Each Wednesday (okay, this one is a little late), we’ll select an image that gives us some insight on religion in the world today. It’s a complicated subject and so I figured we’d have our inaugural image be on the complicated side: behold Paris Hilton with her guru.

Earlier in March, Ms. Hilton — heiress, reality TV and sex tape star — spent an awkwardly conspicuous night on the town with a sagely bearded, saffron robed, “guru” who ushered Hilton to LA New Age landmark the Bodhi Tree for some reading and possible spiritual awakening. First her pre-jail time Bible reading and now this?

The Daily Mail put together a nice, pious album of the evening. And whatever you may think of Hilton, she is a savant of the symbolic and her ensemble nods to all spirituality as costume — low rise pump, off white fishnets, headband, white lace dress, smallish purse and a serious sad look.

Of course, it was a pipe dream that Hilton was seeking divinity and, in fact, her guru turned out to be a bit actor (his MySpace page brags about his role in Pirates of the Caribbean, and includes an album of photos of him as Hilton’s shaman). In the end, her actions were for Hilton’s real God, the cameras. Sigh.

The scheme had been cooked up by Ashton Kutcher for his new MTV show, “Pop Fiction,” which is meant to highlight the madness of the image obsessed fans and paparazzi. Genius! Hilton’s lacy get-up and robed-friend underscore how pious behavior is viewed as preposterous in Hollywood these days — at least the non-Kabbalistic, non-Scientological variety. What’s more, Kutcher saw a lesson in the pseudo-spiritual prank, saying, “We’re having fun, but we want to say to people, ‘Can you really believe everything you read and see?”