I understand from someone who knows him that Tabor was encouraged to "sex up" his text by his publishers to make caving seem more extreme, and cavers even tougher than we actually are (hard though it is to imagine this could be possible). In any event, the passage about The Rapture and its context deserve reading in full. Apparently you get this nasty condition worst in what the author calls "supercaves". These passages are possibly the most risible things ever written about underground exploration. Unfortunately, there are other parts of this book that are just as bad.
Two years ago I went on an expedition to Huautla led by the indomitable Bill Steele, a really great guy. It was a hugely enjoyable - and very successful - experience. But what was weird was that some of the younger members of the team had read this book and believed this rapture thing might be real, and before big trips discussed whether they might be afflicted by it with some anxiety.
Anyway, here is what to expect in supercaves, which
"present more hazards than any other extreme exploration environment. Just descending into and climbing out of them is exorbitantly dangerous. Recovering a body, dead or alive, from deep within any cave is even worse, increasing that danger by an order of magnitude."
What might those perils be? According to Mr Tabor, they include:
"drowning, fatal falls, premature burial, asphyxiation, hypothermia, hurricane-force winds, electrocution, earthquake-induced collapses, poison gases and walls dripping sulfuric or hydrochloric acid. There are also rabid bats, snakes, troglodytic scorpions and spiders, radon and microbes that cause horrific diseases like histoplasmosis and leishmaniasis. Kitum Cave in Uganda is believed to be the birthplace of that ultragerm the Ebola virus. Caving hazards related to equipment and techniques include strangulation by one?s own vertical gear (primary and secondary ropes, rappel rack and ascender connections, et cetera), rope failure, running out of light, rappelling off the end of a rope, ascenders failing on muddy rope, foot-hang (fully as unpleasant as it sounds) and scores more that, if less common, are no less unpleasant. One final hazard, so obvious that it?s easy to forget, deserves mention: getting lost."
Foot hang, eh? Very nasty. Interesting that when Mark Sims and Sandy Wright made a breakthrough in the cave known as 27/9 in the Picos last year to find and descend a big pitch, they called it Foot Hang. I wonder why?
No wonder supercavers risk going bonkers - and are hence prone to the rapture:
"Supercaves create inner dangers as well, warping the mind with claustrophobia, anxiety, insomnia, hallucinations, personality disorders. There is also a particularly insidious derangement unique to caves called The Rapture, which is like a panic attack on meth. It can strike anywhere in a cave, at any time, but usually assaults a caver deep underground. And, of course, there is one more that, like getting lost, tends to be overlooked because it?s omnipresent: absolute, eternal darkness. Darkness so dark, without a single photon of light, that it is the luminal equivalent of absolute zero.?
Not a single photon of light. Strewth, we are brave. Or suffering from "personality disorders".
Below you can see Mark about to descend Foot Hang, fighting off The Rapture with every ounce of his strength.