Introduction

The Thai cults of wealth and associated cult of amulets, divination practices and spirit possession rituals have become increasingly important components of religious expression among many strata of Thai society. However, while a growing number of anthropological studies have explored these phenomena, few histories of modern Thailand have made magical ritual central to their narratives of the country’s transformations. This contrasts with the emphasis that has been given to the reform of Buddhism and the institutional role of the Buddhist sangha in modern Thailand (see for example Reynolds 1979, 1988; Somboon 1982; Ishii 1986; Jackson 1989). While the organizational changes of Buddhism instituted by a succession of governments from the beginning of the twentieth century are central elements of many histories of Thailand, the significant evolution of the field of ritual magic that has taken place across the same period is largely absent from narratives of the transformations of Thai society and culture wrought by modernity. Why has modern Thai historiography overlooked magical ritual while emphasizing Buddhism? Furthermore, if the cults of wealth, amulets, divination and spirit possession rituals are indeed central elements of contemporary Thai religiosity, why does the diversity of Thai religion continue to surprise many foreign observers and contrast with images of Thailand as an ostensibly Buddhist society? Why does the sociological importance of the cults of wealth appear to be so at odds with many academic accounts and popular representations of Thailand as a “Buddhist kingdom”?

These were issues in my own earlier work. As a post-doctoral researcher in the late 1980s, I studied the history of the political dimensions of Thai religion in the twentieth century. I looked at both the history of state administrative intervention in the organization of Buddhism and the role of military and other elite figures in the Hupphasawan millenarian movement of the spirit medium Suchat Kosonkittiwong. But I lacked a theoretical frame that would enable me to consider state interventions in Buddhism together with elite participation in magical rituals. While senior politicians and military figures participated in both state-administered Buddhism and spirit cults, I published my research separately, as a book on the incorporation of Thai Buddhism within the secular bureaucracy (Jackson 1989) and a stand-alone journal article on the Hupphasawan movement (Jackson 1988).