Someone screams and runs into Rangda then as suddenly many people follow to scream and cry. More and more people join in as the gambelan (Balinese traditional music's instruments) becomes faster and dynamic. The priests ask every "guest" how is the ceremony, does it run well and satisfy the gods? And at the end, some of them will stand in front of holy statue, Barong and Rangda. Then they stab themselves with kris, but, of course, there's no blood from their bodies. Others hold fire until it dies down, and again, there's no pain to their hands and bodies.

If you have a time to attend a ceremony or festival in Bali's temple then you can see what is described above. In what you will have witnessed is a trance dance in a religious rite. The trance can be seen in every temple ceremony in Bali, especially in southern part of this paradise. Trance as a medium is often used in cultural religious Balinese communities. It is to satisfy the supernatural world that a ceremony has been performed as it ought.

Balinese believe trance is a way of god (bhatara) and his followers or the guardians (ancangan) to show their presence in the ceremony. Trance as a ceremonial medium is believed to be the manifestation of a God who has agreed to come to the ceremony. A trance event becomes a unity in one ceremony because it adds to the humility and subservience of a ceremony.

In certain temples, when nobody enters into trance, the ceremony is in question because there is no sign that the gods have accepted or have any objection about the ceremony or its process. If there is no trance, there will be something lost from the ceremony. And most of people, especially the priests will ask to themselves whether or not it had been performed as it should be.

In ritual ceremonies, trance has become a `must` during a pasupati or the `enlivening` ceremony for an object that will later be considered sacred, especially the Barong, Rangda and others holy masks, or even a kris. A Pasupati is always accompanied by trance, a sacred object is only a `dead thing because it does not have a spirit. And after it has a spirit, in every performance some of the dancers will enter into trance, with its variety of exotic action, and will be considered the climax of the performance.