Haha, of course you would think of something like this, jlane. But yeah, that does make sense. They induce herbs in order to go into a trance. I think its pretty cool.
But no, the 'unformed land' isn't heaven, its earth (Sanctuary). Its described as being like a hidden world behind the world we normally see. Well, okay, they do have "Gods that inhabit the unformed land", which makes it sound like Angels in Heaven, but somehow it just doesn't feel like they are talking about wondrous angels. It sounds much more like the Necromancers and the hidden Trag'Oul or the Druids and their Spirits of Nature.
Upon further discussions with my hosts, I discovered that these tribes define themselves by their belief in the Mbwiru Eikura, which roughly translates to "The Unformed Land" (this is an imprecise translation, as this concept is completely foreign to our culture and language). This belief holds that the true, sacred reality is veiled behind the physical one we normally experience. Their vitally important public ceremonies are centered upon sacrifices to the life force that flows from their gods, who inhabit the Unformed Land, into this lesser physical realm.
The witch doctors are finely attuned to this Unformed Land and are able to train their minds to perceive this reality through a combination of rituals and the use of selected roots and herbs found in the jungles. They call the state in which they interact with this other world the Ghost Trance.
Alongside the primacy of the belief in the life force and the Unformed Land, the second most sacred belief of the tribes is their philosophy of self-sacrifice and non-individuality, of suppressing one's self-interest for the good of the tribe. This idea, so foreign to our culture, struck me as something I wished to delve into much more deeply.
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But no, the 'unformed land' isn't heaven, its earth (Sanctuary). Its described as being like a hidden world behind the world we normally see. Well, okay, they do have "Gods that inhabit the unformed land", which makes it sound like Angels in Heaven, but somehow it just doesn't feel like they are talking about wondrous angels. It sounds much more like the Necromancers and the hidden Trag'Oul or the Druids and their Spirits of Nature.