Blast Trick
From Populous Wiki
The Blast Trick is essentially a glitch and is considered as such by some people, while others insist that it is more of a trick. According to Stuart Whyte the Blast Trick is an unintended bug.
The basic idea behind performing this glitch is, to not receive any fall damage at all. By using the Blast Trick correctly you only receive damage of the blast itself.
Mechanics behind the Blast Trick
In the video below one can see, that the Blast Trick does not work in every direction. The camera direction is set on 0.
Looking at the video, one can clearly see that the Blast Trick is working perfectly fine in directions 1, 2, 3 and the diagonal directions. If your shaman is walking towards direction 0, you cannot perform the Blast Trick - the reason for this is probably that the Shaman is flying higher in direction 0, than in the other directions. To perform the Blast Trick your shaman needs to be walking, because a follower/shaman is always blasted in direction 0 by default. 
Map directions, when camera is set on 0 (press 0 in game)