Williams from the The New York Times, "Tech elites who are looking for more than extra zeros in their bank statements are finding it in an unlikely place: so-called songversations, emotion-heavy gatherings that combine philosophical rap sessions with improvised music, run by a ukulele-strumming songstress who describes herself as a 'heartist.'"
So, instead of turning to a Faith founded by God and built on faith, hope, and charity, these elites in Silicon Valley seek comfort in music and good "erotic" feelings.
Williams continues, "branded as 'Soul Salons," they import the cosmic-explorer sensibility of Burning Man's dusty playa into the cozy living rooms of prominent entrepreneurs, where they sing freestyle on topics as diverse as environmental degradation and heartbreak."
Soul Salon guests channel the rhythm. Image Source; Zak Krevitt for The New York Times
A crowd gives their energy over to each other and the performers. Image Source; Zak Krevitt for The New York Times
To explain the attraction from successful entrepreneurs and tech elites in California, an artist shared with The New York Times that "the finance and tech scene is still riding the waves of hypermasculine values...coffee to get through the day, alcohol to wind down, then sleeping pills at night to turn off the mind from all that they have going on. People forget that they are human beings rather than human doings."
Like an answer to their problems, the artist described Soul Salons as "a play date for your inner child," performing a "gift" to its audience.
The artist also provides an insight to how the Soul Salons are financially supported, by inviting its audience to "contribute in accordance with the values they feel they received."
Image source; Zak Krevitt for The New York Times
Donating to a cause or an organization is not wrong, but should never be based on feelings. Emotions are temporal and powered by the vices of the physical body. This is very different than tithing in the Church, which calls us to be charitable. Charity, in other words "love," is empowered by the spirit and not emotions.
"WE DON'T SING TO BE GOOD, WE SING TO BE FREE...FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE MOST OF THE TIME IN THIER HEAD, THIS FEELS LIKE MAGIC."
An attendee bowing her head in respect. Image Source; Zak Krevitt for The New York Times
The Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father and the Son, affects us through knowledge and charity (love). The best example of this is the life of St. Paul the Apostle, who, through the Holy Spirit, acquired all of his knowledge of the faith and love for others. A man who never walked with Christ, didn't learn from the other Apostles, and persecuted Christians as a Jew, could not have had such a profound transformation through an emotional experience.
This is the biggest argument against the Megachurch and Evangelical concert worships, including liberal Catholics, who base their faith and relationship with God to the good feelings and emotions experienced at Church.
It is diabolical.
Your connection to the Divine cannot be based on the temporal, flesh, and emotion, which are all corruptible and not eternal.
This culture of feelings, which the Soul Salon thrives on, is extremely dangerous to the human perception of and understanding of physical and spiritual life. Building on the foundation of liberalism and modernism, this culture is a hyper-catalyst to progressive individualism and the notion that all aspects of life and society should adhere to the emotions of each individual.
Let us leave you with this; take a look at the last image and contemplate what or who she is praying to. Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
Benedictus Deus.
The New York Times contributed to this article, here.
