Capitalism Magic Thailand : : Modernity with Enchantment / / Peter A. Jackson.

• VerfasserIn: Jackson, Peter A.,
• Place / Publishing House: Singapore : : ISEAS Publishing, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (381 p.)

By studying intersections among new cults of wealth, ritually empowered amulets and professional spirit mediumship—which have emerged together in Thailand’s dynamic religious field in recent decades—Capitalism Magic Thailand explores the conditions under which global modernity produces new varieties of enchantment. Bruno Latour’s account of modernity as a condition fractured between rationalizing ideology and hybridizing practice is expanded to explain the apparent paradox of new forms of magical ritual emerging alongside religious fundamentalism across a wide range of Asian societies. In Thailand, novel and increasingly popular varieties of ritual now form a symbolic complex in which originally distinct cults centred on Indian deities, Chinese gods and Thai religious and royal figures have merged in commercial spaces and media sites to sacralize the market and wealth production. Emerging within popular culture, this complex of cults of wealth, amulets and spirit mediumship is supported by all levels of Thai society, including those at the acme of economic and political power. New theoretical frameworks are presented in analyses that challenge the view that magic is a residue of premodernity, placing the dramatic transformations of cultic ritual centre stage in modern Thai history. It is concluded that modern enchantment arises at the confluence of three processes: neoliberal capitalism’s production of occult economies, the auraticizing effects of technologies of mass mediatization, and the performative force of ritual in religious fields where practice takes precedence over doctrine.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Images -- Note on Transliteration, Referencing and Honorific Titles -- Introduction: Modern Magic and Prosperity in Thailand -- Key Terms: Debates, Theories and Contexts -- Part One Why Religious Modernity Trends in Two Opposing Directions -- 1. Fundamentalism against Magic: The Contradictions of Religious Modernity -- 2. Buddhist in Public, Animist in Private: Semicolonial Modernity and Transformations of the Thai Religious Field -- Part Two Thailand’s Cults of Wealth -- 3. Context, Hierarchy and Ritual: Theorizing the Total Thai Religious Field -- 4. Thailand’s Cults of Wealth: Royal Spirits, Magic Monks, Chinese and Indian Deities -- 5. Empowered Amulets and Spirit Possession: Material and Ritual Dimensions of the Thai Cults of Wealth -- 6. The Symbolic Complex of Thai Cults of Wealth -- Part Three How Modernity Makes Magic -- 7. Capitalism, Media and Ritual in the Enchantment of Thai Modernity -- Conclusion Conclusion: The Thai Cults of Wealth into the Twenty-first Century -- Glossary of Thai and Buddhist Terms -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author