What's "really" happening in rituals?

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From: ahoggya <ahoggya_at_...>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 19:53:39 -0000

This may have been asked before, but I was wondering... during a theist ritual (say the Orlanthi Holy Day trip to visit Orlanth's house) what is "really" happening? Do the worshippers physically travel to the God World? Or do their "souls" travel there and their bodies stay behind? If I were an observer at the ritual who was not an initiate, what would I see? Would it be the bodies of the worshippers sitting there? Would they disappear to me? If their bodies are just sitting there then I could disrupt the ritual very easily by attacking the bodies of the participants while their "attention" is in the Otherworld. Yes? However, I'm guessing the answer is that they DO travel into the God World and that I couldn't really attack them, since they would be gone. But what would I (the uninitiated observer of the ritual) actually SEE if I did try to disrupt things? I'm sure the answer to this is in some of my books but I can't cull through them all today (at work!) and this is really bugging me! Thanks,
Dave