Others have given some great answers to this, but I will put in my two clacks.
> 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?
No.
> Or do their "souls" travel there
> and their bodies stay behind?
Yes, sort of mostly. (see below)
> If I were an observer at the ritual who
> was not an initiate, what would I see?
You would see a bunch of people in costmes performing some sort of drama, or ritual drama, or dramatic ritual.
> Would it be the bodies of the
> worshippers sitting there?
Moving, probably. Most rituals require the participants to participate.
Thre is
a core of people doing the central activity, the others who are "watching"
would probably be dancing, singing, praying, doing magic, making wierd signs
with their hands, etc.
> Would they disappear to me?
No.
> 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?
No. You could try, but it would not be easy.
Perhaps it is easier for you to visualize as a merging of the worlds
rather than
the participants going anywhere. The God World and the Everything World become
one, but for the initiates the other parts of Everythign go away for a bit.
Thus it would be difficult to attack them during the ritual because they are fully empowered with their god-power, and anyone interfering in the rite would have to deal with that.
Plus, of course, there are guards set outside the ritual area, or at its edge, who are also part of the rite and empowered...
> From: Tony Davis <gallows_brother_at_...>
> Subject: Re: Re: What's "really" happening in rituals?
>
> I thought for sure I saw something that said 'The
> Orlanthi fly around the clanhouse and then at some
> point disappear...'
This is a nonphysical reality. Their bodies are back at the ritual,
doing their
ritual version of this blying around--dancing in a spiral, in fact.
All that having been said: in a full HeroQuest the bodies DO go into the Otherworld.
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