Ratchaburi: Like many people, 67-year-old Preecha Iamkum puts religion in a supernatural power to protect him from hurt. What makes Fast is the way he invokes this safety: by having three-centimeter-long gold pins totally inserted into his body. Preecha first places the custom-made pins, that are made of an 80% gold alloy, in a bowl of sesame oil after which chants a secret incantation that may cost them with protecting powers. When the pins are ready for implantation, he explains, they float to the surface. He cannot insert the pins himself, he says; that should be accomplished by one other one who also has supernatural powers. He also has to take precautions to not do something that may disgust the pins and trigger them to abandon him. “I can’t contact a canine, or speak in a unclean place similar to a relaxation room. If I do, the pins will fall out,” he says. Preecha says that he now has about 1,000 gold pins in his physique. The most he has ever had inserted in a single sitting is 109 pins. When Preecha’s odd practice came to th