The Pah'Wraiths: Possibly Stupid Questions...

[Peach Wookiee]

Hi, everyone. I have just been watching "The Reckoning" and thinking about how to deal with them. Do Bajorans have exorcism rituals? Do they use an equivalent of holy water? I feel these might be stupid questions, but I feel I need to ask, nonetheless. So what say you?

 

[Angry Fanboy]

I'd imagine any culture with religious beliefs would have corresponding exorcism rituals of some sort, if not in modern times then probably in the past. I think that's the case on Earth so I'm almost certain a race as overtly religious as the Bajorans would as well.

 

[Farscape One]

Ironically, I don't think they do, because they are so religious.

They look at the Prophets as all knowing and abide their will without question. Due to this, I don't think any bothered to create something like holy water or exorcism rituals.

Unless someone got a vision from a Prophet, I doubt this would occur. The only reason Winn did what she did was because ultimately, she was jealous of Sisko as Emissary and he believed in the Prophets so devoutly that he let Jake be protected by them without trying himself.

 

[Timo]

On the other hand, Bajorans seem to believe in real things only. The Prophets and their Visions are all true, and the Wraiths exist for real. It's unlikely the Bajorans would dream up rituals that don't actually work, then.

I mean, sure, they do this prayer thing, yet not every little child gets the pony and the rocketship. But even there, statistics might be vastly in favor of the right sort of prayer actually eliciting the desired response.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Not sure if they'd have any rituals on-hand since the Pah-Wraiths had been imprisoned for generations, and therefore nobody would've needed an exorcism in a very long time. But I'm sure they could've found another ancient text stored away somewhere with the answer if the need arose, as needed by the plot.

 

[shivkala]

On the other hand, Bajorans seem to believe in real things only. The Prophets and their Visions are all true, and the Wraiths exist for real. It's unlikely the Bajorans would dream up rituals that don't actually work, then.

I mean, sure, they do this prayer thing, yet not every little child gets the pony and the rocketship. But even there, statistics might be vastly in favor of the right sort of prayer actually eliciting the desired response.

Timo Saloniemi

Granted, it was early on, and could be brushed off as the writers not having a grasp yet on what they wanted the Bajorans to be, but the episode "The Storyteller" seems to contradict this. In the episode, a village believes that the Sirah alone has the power to defeat the Dal'Rok. The old Sirah even uses the Prophets sending for O'Brien to trick his protege into feeling ashamed for failing.

We come to learn that a piece of the Orb had been used by the Sirah to conjure the "Dal'Rok" to give the villagers something to unify against instead of being split by hatred and mistrust.

So here we have a situation with villagers believing in an evil and relying on the Sirah (ostensibly as an agent of the Prophets) to drive it away. Or, to put it another way, to exorcise it (for the year, at least).

Given the events of this episode, it seems very likely the Bajorans would believe in exorcism. Of course, we can explain it away by again saying it was early days or that it worked on this particular village, but the larger Bajoran population would not have fallen for it.

 

[Tosk]

So here we have a situation with villagers believing in an evil and relying on the Sirah (ostensibly as an agent of the Prophets) to drive it away. Or, to put it another way, to exorcise it (for the year, at least).

I think that might be stretching the definition of exorcism beyond breaking point, personally. Driving away a dangerous creature is not the same as removing a demon from someone's body.

Even though the origins of the Dal'Rok were made up by the Sirah, it was still a real thing.

 

[shivkala]

Point taken, I wasn't suggesting it was the same, but trying to make the argument that if the villagers believed in the Dal'Rok and a Bajoran needing to call upon the Prophets to defeat it, then they'd believe in needing an exorcism, versus believing the Prophets would just simply take care of them on their own.

 

[Timo]

I, too, would wish to steer away from "everything the Prophets do is fine, and we need do nothing" thinking, as the religion we witness is rife with things one does need to do. There are specific types of worship or practical conduct: burning candles, chanting, taking a day off to study scrolls, etc. And the Bajorans have had thousands if not tens of thousands of years during which to test the efficacy of such things against a background of concrete and testable tenets of the faith - a situation rather different from that on Earth, where the faithful can generally only compare against a background of nothing much happening (or then shit happening in statistically indecisive amounts), and there would be little point in a process of testing and adopting/discarding.

Granted that the Bajorans would not face the Wraiths much in their lives. But if heavenly messages give instructions about how to deal with them (and Winn seems to have access to some), and if those are as real and true as much of the rest of the material, then we get a situation where exorcism rituals indeed would exist (we see Winn apply them!) and their existence and form would not depend on the faithful themselves. Or on their reliance on the Prophets handling it. If they have a scroll saying "In case of possession, break the glass, press the button, and wait for help to arrive", they will do exactly that much, no less, no more. But if the scroll says "Apply a Wraith extinguisher" or "Close all doors and shoo away bystanders", those will then happen.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kor]

Granted, it was early on, and could be brushed off as the writers not having a grasp yet on what they wanted the Bajorans to be, but the episode "The Storyteller" seems to contradict this. In the episode, a village believes that the Sirah alone has the power to defeat the Dal'Rok. The old Sirah even uses the Prophets sending for O'Brien to trick his protege into feeling ashamed for failing.

We come to learn that a piece of the Orb had been used by the Sirah to conjure the "Dal'Rok" to give the villagers something to unify against instead of being split by hatred and mistrust.

So here we have a situation with villagers believing in an evil and relying on the Sirah (ostensibly as an agent of the Prophets) to drive it away. Or, to put it another way, to exorcise it (for the year, at least).

Given the events of this episode, it seems very likely the Bajorans would believe in exorcism. Of course, we can explain it away by again saying it was early days or that it worked on this particular village, but the larger Bajoran population would not have fallen for it.

In retrospect, I take this episode as evidence that there are local variations and traditions within the umbrella of Bajoran religion, much as there are variations in religious practice in different locales and social groups in India, which have all been subsumed into the broad category of Hinduism.

Kor

 

[Tosk]

we see Winn apply them!

When was that?