Synopsis: Grand Nagus Zek, the Ferengi leader, seems different when he visits Deep Space Nine after having traveled through the Bajoran wormhole, and Quark feels he must change Zek back to how he was before.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how complexes operate and how the Logos-driven rational conscious ego will fight to suppress bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious that comes into its awareness.
In “Prophet Motive” Grand Nagus Zek arrives on Deep Space Nine and rewrites the Rules of Acquisition, making them completely opposite from all Ferengi traditional teachings. Quark decides to investigate what brought upon this change in Zek and discovered that when Zek went through the wormhole he opened the Orb of Wisdom and talked to the Bajoran Prophets. Quark takes Zek back to the wormhole, opens the Orb of Wisdom, meets the Prophets, and learns that they were so disturbed by Zek’s attitude that they decided to “de-evolve” him to a state the Ferengis were in before they became interested in profit. Quark tells them that this will cause ruin to billions of Ferengi and demands that they “re-evolve” Zek, so they never have to hear from a Ferengi again.
Quark’s efforts to return Zek to how he was before his encounter with the Prophets is analogous to how the rational conscious ego often acts when confronted by bits of unconscious material through a complex. The Orb of Wisdom here is acting like a complex, in that a complex is the portal through which bits of unconscious material are made known to the conscious ego. The ego does not want to change, does not want to know about the unconscious and will resist and do its best to suppress these unconscious bits. At least at first. But sometimes, when there is a lessening of the degree of resistance, bits of unconscious material are acknowledged and even integrated into the conscious ego, and when that happens the ego is made stronger and the psyche becomes more whole and balanced. Beginning this journey into becoming more whole and balanced is the objective of analytical psychology.
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