Our Story - 2019 CoB at The Cockpit

CoB at The Cockpit 2019 - Synod, Service, Ritual

2019 marked a pivotal event for our Church. Though the elements had been present in nascent form since the beginning, this was the first time our event format explicitly incorporated the Synod, Service, and Ritual.

It was also the first time the Church faced the possibility of a protest. A charity advocate contacted the theatre, announcing they would stand outside with members of the homeless community. Their belief was that charitable giving stands above sacrifice in the moral economy. The Church of Burn issued a statement in response, and ultimately, no protest occurred.

The event took place on December 8th, 2019—just eleven days before the 2019 General Election, where Jeremy Corbyn stood for Prime Minister. It was also the year that Extinction Rebellion made a global impact. For many, the sense of imminent social and political change infused the atmosphere of our event. A significant shift in daily life did indeed follow just months later—though it arrived in the unwelcome form of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Synod

Brett Scott hosted the Synod. Brett, author of Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for Our Wallets, has long been a friend of the Church. He has even held his own money-burning rituals, and currently runs the Altered States of Money platform.

Our three Bishops were David Graeber, Vinay Gupta, and Dan Edelstyn. The question posed to them: How do we save the world?

• Dan Edelstyn and his partner Hilary Powell ran the Hoe Street Central Bank in 2019, an art project that culminated in the Bank Job film and the blowing up of a transit van filled with ‘debt’ in front of Canary Wharf.
• Vinay Gupta, a technologist and futurist, is best known as the release coordinator for Ethereum and inventor of the Hexayurt shelter. He has been a supporter of our Church for many years.
• The late David Graeber was an esteemed academic and activist, instrumental in the Occupy movement and author of pivotal books like Debt: The First 5000 Years and Bullshit Jobs. His work captured public imagination in ways few academics ever do.

The Synod was as informal as it was intellectually stimulating. Each Bishop had 15 minutes to share their thoughts on saving the world. David Graeber, the final speaker, posited that money burning could be seen as a form of "disenchantment" —the breaking of a spell. He concluded that humanity’s future lay in replacing the categories of Production and Consumption with Care and Freedom.

Service

Alongside our usual Sermons and Hymns (provided by the ever-brilliant The Naked Grace Missionaries), the Service featured two firsts:

• Melusine’s Confessional, written and performed by Carrie Thompson (Hermetic Arts), opened the Service. Beforehand, the congregation had been encouraged to write down their “money sins” and place them in Melusine’s Confessional box. During the Service, Melusine read a selection of these sins, inviting the Sinners to the Ritual space to discuss their penance —and, where appropriate, offer forgiveness.
• Sarah Kershaw concluded the Service with The Union of Oppositions in Ecstasy —a visually and sonically intense act of sex magic. Her story and performance are detailed in The Resurrection of the Body and the Ethics of Liberation, available exclusively to subscribers of The Vestry.

Ritual

Much of our Church’s company (priests, actors, and crew) had recently returned from a pilgrimage to Damanhur, where they learned a sacred language expressed solely through dance. They memorised a sequence of movements for the phrase, 'Show us so we can understand.' As the congregation entered the Ritual space, eight members of the company performed this sacred dance in welcome.

Rev Jonathan invited Wil Hurst to join him in the initiating burn, and many members of the congregation followed in making their own sacrifices. The air grew heavy with smoke and ash, charged with an undeniable magic. In total, just under £1,000 was put to the flame. After the ritual, a bottle of Jura was shared among those who wished to partake.