They are joined in their devotions by a group of women who rise to dance a slow round of Pendet, honoring the deities of each shrine with incense and offerings and prayers. As attendants to the festival the women may go unnoticed among other villagers, but as dancers each comes alive with exuberant individuality and grace. The dance in itself is an offering to the deities, and true to the Balinese spirit it is to pay homage to God through the beauty of motion, song and music. During the course of these rituals, a pernangku may become possessed by a divine spirit and fall into trance, crying and shaking violently. He is calmed by a fellow priest and presented with offerings for it is believed he has been entered by a deity.
Trance is taken as a Tligious experience, a form of communication with the spiritual world.
Certain men and women in every village serve the deities as established trance mediums in the temple ceremonies. Each temple has its own trance mediums who attend all the ceremonies there, and every medium has his own deity with whom he communicates during trance. Most mediums belong to a special family of trancers, as dQ the trance dancers in the Barong and Rangda plays. Usually the head pemangku of a temple is a trance medium and,may attend ceremonies at other temples as the spokesman for a deity. Through a trance me dium, a divine request may be made or advice given.