Street procession, Vegetarian Festival Phuket, Thailand

Each year in the 9th lunar month of the Chinese calendar participants demonstrate their devotion through cleansing rituals, from adherence to a specific diet and abstinence from impure or intoxicating acts to feats of endurance and suffering. Select few operate as mediums of the gods and use rituals including self-mutilation and sometimes extreme piercing to demonstrante their devotion and purify and thus direct misfortune away from their community.