Acala's iconographic wall of flame corresponds to an actual, still-performed ritual central to Japanese esoteric Buddhism: the goma, a fire ceremony in which a specially trained priest, generally of the Shingon or Tendai schools, burns wooden sticks called gomagi in a ritual hearth before an image of Fudo Myoo, each stick typically inscribed beforehand by a worshipper with a specific wish, prayer or the name of an affliction to be overcome, so that the fire itself becomes the visible working of Acala's flame, consuming the written petition and, by extension, the obstacle or defilement it names. Major goma ceremonies are held regularly at large Fudo-associated temples across Japan, among the most famous being Narita-san Shinshoji near Narita, a temple with a history traditionally traced to the tenth century and one of the most visited religious sites in the country, where large public goma rites are performed multiple times daily before crowds of worshippers seeking blessings for health, safety, business success or protection from misfortune.
The ritual translates Acala's fixed iconography directly into lived religious practice: the same fire that surrounds his carved or painted image in temple statuary is kindled anew at every goma, and the smoke and heat are understood by practitioners not merely as symbolic but as an actual channel through which the deity's power to burn away obstacles and delusion is brought to bear on specific, named human concerns, linking a centuries-old visual convention of wrathful Buddhist art to an ongoing, widely attended devotional practice performed for entirely practical, this-worldly ends as much as for spiritual liberation.