In 1994, Burns wrote for the La Trobe University student newspaper Rabelais where he used New Journalism techniques for interviews with Robert Manne, Powderfinger, Snog, and Vali Myers. He worked for Australian-based magazines REVelation and 21C from late 1994 to mid-1998 when both ceased publication. His interviews included counterculture mavens Robert Anton Wilson and Terence McKenna, author J.G. Ballard, linguist Noam Chomsky, maverick physicist Jack Sarfatti and Marshall Savage. Throughout this period, he was involved in several New religious movements including a Gurdjieff group and the Don Webb era Temple of Set. This work catalysed an interest in Richard Dawkins' ideas on memetics, Internet subcultures on Memetic engineering, and Don Beck & Chris Cowan's Spiral dynamics model of hum