Daily rituals are mindful activities that add meaning and purpose to our lives, ranging from quick mornings to more complex events. They come in various forms and are practiced in cultures worldwide. A new book explores how rituals can improve our lives and relationships, and how to create and recognize your own rituals.
Creating a meaningful ritual is not difficult, with two primary steps followed by four key steps. Rituals can support creativity, productivity, and health, and can be transformed into a daily habit. A list of 14 excellent daily habit examples is provided as a starting point for creating a meaningful ritual.
Rituals connect us to groups, the divine, and suggest a deeper world of meaning beyond mundane habits. Rituals determine what our life looks like, including our body, income, and joy levels. A thought-provoking authenticity quiz and activity can help identify areas where we are living authentically.
A personal ritual should reflect what is meaningful to you, as it should not reflect someone else’s purpose. Rituals and routines provide structure, stability, and a measure of peace, and they are powerful tools for getting things done. By turning an everyday act into a sacred ritual, we can elevate it into the realm of the divine.
In summary, daily rituals are essential for personal wellbeing and can be created through mindful activities that add meaning and purpose to our lives. By incorporating self-care rituals into our daily routines, we can promote our own success and contribute to a more fulfilling and meaningful life.
📹 Tiësto, Jonas Blue & Rita Ora – Ritual (Official Video)
Tiësto, Jonas Blue & Rita Ora – Ritual (Official Video) Stream/Download Ritual now: http://tsto.co/ritual Director: Sophie Muller …
How to do a ritual?
Ritual involves creating an environment, setting an intention, bringing presence, and deep appreciation. It is essential to be fully present and appreciate the act. In today’s world, technology and consumerism have become our religion, losing the ability to elevate something into the realm of the sacred. Rituals like the Eucharistic ritual in mass, Zen priests performing similar rituals, yoga practitioners, Muslims worshipping at mosques, and Buddhists practicing at temples all feel like a moment lifted into sacredness. This sacred ritual is a way to find oneself again and again, as it allows us to find ourselves again and again.
Is Rituals a Dutch brand?
Dutch beauty brand Rituals was founded in 2000 by Raymond Cloosterman, an ex-Unilever employee, with a focus on relaxation and taking a step back to enjoy life’s little things. The brand’s philosophy, borrowed from Eastern culture, aims to change everyday routines into meaningful moments, resulting in a strong sense of difference across markets and categories. The brand’s distinctive look and feel have contributed to its success.
What are examples of rituals?
A ritual is defined as a specific sequence of words, gestures, and actions that adhere to established norms and order. These actions may be observed in a variety of contexts, including religious ceremonies, rites of passage, and purification rituals. Additionally, rituals are performed during significant life events such as births, marriages, and funerals.
How do I do a ritual?
Ritual involves creating an environment, setting an intention, bringing presence, and deep appreciation. It is essential to be fully present and appreciate the act. In today’s world, technology and consumerism have become our religion, losing the ability to elevate something into the realm of the sacred. Rituals like the Eucharistic ritual in mass, Zen priests performing similar rituals, yoga practitioners, Muslims worshipping at mosques, and Buddhists practicing at temples all feel like a moment lifted into sacredness. This sacred ritual is a way to find oneself again and again, as it allows us to find ourselves again and again.
What do you do with rituals?
Rituals, symbolic behaviors performed before, during, and after meaningful events, are surprisingly ubiquitous across cultures and time. These rituals can take various forms, including communal or religious settings, solitude, fixed sequences of actions, and even making it rain. Recent research suggests that rituals may be more rational than they appear, as even simple rituals can be extremely effective.
Rituals performed after experiencing losses, such as loved ones or lotteries, can alleviate grief, while rituals performed before high-pressure tasks, like singing in public, can reduce anxiety and increase confidence. Rituals also benefit even people who claim not to believe they work.
Psychologists have recently discovered that rituals can have a causal impact on people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. For example, basketball superstar Michael Jordan wore his shorts underneath his Chicago Bulls shorts in every game, while Curtis Martin reads Psalm 91 before every game. Wade Boggs, former third baseman for the Boston Red Sox, woke up at the same time each day, ate chicken before each game, took exactly 117 ground balls in practice, took batting practice at 5:17, and ran sprints at 7:17.
In one recent experiment, people received either a “lucky golf ball” or an ordinary golf ball, and then performed a golf task or a motor dexterity task. The superstitious rituals enhanced people’s confidence in their abilities, motivated greater effort, and improved subsequent performance. These findings are consistent with research in sport psychology demonstrating the performance benefits of pre-performance routines, from improving attention and execution to increasing emotional stability and confidence.
What are human rituals?
Rituals are a significant aspect of human societies, including worship rites, sacraments, passages, atonement, oaths, dedication ceremonies, coronations, and even everyday actions like hand-shaking. The field of ritual studies has conflicting definitions of the term, with one suggesting it is an outsider’s category for a set of actions that seems irrational or illogical to an outsider. The term can also be used by insiders as an acknowledgement of the activity’s irrationality.
In psychology, rituals can be used to describe repetitive behaviors used to neutralize or prevent anxiety, but these behaviors are generally isolated activities. The term “ritual” can be used both by outsiders and insiders to acknowledge the activity’s irrationality.
How to do daily rituals?
The text presents eight healthy rituals for everyday life, including morning meditation, gratitude journaling, digital detox, nature walks, mindful cooking and eating, reading for pleasure, and evening reflection. These rituals are designed to help individuals ground themselves and promote overall well-being.
Is Rituals 100% natural?
The company aims to use as many natural ingredients as possible in their cosmetics and personal care products, with lab-made alternatives only used when necessary for environmental reasons or product safety. By 2023, all products will be of over 90 natural origin. The company already contains over 90 natural ingredients in their body creams, face, lip, and hand care products. The goal is to use ingredients that are safe for skin and the planet, while also being environmentally friendly.
Is rituals a luxury brand?
Rituals, a luxury lifestyle brand established in 2000, oversees the operation of over 600 stores across 27 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America. The company’s strategic objective is to operate company-owned stores and to refrain from offering a franchise system in new or existing locations. Members of My Rituals may select a gift of their choosing when they expend an additional £45. The company’s strategy is to operate company-owned stores, rather than offering a franchise system in new or existing locations.
What are the 4 types of rituals?
Gluckman distinguishes four kinds of ritual, with rite of passage being a typical constitutive ritual. However, the terms “rite of passage” and “ritual” face difficulties as analytic concepts, making it difficult to differentiate between common behavior, rite of passage, and ritual in a strict sense. Van Gennep’s original expressions of the basic features of the rite of passage are vague, and the core problem is what people want to change through ritual.
Travel away from home but not for subsistence is a human behavior that has been widespread in all societies since ancient times. It wasn’t until the late twentieth century that tourism became a general necessity of life, promoting the development of related industries around the world. Determining the coordinates of tourism in cultural anthropology and establishing an analytic framework of tourism are frequently the focus of research for tourism anthropologists.
Graburn and Nash, two important researchers in the anthropology of tourism, have debated these basic questions. Graburn suggests that tourism is a “modern ritual” in contemporary society, where people are outside of their daily lives and in the travel life, which differs from routine work and life. He divides the life of the tourist into three stages: secular work-divine travel-secular work.
Nash later proposed that the purpose of travel, attitude toward travel, and the traveler’s behavior vary from person to person, and not all kinds of travel are similar to pilgrimage. While Graburn’s points of view can be useful for analyzing tourism, it’s important to be wary of being trapped into any one conceptual scheme, particularly one that may acquire a quality of truth in the minds of its proponents.
What are rituals in life?
Bronislaw Malinowski posits that rituals are symbolic enactments that elicit emotional responses in situations where the outcome is significant, uncertain, or beyond our control.
📹 This RITUAL will KILL YOU (*DISTRESSING IMAGES*)
Time Stamps: #1 — “The Metamorphosis” — 1:16 — There are many extreme religious practices and rituals out there, but there may …
Pretty good song. It really represents 2019 as a whole. It feels like a fresh start to things, which that was what that year felt to me. Fresh start with basic and simple stuff. Not that that year was any good. Also, that woman being attractive there. She’s absolutely rocking on that clothing set. That style is somewhat unique, and it works very well. And yeah. Great job, guys. Also… “Oh, you’ll always be my itchy roll!” is an unusual misheard lyric. But it does sound like that. I like it.
I grew up Buddhist and was always fascinated with the discipline and pain tolerance that monks can attain. The article coverage of Buddhist monks participating in self-immolation in protest while sitting in the lotus position and not writhing in pain has always been a terrifying image. This story ranks right up there.
I watched a documentary about this practice in the early 2000’s, that followed a monk going through the 2nd stage. By the time it was over, the guy already looked like he had died even thought he was still barely alive. You have to realise these are not young men doing this ritual, its old monks who know their time is rapidly running out, so they have the choice to simply die of old age, or use the last of their years to attempt this. The monk in the documentary said he felt a change in his body a few months before he began, feeling that the end of his life was approaching, so he needed to start right away to have the strength to complete the ritual. The documentary could not show the final stage because technically the monks were’nt allowed to do it, so its unknown to me if the monk attained nirvana. What I do remember was the man did not appear to be suffering, and was being cared for by his fellow monks who checked on him constantly to make sure he was still capable of finishing the ritual and to assist.
It wasn’t until the end when Mr. Ballen said “self-mummification” that my bones got chilled. If he started by mentioning it and explain each steps scientifically, the impact would be much less. I’ve learned so much from Mr. Ballen’s storytelling, especially on the placements of segments, it often changes the impact dramatically. I also learned from Mr. Ballen never go cave diving. 😅
Years later and I still love Ballens storytelling skills. For most of the article I was in the mindset of “this is very interesting, and these people are so dedicated putting themselves through that to try to come out the other end” and then the scentence “when the day comes they cant hear the bell, they have completed the ritual” happened and wow
Holy crap. I wasn’t expecting phase three’s end result to be mummification. I live in a small town in the Midwest and the small town next to me has a large population of Buddhist Monks that live in a beautiful temple. I’ve learned a lot about them over the years of them being my “neighbors” but I definitely didn’t know about this ritual.
When I lived on the Tibetan Plateau for several years, I became good friends with several monks in a couple of monasteries, and very close friends with a couple at a very remote monastery. I’ve actually seen monks at all three stages of the process and found it jarring. One of the monks explained it to me and even pointed out some bamboo stalks in odd random locations in the woods around his monastery. Definitely one of my more bizarre memories of the place.
I love that at the start of your articles you always talk about how “WE upload” and “WE research WE work hard etc” it really shows how much dedication you have for your Team and acknowledging to them how integral they are to Your website and that it’s a team effort 💪🏼 it shows a level of humbleness not many have these days!!
I was so confused, I was like “but they aren’t killing themselves, right? That doesn’t make any sense” and then you got to the mummy part and my jaw dropped. Not because I was horrible but because it really makes you think about other people’s way of thought on life, how to make the most out of it and how differently we all see success. You delivered this very well to us!
Wow i was not expecting the ending. I’ve never known much about Monks but i know they strive for enlightenment. Couldn’t help but feel sad for their suffering but yet i have so much respect for the magnitude of their self-discipline and sacrifice. You truly have to have a strong mind and soul to be able to go through something like that.
Holy cow !!! I am an og fan and I am so happy that Ballen is getting the much deserved recognition and success for his incredible talent. Coming from a people known for our ability to tell stories since the beginning of time, I’ve been unbelievably impressed since day one. I’m happily blown away that just 2 hours after posting there are126k views, 21k likes, and 3,600 comments already! Congrats Ballen💝
Okay Mr. B ❤ I’m gonna say it again, you were born to teach history‼️💯 I am a huge history fan. I can honestly say I’d remember in detail every single thing you said, and it would have been awesome 👏🏻 Thank you for your service 🦭 I love special operations in the military, did you ever consider teaching? I hope you can answer some say. Love your work here on YouTube ❤ I’ve been a sub for 2 years now and always learn something new every time ‼️🙏🏼🫶🏼 keep it real🫶🏼💯much respect ✊🏼
Longer articles Please!! It’s my once a week treat, getting your new strange dark and mysterious articles. The podcast is hard bc I cant see anyone talking or anything else like that. I’m EXTREMELY ADHD and will watch an entire 3hr podcast that is just shot can did as the pod cast went and you get to see them on the podcast. It helps with my brain seeing what im hearing or even if there were many pictures, IDK. I LOVE you, I LOVE Your Work, and I Appreciate the everliving crap out of you. I know you have a family and kids and they need as much attention as they can from their daddy, I’m Happy for you! God Bless you and your family, and your mom is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING AND SO CUTE! I still remember the article SHE put out back a while ago. Shes Amazing man, and she not only gave birth to, but also Raised an Amazing man. Love your charisma, love Good ol Lungy. Have a Great Day!
Random Japanese here. I first found out about sokishinbutsu （即身仏）when I was about…maybe 9??? It was after I saw this horror movie on TV about this mummy who attacks people, and even though I was scared I tried acting tough and said something like “I’m not scared, mummies are in Egypt, we’re in Japan” to my mom. Hey, I was a dumb kid. Then my sweet mother smiled and told me that there are indeed mummies in Japan too. I clearly remember asking her if this “mummy” was evil. She was nice enough to tell me no. After that I read a book about it, and YES, it was a book for kids and it gave me a detailed description (with illustrations!)on how a person becomes a sokushinbutsu. Oh, good memories.
I’ve heard of these enlightenment journeys before but didn’t know the extent one took to achieve. This just goes to show the dedication to one’s self that they felt. I’ve always had a similar view of the pathway of life but not quite as drastic. These monks are truly incredible on so many levels. Thank you for the fascinating story sir.
I first learned of this ritual many years ago. I’ve been regaled with the entire process a number of times. This telling was surely the most effective I’ve encountered anyway. I actually find it much easier to understand now that I am old and live with my own pending mortality, while inevitably taking stock of the life that led me here.
His conveyance of comprehensive meaning san linguistic articulation is wonderfully superb. Ballen is a delight to the listener anf possesses a unique talent for making his verbal illustrations appeal to all ages and levels of comprehension without leaving his audience feeling pandered or with the notion he is intentionally speaking out of the reallm of understanding for others.
Somehow their horribly agonizing death is simultaneously the strongest symbol of conviction I have ever seen. I’m not a buddhist but I can honor their choices, in their eyes having been their very best effort toward salvation. I truly hope they got everything they were looking for and more, for even if not one with such dedication would simply try again.
Dont know if u will see this but ive been a fan for a long time, always appreciate your vids bro. U def get me through the work days, always entertaining and informative i learn about things i would never even think about and your storytelling is absolutely top notch, listening to you is better than perusal movies. Never change bro
I have to say, after the whole tree eating for 1000+ days, I was trying to think of what could suck more. And then you said poison ivy tea. Oh hell no. No freaking way. I don’t even want to ponder the things that could possibly be worse. Truly disturbing, definitely dedicated, and I would imagine a little insane if you survive phase 1 and 2.
An important point about this is that they are not seen as dead, but in deep meditation. The Shingon sect has its founder Kobo Daishi on Mount Koya, in this state. The phrase Sokushin Butsu or Sokushin Jobutsu doesn’t only refer to this practice in particular, it’s more of a general concept of esoteric Buddhism of becoming a Buddha in your present body instead of waiting three eons after hearing the Dharma.
Im an absolute fan of your articles here from Brazil, and since you always speak of stories from very different places, I would find very interesting for you to speak about one of the most famous tragedies from my country, which is the Cesium-137 incident from 1987 that happened in the Brazillian city Goiânia. I bet you would tell that story really well in a article of yours.
Someday I hope to find a documentary on Mr. Ballen. I’m so fascinated, and rapt with attention, by his storytelling that I’d love to hear how he came about and discovered this talent of himself. I’ve spent hours listening to this man. The only reason I haven’t downloaded his podcast is because I know I’d be spending even more time with that. Hopefully he’s making a large amount of money for him and his family doing this. He deserves every penny of it.
Ive met several Buddhist monks, and never knew this was the end achievement. Transcendental meditation was a big “thing” in the 60s, and I practiced it with my friends. We never knew that achieving Nirvana was literal self-mummification. We all talked about enlightenment, but had no idea what was really involved. Now that Moody Blues album cover makes a lot more sense!(In Search of the Lost Chord)
I had a rare condition while pregnant that caused me to vomit every 8 minutes 24 hours a day and night for 7 months. Was in the ER 3 times a week in peak pandemic and they couldn’t make it stop. I stopped feeling hungry eventually and the dehydration got so bad I couldn’t tell time and started having spasms in my arms. Couldn’t walk from being so weak. I was vomiting so much acid so often every 8 minutes that the acid was burning my throat and making me vomit blood. I did that more than double the time of those 100 days. I would never wish that experience on anyone. I have pain in my throat to this day still and don’t get hungry still. I have to remind myself to eat.
I’ve read about one of the monks that was mummified but other monks treat him as though he is still alive, just in nirvana state. I had no idea it was a self-mummification. The tree eating stuff I could handle, a lot of great teas and nuts and even some inner bark, and spruce leaves make a great natural soda if you let them ferment. But that poisonous tea sounds brutal. I understand the reason for it, and it actually is pretty clever as far as a very non-technologically-advanced community can get for having no scientific understanding of why and how the body can mummify. I guess you have to have solid faith that death is not the end, that our energies are always here and never leave.
This blew my mind, this is discipline on another level!!! Before I found and subscribed to this website I was so deprived😂 seriously though what better way to spend 20- 45mins listening intently to a scary, mind blowing or just plain WIERD story told in a gorgeous accent by Mr B who is too boot…,. extremely easy on the eyes!!! No cannot think of anything better thanks Mr B for another tale.
My fascination just increased for the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in a story format as i’ve come to the right place because that’s what this guy do and he uploads once a week. Since this is an interest for me, the next time the like button is counting something really important, I will scream random numbers so it’ll mess it up.
I legitimately thought at the end they would regain the body fat and retry. The mummification definitely took me for a loop. Imagine going through this thinking you’re gonna be worshiped and you’re using that to get for encouragement only to be determined after you die that you haven’t reached Nirvana. Dang that’s rough.
Dear Mr. Ballen, you do a stellar job in story telling and this is NOT meant to be offensive to you. I’m a Buddhist from Sri Lanka and I’ve never heard of any such ritual! The pure Theravada Buddhist philosophy doesn’t advocate torture as a means of attaining nirvana. It is more of a self realization of how the world works and is also about good and bad karma and etc etc. For those of you who do not know much about Buddhism and would like to get to know it better, I suggest you follow the teachings of pure Theravada Buddhism. The rituals such as the ones in this article are all part of a different set of beliefs held by Mahayana sects of Buddhists. No offense again! Just trying to clear the misunderstandings about Lord Buddha’s simple teachings which definitely DO NOT include nonsensical rituals. Nirvana is a spiritual journey attained by living modestly and clearing up one’s mind through meditation. Anyway thank you Mr. Ballen for your extremely entertaining articles! they are very informative too! really appreciate your work, and please don’t stop!
We arrived late to a camping site a couple years ago, it was dark and cold so we just grabbed any brush we could feel for and started a fire. The next morning I felt Itchy and thought I got poison oak like I easily do. I did not realize I breathed it in during the fire, had to go to the hospital and received a cream to apply to my skin but NOTHING will ever be as bad as itching inside your body and having no way to scratch it.
Inuyasha tackled this practice in a very interesting way with the character of St. Hakushin. She was a monk who endured the mummification process to save his village from famine and war, but in the process, he developed an intense resentment and hatred for those same people, in turn, locking him in a between state, where he could not escape samsara, but also could not die. I always though that was a very interesting take on Buddhist Theology.
It’s such an interesting ritual, the chemistry and biology behind it is very interesting, there is also a lot of pine tea which removes the water and permeates their bodies with preservatives. They are considered not to have died but to have become both a statue and a bodhisatva simultaneously, which is not a contradictory state.
I’ve heard of this before, and I find the word process incredibly fascinating, so I’m really glad you convered it. One question, however, to anyone who might be familiar with this process: I was under the impression that at some point during the first two phases, the monk undergoing this process ingested a great deal of honey to help with the preservation of the body. Am I remembering wrong, or are there, perhaps, different ways of practicing this process which involve honey?
I immediately knew what he was talking about. This practice was done in Japan way back in the day. It’s Illegal now. I first heard about this in the anime Inuyasha. They are also called Living Buddha’s. They are highly respected and worshipped. Basically they become a deity in a sort of way. Fascinating and morbid.
I love all of your “Strange, Dark & Mysterious, Delivered In Story Format” tales but I have to say, this would have to be my favourite so far. You’re a natural story teller. I reckon you’d make a fantastic narrator for horror stories for Audio books. I’m a Stephen King lover and if, Goddess Forbid, I lost the ability to read books, I’d for sure listen to you narrate Stephen King and Dean Koontz Audio books. That my friend, is a legitimate compliment because I’m a connoisseur of horror books and horror movies. Keep up your fantabulous work, from your self proclaimed number 1 Australian Fan. 💙🌻💙
From a Buddhist perspective (I can imagine) this makes perfect sense. This corporeal body is unnecessary to the overall experience and something that we must learn to come to terms with as spiritual beings here. That is the focus of this task. And as beings with free will, they are choosing this. No one is forcing this upon them. I appreciate this episode- thank you John! As always ❤
I’ll tell you all something that you already know.. I successfully completed ‘Sokunshinbutsu’. Nah…. I may be crazy, but not THAT Crazy! The ‘thing’ in question is that Mr. Ballen is an exceptionally good storyteller. I think one of the primary reasons why he’s so good is the emphasis that he places on ‘refraining from editorialization’ or ‘injecting’ a story with his own subjective speculation. Out of all the fantastic ‘Mr. Ballen articles’ that I’ve seen, the one that resonated with me the strongest is entitled ‘Teen Prodigies’ Disturbing Masterwork will make even The Toughest People Squirm’. If memory serves correct, the article was initially simply titled ‘The Masterwork’, but the title has been altered. Anyhow…. At the beginning of that article, Mr. Ballen begins with a significant preface. He explains that he and his team debated for a while in reference to ‘how this story should be presented’ and ultimately decided to just ‘provide the facts in sequential order, and allow the viewers to arrive at their own conclusions’. The reason for the aforementioned disclaimer (I believe) is because the subject of that article was ‘ALMOST CERTAINLY’ engaging in ‘sokoshinbutsu’, but never EXPLICITLY made that assertion. If you haven’t seen that one, check it out. It’s one of Ballen’s Best'(imo).
Hey John, I live in Denmark, and my mom is a nurse, and back in 2017 the police discovered in a little town called skjern, that a woman called Mathilde had drawd her own sons blood for five years. Today her son is 7 years and ok. The reason why this is extra scary to me, is because my mom was taking an education with her without knowing what she was doing. Sorry for bad English.
I think when these monks are on the third step, they’re hoping to die because of how terrible they feel. But I think once they accept the fact death is imminent, they relax and finally are at peace with dying. I believe it’s the slowness of their final days that brings about a euphoric state. This euphoria may in fact be the nirvana they are looking for. This ritual may be the one truth monks actually seek.
Fascinating stuff. I respect the heck out of monks. The dedication they have to achieving something they might not even achieve, and it also might kill them in the process. Good luck to all monks out there trying to achieve nirvana. I know they won’t ever see this comment, but maybe the universe and nature will tell them that there are others who support their way of life and that others are sending them lots of luck and success. 💜🙏
See and as creepy and extreme as this ritual seems to be, I can’t help having the utmost respect for it. Sokushinbutsu has been a point of interest for my morbid curiosity for a good long while now and one thing I found out in my days researching this practice is that from start to finish, the ritual is all about free will. No monk is ever forced or coerced into doing this in the first place and no monk is ever forced or coerced into continuing when they don’t want to. The monk is supported by their monastery on whichever path they choose. A monk who quits isn’t shamed and a monk who pushes on through the phases isn’t pressured. Sokushinbutsu is an entirely self-defined ritual where only the one undertaking it decides what is going to happen next. They’re in full control the entire way and personally, I think there’s a lot the world can learn from that show of utter, unconditional respect for a man’s free will, especially when it comes to allowing people to choose their own deaths. The western view on suicide is completely skewed and inhumane and I hope we can one day get to a point where we can have reasonable, respectful conversations about the topic that don’t insult people’s integrity and human right to make their own decisions.
This article has made me think a lot. As a species, our survival instict is to avoid pain, but yet these monks have achieved self-control to the point they can withstand so much pain for the spiritual aim of achieving enlightenment. Strangely, even though I’m not a buddhist, I believe they have entered god mode.
A self-mummification process…so, the search for nirvana really has lead people to this? Surely monks who have some knowledge of science can at least acknowledge this, despite how deeply the tradition is rooted in the culture. I may not fully understand what the process of finding nirvana is, but that surely cannot be it. Amazing article as always MrBallen!
It always saddens me that people will subject themselves to such absurdities all in the name of religion. Extremely sad, and the fact that 24 people actually achieved their goal is beyond astonishing. As always, I even watch the ads, laughing and giggling through all of MrBallen’s and Lungy’s antics. Well-done, MrBallen, and thank you for all your hard work, Sir!
If IF I was younger I’d try to hire YOU JB to do a commercial for my heating and air-conditioning business. People would recall the commercial if not the name. I usually try to fast forward thru you tube commercials but I watch yours. Even if I won’t use or buy the product I will recall the commercial.
I remember first learning about this when I was younger and it reminded of part of the canonization process of Christian saints. A sign that a person is a Saint is after they pass away, their bodies won’t decompose completely and their body may have a pleasant fragrance. With this self mumification process though in the strict sect of budism, it seems that they go through quite a tortuous way to not decompose.