Lao Buddhism approaches afflictions attributed to spirits or supernatural forces through a woven fabric of Theravāda doctrine and older animistic sensibilities. Illness or misfortune may be interpreted as the work of offended or wandering spirits (phi), or as a disturbance or loss of the vital essences known as khwan, while monks may also frame the same situation in terms of karma and moral causality. This layered understanding allows a single event to be read simultaneously as a spiritual imbalance, a breach in relations with unseen beings, and a manifestation of past actions ripening in the present. Rather than sharply separating these explanations, Lao religious life tends to hold them together as complementary lenses on the same human vulnerability.

In this setting, the baci or sou khuan ceremony occupies a central place as a healing and protective rite. Elders or ritual specialists gather family and community members, prepare offerings, and recite invocations that call the khwan back to the body, while white cotton strings are tied around the wrists as tangible signs of restored balance and protection. Such ceremonies are performed after serious illness, accidents, childbirth, or other crises, especially when these are suspected to have a spirit-related dimension. The ritual does not so much “defeat” a hostile force as re-establish harmony between the person, the community, and the invisible world that surrounds them.

Alongside this, there are more explicitly exorcistic or appeasement practices directed toward malevolent or disturbed spirits. Spirit specialists such as mo phi or other traditional healers may enter trance, perform divination, and identify which spirit is responsible, then negotiate through offerings of food, drink, and other items to pacify, relocate, or drive it away. These rites recognize that some spirits are not simply enemies to be destroyed but beings with whom boundaries must be renegotiated. Household and village spirits are likewise honored with offerings at shrines and spirit houses, seeking a long-term equilibrium that prevents illness and misfortune from arising in the first place.

Theravāda monasticism contributes another layer of protection and meaning to these situations. Monks chant paritta texts such as the Ratana and Metta Suttas, bless water and strings, and sometimes consecrate amulets or tattoos that are believed to shield the bearer from harm. They also encourage generosity, observance of precepts, and other forms of merit-making, which are understood to improve one’s karmic condition and lessen susceptibility to hostile forces. Merit may be dedicated to deceased relatives or local spirits, inviting them to be at peace and to refrain from causing trouble. In this way, ethical cultivation, ritual protection, and spirit appeasement are braided together into a single religious response.

What emerges is not a simple fusion but a practical coexistence of Buddhist and animistic modes of healing. Temples function as centers for both scriptural protection and community rites, while spirit mediums and monks may cooperate in addressing the same case of illness. Some conditions are quietly acknowledged as requiring spiritual intervention beyond ordinary medical treatment, and the community responds with a repertoire that ranges from meditation and chanting to offerings and exorcism. The overall pattern suggests a worldview in which human suffering is addressed by restoring right relations—within the mind, within the moral order, and within the unseen networks of beings that populate the Lao religious imagination.