Your P'ah is strong!

[JirinPanthosa]

Do Bajoran religious officials go by anything when they say somebody's p'ah is strong or are they just saying what they know will encourage the person's faith?

I mean, would a Vedek ever go up to somebody and say "ACK! Your P'ah is pathetic! Seriously, I've never seen a weaker P'ah. No wonder your orb vision was just the Prophets pointing at you and laughing. Get away from me with that wretched, awful P'ah!"

 

[MacLeod]

Minor nitpick it's spelt pagh.

And I doubt a Vedek would phrase it that way.. No doubt they would come up with something like. "The strength of your pagh serves the path that the prophets have laid out for you."

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I don't remember anyone being told that someone's pagh was anything but strong. On the other hand, I would expect that one might say that someone has a trouble pagh, or an uncertain pagh. Pagh is often not something specific, but rather a tool that allowed the vedek to draw attention to something about the lay person, some problem or some strength that they had. In the pilot, Opaka use pagh to note something that Sisko must address. At the time, he was uncertain about his role and his desire to stay with Starfleet. To replenish his pagh meant to find conviction and purpose again.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

JirinPanthosa: you should search the published DS9 scripts for all references to that word, then analyze the relevant quotes.

 

[E-DUB]

So's my M'ah.

 

[bbjeg]

The Pagh are microscopic lifeforms that resides within all living cells and they act as symbiotes. Without the Pagh, life could not exist and they would have no knowledge of the force... wait, that's midi chlorians. Standard religious dogma maybe?

 

[Jono]

Winn did say some negative comments when she read someone's pagh. She called Sisko a disbeliever in season 1 after she did it and in season 6 when Weyoun compared him to her she read his pagh and said they were nothing alike. Not much to be read into these as picking Sisko was a disbeliever and having a dig at Weyoun doesn't take an soul/spirit reading.

Though maybe the Bajorans are weak touch telepaths and the rigours of religious lifestyle might give some Bajorans heightened abilities and that they can actually read something when they feel up a person's ear.

 

[T'Girl]

... maybe the Bajorans are weak touch telepaths ...

Possessing touch telepathy might be one of the requirements of entering a Bajorian religious order as a young person.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Minor nitpick it's spelt pagh.

It's spelled with Bajoran letters, 'pagh' is just our human latinization of the word.

 

[R. Star]

Minor nitpick it's spelt pagh.

It's spelled with Bajoran letters, 'pagh' is just our human latinization of the word.

So we go from minor nitpick to moderate nitpick?

 

[Michael]

Do Bajoran religious officials go by anything when they say somebody's p'ah is strong or are they just saying what they know will encourage the person's faith?

I'm quite sure it's the latter. In one episode ("In The Hands of the Prophets") Vedek Bareil even calls the whole pagh detection with fingers an "archaic ritual" and that one of his life's purposes was to break with it. So I really doubt that it was anything more than a mere superstitious practice and I'm pretty sure that there was no real in-universe science behind pagh detection – even with their gods, the prophets, being real alien entities. That's what I took from it, however.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

JirinPanthosa: you write in English, not Bajoran, and English also has an established spelling for this Bajoran term.

 

[T'Girl]

^ Does this also apply to the spelling of Klingon words?

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Absolutely.