Our Vision of the Temple of Ishtar

The idea to create a Temple of Ishtar at Burning Man '99 came from experiences in the sacred sexuality community of northern California. Many of us believe that the spiritual love we have created in our tight community should be shared with a greater public. In the ancient Temple of Ishtar, sex and spirit were worshipped in ways that we believe would be beneficial to the modern world. We are promoting a culture in which sexuality is honored as sacred and in which men and women are respected as manifestations of the God and Goddess.

Our mission is to provide sexual pleasure in abundance to persons who seek our services; to represent the Goddess to the men whom we serve and worship the God within them; to represent the God to the women whom we serve and worship the Goddess within them.

Worship in the Temple is not a head trip, nor only a spiritual experience. Worship is a whole body experience, with pleasure and flesh known as a necessary part of experiencing the joy of the divine celebration.

We reject the body negative abomination of the monotheistic insanity. We disagree with the whole concept of "sin" and shame and denial of pleasure. We celebrate and worship The Goddess(s) as She has always been worshipped. She is the whore who leads men into Her arms and leads the worship of the Horned Lord, the sacred Bull that is the divine male. Women come to The Temple to serve Her as women have always done, to be Her Priestess, Her sacred prostitute, to accept the worship of men who represent the God, the divine masculine. Men represent the divine Bull of male power, and give their love and maleness to The Goddesses.

Now these are fairly radical statements, un-popular in the modern culture.

So it would not be wise to create a Temple of Ishtar - open to the public - in downtown San Francisco! However, at Burning Man, an alternative culture reigns -- one that accepts radical behavior and ideas. In the Nevada desert, for one week, 15,000 people gather to create a new community, celebrate, create and participate. This is an ideal place to create a new Temple of Ishtar.

In the Temple we will:

• Host of rites of worship, connection and renewal for and among the Priests and Priestesses and worshipers, creating and maintaining sacred bonds between ourselves.
• Organizate, promote, host, and staff a sacred Temple at pagan gatherings, where the ancient form of sexual worship with sacred prostitutes is conducted.