http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005...rgo-cults-religion-ultraterrestrials/

Every so often, no matter what the pigeon was doing at the moment, a click and a food-pellet reward were delivered. Soon the pigeons put on this random schedule were doing elaborate “dances,” bobbing and whirling and craning their necks.

Imagine some primitive human who desires rain and attempts to solicit aid from the “rain god” by performing some act. It doesn’t work. So he tries something else. That doesn’t work either. Eventually, however, it actually does rain, at which point he might reflect, “Now what did I just do?” The next time he desires rain, he repeats what he just learned, but it doesn’t work, so he varies it a bit, adding onto what he already has, figuring he missed a step or performed something incorrectly. Eventually, it rains. “Oh,” he thinks, “it’s right foot, left foot, right foot, jump, not right foot, left foot, right foot, crouch.” The process continues, perhaps over years, even generations, gradually building an elaborate ritualized series of behaviors.

The trance part probably came later.

So I’ll leave it up to you to read and decide.

No worries, it’s not a long one. =)