During the Phuket Vegetarian Festival (also known as the Nine Emperor Gods Festival), spirit mediums (ma song) enter trance through the belief that they are possessed by a deity, and while possessed, perform acts of extreme self-mortification — piercing their cheeks and bodies with finger-thick rods and blades, cutting their tongues with axes, walking across hot coals, and self-flagellating.
These acts are understood as a way of absorbing spiritual suffering, purifying both the medium and the wider community, and bringing good fortune for the year ahead. Enduring them without apparent pain is also taken as proof that the medium is genuinely possessed: most ma song do not flinch even when pierced with thick rods, though some snap out of trance mid-ritual and appear to suffer considerably, particularly during multiple or prolonged piercings.
It is a Taoist festival, and acts of this severity are rare outside this particular event. Interestingly, similar practices of ritual self-mortification appear across otherwise unrelated cultures — the closest parallel I have observed is self-flagellation during Ashura among some Shia communities in India.
Phuket, Thailand, October 2025