[4] Baci is a phi ritual used to celebrate important events and occasions, like births and marriages and also entering the monkhood, departing, returning, beginning a new year, and welcoming or bidding etc.

This practice is linked to the ancient belief that Baci is invoked religiously to synchronise the effects of 32 organs of the human body considered as kwan (QUANT) or spirits or the "components of the soul".

Its observance to establish as social and family bond to maintain "balance and harmony to the individual and community, is done in its original format in Laos, as a substantiation of human existence".

The events could be anything related to the human soul – such as a marriage, a success in any endeavour, an annual festival, birth of a child, recovery from sickness, seeking cure for any type of ill health and even to honour visitors and guests of importance.

The practice involves preparing the pah kwan or the flower trays and placing at a central location for people to gather around it in reverential prayers.

The paw kwan is elaborately prepared on a silver tray on which a cone or horn made of banana leaves is placed at the centre and is decked with flowers and white cotton and silk threads tied to a bamboo stalk as flags.

Buddhist devas, local deities and spirits are invoked amidst the chants for the return of kwans (souls) from wherever they are back to the body to ensure equilibrium.

Once born on the earth, they search for their soul mates and when they find them they marry, and by performing the Baci ceremony they are rejoined by tying the symbolic cotton thread.