How and when did the Burning Man festival start??

Answer 1

The Burning Man Festival is a week-long festival with international draw. It is held annually, ending Labor Day weekend in early September, on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, 90 miles (150 km) north-northeast of Reno. The temporary city (housing 36,500 residents in 2005) is put forth as an experiment in community, radical self expression, and radical self reliance. The culmination of the event is the burning of a large wooden sculpture of a man on Saturday night, the sixth night of the event.
The annual event now known as Burning Man began on the summer solstice in 1986 when Larry Harvey, Jerry James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned an eight foot (2.4 m) tall wooden man as well as a smaller wooden dog. The inspiration for burning these effigy figures has been shrouded in mystery by Harvey, who described it as "a spontaneous act of radical self-expression." However, sculptor Mary Grauberger, a friend of Harvey's girlfriend Janet Lohr, had held spontaneous art-party gatherings on Baker Beach on or about the summer solstice for several years prior to 1986, and the burning of sculpture was a central theme. In addition to the burning of sculpture, a key ingredient to the pre-Burning Man gatherings was the fact that Baker Beach is a cove area frequented by nudists. Another notable US-based effigy-burning is Zozobra, which occurs every fall during Santa Fe, New Mexico's "fiestas"; an approximately 50 foot (15 m) ) tall "Old Man Gloom" has been burned every year at Zozobra since 1924.

Harvey attended some of the pre-Burning Man gatherings on Baker Beach, and when Grauberger stopped holding her parties, Harvey picked up the torch and ran with it, so to speak. Harvey asked Jerry James to build the first eight foot (2.4 m) wooden effigy with him, which was much smaller and less artsy than the neon figure featured in the current ritual. In 1987, the effigy had grown to almost fifteen feet (4.6 m) tall, and in 1988 it grew to around forty feet (12 m).

The name "Burning Man" came to Harvey when he was watching a video of the 1986 ritual. A member of the crowd watching the event shouted out "Wicker Man!", suggesting that the burning of the wooden effigy was somehow related to the ancient Celtic ritual of the Wicker Man, signifying rebirth. Harvey was the son of a Freemason, and (for Harvey) the use of wood in building the man had symbolic significance and was a critical part of the ritual; also, according to him, he did not see the movie The Wicker Man until many years later, so it played no part in his inspiration. Accordingly, rather than allow the name "Wicker Man" to become the name of the ritual, he started using the name "Burning Man."

Answer 2

I would like to know the REAL story behind the burning man and dog. Why would anyone do this is the 1st place? Something seems hinky about the whole thing. Burning a man and a dog (real or not) Really?

Answer 3

Teens got the idea from the wiccan lammus celebrations. Lammus is the first harvest were it is said the the god sacrifies himself(crops,grown food ex...) so the humans can live. The wickerman(burning man) was made from sticks, corn stalks mostly wood, in a shape of a human and burned to show and honnor the scrafice that he made.

Blessed Be
Scoob

Answer 4

Here you go, honey.

It started out 20 years ago, with a group of friends in San Francisco who decided a Burning Man would be cool and creative.

Answer 5

some guy burning stuff on a beach as a symbol of an ended relationship - it caught on and grew and relocated

Answer 6

It started with Richard Pryor and then Michael Jackson followed up with a Pepsi commercial. Just kidding.