Non-Belief - Finding Transcendence Outside of "God"

Burning Man

Excerpts From: Desert Goddesses and Apocalyptic Art - Making Sacred Space at the Burning Man Festival by Sarah M. Pike

"It was life-changing and the most spiritual experience I've ever had," wrote Shannon... And another message promised, "In the dust I found my family, In the dust I found my clan, In the dust I found hope for us all. Until we all burn again I will hold my screams inside, I will keep the ashes burning until again I join my tribe."...  Artist Charlie Gadeken said"  "Sometimes I feel like my real life exists for 10 days a year and the rest is a bad dream."

​...for many participants, Burning Man was an event of religious significance, characterized by powerful ritual, myth, and symbol; experiences of transcendence or ritual ecstasy; experiences of personal transformation; a sense of shared community; relationship to deity/divine power; and perhaps most important, sacred space...
This festival is an important cultural and religious site that exemplifies the migration of religious meaning-making activities out of American temples and churches into other spaces...the increasing personalization of religion... One of the most effective ways that Burning Man establishes itself as a "church" of sorts is through anti-religious art and the subversive appropriation of familiar symbols. One example of festival-goers' playful irony is the Temple of Idle Worship at Burning Man '98. A sign at the temple instructed visitors: "You can light candles and prostrate yourself all you want, but your prayers won't be answered: the Deity is napping."...

​The journey is often described by festival-goers as one of personal transformation and healing. Because identity is malleable in festival space, self-transformation comes more easily. Hanuman tells other bulletin board readers: "My old self has been torched! I am reborn!"... Participants create the festival with art, dace, and ritual, but Burning Man also acts on them in ways that open up the possibility for natural and supernatural experiences otherwise unavailable: "I can't believe the power that all of you have helped me see within myself,"... The themes of sacrifice and redemption, death and rebirth, disintegration and creation suggest that for many participants the festival's impact is profound.
The Tree of Ténéré is an interactive light sculpture with 175.000 LEDs, referring to the "strongest natural symbol of life flourishing in the most difficult circumstances". In the southern Sahara desert, in a region called Ténéré, a solitary tree stood alone. It was the most isolated tree on Earth.The Tree of Ténéré became an important ceremonial gathering place for traders and travelers as they crossed the desert. It brought people together for community, ritual and rest. Unfortunately almost 50 years ago it was mysteriously destroyed by a lone truck driver. The Tree of Ténéré team wanted to create live size sculpture creating a space where cultures and travelers can meet without prejudice and expectation towards each other. With reviving this symbol the team aims to create a place where people come together and share there different life paths. The programming of the tree is location and season dependent. The tree has multiple sensorial input creating interactivity by measuring brain frequency's, heart rate and movement. ​

Psychedelic Trance Music

Excerpts From: Tribalism, Experience, Remixology in Global Psytrance Culture by Graham St. John

​​Psytrance is a cultural movement amplifying the liminal and transcendent qualities thought and felt to be inherent to music, especially psychedelic music, such as psychedelic rock, but also ambient, cosmic jazz, dub reggae, and techno. In this sense its cultural timbre is rather different from most other EDM movements. Indeed transcendence is a critical motivation for enthusiasts as well as label managers, party collectives, and event organizers and is given expression across personal, social, and cultural vectors...

​This is a spirituality in which the self has assumed divine authority, yet in a "deindividualized" context outside traditional sources of belonging (family, church, state)... ​That is, while participants may be committed to states of self-transcendence, by virtue of the intensely social nature of the experience, they become involved in states of radical [existence] that have long been associated with ecstatic dance cults, subcultures, and scenes...
[The scene developed in Goa, India, which was] populated by self-exiled Westerners seeking spiritual liberation and enlightenment in the East... Promoted as a "harmonic convergence of people, energy, information and philosophies from around the planet earth and beyond," and reflecting a balance of the organic and the cyber-technologic...

​From the original to the new "summer of love," we recognize the common desire for real experience. Such would be sought through altered states of being, typically characterized...as "spiritual hedonism"... From Hendrix to Shpongle, acid rock to psytrance, the authenticity desired is a raw and untrammeled life, not dictated by the conniptions of the advertising industry nor performed for "the Man." Not ruled by religious dogma nor mediated by Fox News... 
Shpongle is a psychedelic electronic music project from England that formed in 1996. The group includes Simon Posford (a.k.a. Hallucinogen) and Raja Ram (one of three in The Infinity Project). The duo are considered to be one of the progenitors of the psybient genre - a genre combining world music with psychedelic trance and ambient. Their musical style combines traditional music from all over the globe and vocals with contemporary western synthesizer-based psychedelic music. When asked to describe Shpongle's music, Posford has responded that it is "like nothing you've ever heard before."

This video is a 2013 concert of "Shpongle Live", a full-band version of their DJ shows.