Further adventures among the mountain people

Day 7. I have made great strides in my integration among these people. Today they invited me to undergo initiation in one of their most sacred cults. This religious practice, which combines mortification of the flesh and spirit, is undertaken in the most remote and inhospitable locations, at the very top of icy mountain peaks.

Setting off early, we travelled for two hours to reach the nearest sacred place. I then had to be dressed in the appropriate garb - layer upon layer of thick, padded, colourful clothing, functioning both as protection against the biting cold and as clownish costume, drawing attention to my status as initiation candidate - and prepared for the challenge ahead.

The point of the initiation itself is for the candidate to demonstrate his or her bravery, and hence worthiness, as well as to transcend fleshly limits through extremes of emotion - terror and exhilaration. The process is quite hair raising. One has long, unwieldy planks strapped to one's feet, and is equipped with a pair of sticks to aid in navigation. Through an ingenious pulley system, the participants (new initiates as well as elders) are brought to the top of a snowy slope, and must descend - battling the disadvantages conferred by these "skis", which not only create hair-raising speed if they are unwisely pointed downhill at any point, but which also of course tend to get tangled together, to trip up their wearer, and of course to impede attempts to stand up if one has once toppled over. The affront to one's dignity is an essential part of the spiritual development this rite promotes.

As it was explained to me, initiates devote many hours to this rigorous physical exercise in their desire to ascend through the levels of enlightenment. These levels are described by colour - rising from blue through red to the black of total ego annihilation - and correspond with greater levels of difficulty in the slopes descended. As one masters the higher levels, one also climbs higher and higher on the physical plane, so that the black "pistes" lead down from the very tallest and steepest peaks; thus the initiates aim ever closer to heaven. I find the close relation between physical and spiritual aspects of this rite quite striking.

One last element worth noting: as in many sacred cults, there is a sacred, mildly narcotic substance to be ingested as an aid to achieving the transcendent state of mind. The twist is that this "rumpunsch" is served in mountain huts that must be reached by ski. Thus, the rumpunsch is both a lure and reward for the derring do needed to attain it, and an aid to further courage - much needed, I can assure you, for the remaining descent.