It’s not every day that you run across a shrine in the Western or secular worlds but there are plenty of them out there. Many people in the modern world use the word in a joking fashion, like if someone is a fan of a certain celebrity or athlete they may have a shrine in their home full of that person’s memorabilia. But real shrines with religious significance exist all around the globe. That being said, some of them are maybe a little more esoteric or downright weird than others.
10. The Shrine to Dobby The House Elf
The world of Harry Potter is firmly entrenched in pop culture and there are millions of fans who have both read the books and seen the movies. It became a cultural phenomenon in a way no one could have expected and to appreciate just how firm a grip it has, you just need to head to Pembrokeshire.
In the Harry Potter films, the character of Dobby the house elf proves to be somewhat of a nuisance and somewhat of a helper for Harry and his friends. Eventually Harry frees the elf and it becomes a still vaguely annoying but helpful ally right up until his untimely death.
On screen, Dobby died at a place called Freshwater Beach west in Pembrokeshire. In real life, fans have continued to visit the place to mark the grave of the entirely fictional and computer generated character, building shrines to honor his memory.
Dobby’s shrine is not all that in depth, rather it’s a pile of stones to mark the place of his death. One stone reads “Here lies Dobby, a free elf.” The stones are also intermingled with stray socks since it was a sock that was given to Dobby which allowed him to become free.
The area is actually a protected conservation area and the National Trust, which takes care of it, has asked people to stop leaving rocks and socks there because of the danger they could pose to the native wildlife.
9. The Japanese Shrine to Hemorrhoids
If you were to make a list of all the things you never really wanted to honor and pay reverence to, where do you think hemorrhoids might fall? If you’re in Japan and visiting the Kunigami Shrine in Tochigi Prefecture those swollen little pains in the backside might not make your list at all considering that’s where you’ll find a shrine to hemorrhoids.
By way of explanation, in the Shinto system of belief, the various gods known as kami are the kind of entities that like a good laugh. Also, a good butt joke, it seems. The shrine is for those who want to banish their backside bugaboos by eating egg offerings and washing their rear end in what seems to be a ritualistic fashion. If that fails, some people literally shake their butts at the shrine itself.
The specific ritual requires one to bathe in a holy river, then visit the shrine, butt pointed towards a holy egg, while you say a prayer. Though there are literally thousands upon thousands of Shinto shrines in Japan, this is the only one dedicated to curing hemorrhoids.
8. A Shrine to an Indian Motorcycle God
Like most places in the world, India has endured far too many drunk driving accidents over the years. People there will often leave something at the site of an accident to memorialize those who have died but the Bullet Baba Shrine in Jodhpur took things to the next level.
The legend of this shrine tells of a man who crashed his motorcycle at the site in 1988. Police came to clean up the scene and took the bike back to their station but the next day it was somehow at the crash site once more. So the police emptied the gas tank and chained it up but when they returned the chains were broken and the bike was at the crash site once more.
It was decided that the bike should remain at the site, and a shrine was built around it. The bike sits on a stone dais encased in glass. People who pass by offer a quick prayer to the Motorcycle God known as Om Banna or Bullet Baba, owing to the bike being a Royal Enfield Bullet. Some just honk their horns, befitting a motorcycle deity.
People will leave flowers and even full bottles of alcohol at the site in the hopes of gaining the god’s blessing and having safe travels. A priest works there and performs daily rituals and upkeep.
7. Shrine of the Miracle Tortilla
If you were to witness an honest to goodness miracle, you might be inclined to build a shrine on that spot yourself. But you have to clarify ahead of time, what exactly qualifies as a miracle? For Maria Rubio that question was answered back in 1977 when she was going to make a bean burrito and saw the face of Jesus in her tortilla.
Maria was one of the first people ever to have this moment of seeing the face of Jesus in food. It’s sort of a cliche these days, but it was novel and new in 1977. So new, in fact, that she and her family ended up on TV and became famous if not infamous as a result.
While some people mocked Rubio, others believed. The house itself became a shrine for the tortilla and many visitors came to see the tortilla over the years. The family preserved it for about 30 years until it finally fell apart as ancient tortillas are prone to do.
6. A North Korean Escalator
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died in 2011 paving the way for his son to take the reins. But before he finally passed away, the infamous leader had his final photo taken in a Pyongyang supermarket as he descended an escalator.
Because that was the final image of the man it became inextricably linked to him and his legacy. The result of which was the escalator itself becoming a shrine to the fallen ruler. Video that was presumably released by the regime in the aftermath showed mourners crying and falling over the escalator while one one lamented “if only he could ride it again.”
5. The Oakland Median Buddha
The middle of Oakland, California may not seem like the natural place for a Buddhist shrine but that doesn’t change the fact there’s one there. The statue of Buddha and the accompanying shrine exist right in the median on a busy street. Complete with flowers and flags, members of the local Vietnamese community can be found praying there every day.
The shrine was never meant to be a shrine at all. Instead, a local resident who was annoyed with how much trash and vandalism kept happening in that spot went out and bought a cheap Buddha statue to put there in the hopes it would deter people. It was meant to be an aggravation at least, something to encourage people to move along.
While it may have worked for that purpose, it also started attracting Buddhists. Dozens of people started arriving to pray and make offerings while sprucing up the basic shrine into something a little fancier. It soon had a full enclosure and even a sound system to play soft music. Today it’s a tourist attraction as well as an active shrine and offerings are cleaned up every week.
4. Bangkok’s Naughty Beggar Shrine
In the north of Bangkok you’ll find the Chuchok Shrine, dedicated to a beggar who is said to have found good fortune as a result of actions in a past life. If you come to beg for the favor of Chuchok you need to appease him. And how do you do that? By getting a little dirty.
The way this kind of shrine works is you ask for a favor with a small offering. If the spirit grants it you have to return with a payment much bigger or else face the consequences. Chuchok is said to have been a lecherous man so the payments he likes include things like strippers doing dances.
As the story goes, someone who begged Chuchok’s favor won the lottery years ago and returned with what are known as coyote dancers to put on a sexy show. Now it’s a standard thing for people to bring dancers hoping to get lucky, so to speak.
3. The Mount Kemukus Sex Shrine
Any place colloquially known as Sex Mountain has to have an interesting story and that’s certainly true of Mount Kemukus. Muslim pilgrims travel to this Indonesian mountain in search of wealth, good fortune and all that sort of stuff. The way to get it is a little surprising, of course.
Atop the mountain is a small shrine. Those who worship there are granted wealth and good fortune if they have sex every 35 days there for 7 consecutive times. The only catch is that they can’t be having sex with their spouse. Most people, it seems, just opt for anonymous fun.
As you can imagine, when this became internationally known it didn’t go over well for a lot of the more demure locals who don’t want to be known as sex pilgrim central. Attempts had been made to shut down the shrine or prohibit sex there which ended up destroying the local economy.
2. Mimizuka Ear Shrine
Not every shrine is goofy, sexy or weird, some are just plain grisly. The Mimizuka shrine in Kyoto, Japan is one of those ones. The shrine, a small hill with a stone structure on top, was built to house thousands and thousands of ears and noses which had been cut off of Korean soldiers during a 16th century war.
Japan had tried invading Korea between 1592 and 1598. At the time it had been procedure to remove the head of an enemy as a trophy. But, since there was a lot of distance between the war and Japan, the decision was made to scale back and just take ears and noses as souvenirs of a kill.
The parts were returned to Japan, pickled to preserve them, and placed in the mound which literally translates to “Mound of Ears.” The remains of 38,000 Koreans are inside.
1. Thai Red Fanta Shrines
In Thailand belief in ghosts is par for the course. The people there often take a more active role with their spiritual leanings than they do in a country like the United States where a third of people admit to believing in ghosts.
Believing in ghosts also means dealing with them for many Thai people. The easiest way to appease a spirit seems to be to keep it well fed. On the low end of the scale you can offer a ghost some water and rice but that’s pretty basic. Banana and coconut are a step up and will make a ghost happier. But the top shelf ghost treat seems to be Red Fanta.
If you’re not familiar, Red Fanta is strawberry flavored soda. You can find cups and bottles of it at shrines all around Thailand. Bottles even have straws in them to make it easier for the spirits to get refreshed.
So why Red Fanta? It’s rather complicated and not fully understood. Offerings of “sweet water” for many spirits is common practice and soda fits that bill nicely. Red color is also something that draws inspiration from Chinese culture where red is a lucky color, not to mention blood which can represent both fertility and sacrifice in Thai culture. And at some point it seems like it just caught on, like being in the right place at the right time, and became the shrine offering of choice to the point that Thailand is the fourth largest market for Fanta in the world.