BODE, Nepal, July 5 (UPI Next) --Every year in mid-April, Juju Bhai Basan Shrestha stands before festival crowds in a cobbled square in the Nepali village of Bode in Bhaktapur district, 7 miles east ...

Chanting and swaying to the hypnotic rhythm of prayer until they reach a trance-like state, the group of dervishes then pierce their cheeks with long needles, without drawing blood or showing pain.

GJAKOVE, Kosovo - Spring has arrived and dervishes in Kosovo are celebrating with dances and blood. At a small dome-shaped Tekke (holy place) in western Kosovo, a sheikh stepped down from a thick ...

A few weeks after my maiden hook-pull, I speak by phone with Fakir, who is known among the piercing community by his first name. Born Roland Loomis in Aberdeen, S.D., in 1930, he grew up a Lutheran on ...

Steady hands: It takes several hands to hold a young boy steady during a traditional Indian ear-piercing ritual at the Rokkumalai Sri Muniswarar Bathrakaliamman Temple in Paya Terubong. — CHAN BOON ...

In Hindu dharma, life is seen as a sacred journey marked by sixteen important samskaras or purification rites. These rituals guide a person from birth to death with spiritual awareness. Among them is ...

Worshippers on Thailand's Phuket island have celebrated a nine-day Taoist festival, with many piercing their faces with metal spikes and walking on hot coals to show devotion to deities. PHUKET, ...

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 1 — Hundreds of kavadi-bearers unleash their spiritual fervour in the frenetic kavadi aatam during Thaipusam, one of the most recognisable Hindu festivals in the world. Devotees ...

Most folks’ exposure to the art and ritual of body suspension is limited to the 1970 film A Man Called Horse, in which the late Richard Harris endured the Sioux ceremony of o-kee-pa, being lifted off ...