This leap of faith started a short distance outside the Maw and meant a blind jump into the deadly cluster. If the candidate was "ordained by destiny" to live, and thus become a priest, they would theoretically pass through the "Talmaddic Dare Point", and emerge unscathed on the other side of the cluster.
While religious texts from the time speak of dozens, if not hundreds, of clergy members surviving the leap of faith, the subsequent extinction of the religion and its relative obscurity in today's history lessons suggest that perhaps a less challenging obstacle towards priesthood would've meant a longer-lived faith.