Introduction: The Making and Remaking of Magic in Global Modernity

The diverse new forms of supernatural observance and magical ritual apparent in Thailand, and across Buddhist and Confucian East and Southeast Asia (see Yang 2000; Bautista 2012; Brac de la Perrière et al. 2014), demonstrate the intense religious dynamism that emerges in the context of market-centred, mediatized global modernity (Dirlik 2005). The novel forms of magical ritual in Thailand may escape classical definitions of modernity, but they are not premodern traditions.

On the contrary, they are highly contemporary phenomena. As David Lyon contends, “[m]any modernities exist, and they may be shown to have different ways of relating to the religious sphere” (Lyon 2000, p. 21). The Thai cults of wealth provide a lens through which we can see broader processes operating at the global level. This emergence of magical cults of wealth out of the economic and social conditions of late twentieth-century capitalism challenges us to rethink the meaning, character and direction of modernity. Indeed, the efflorescence of spirit cults in the midst of rapid market-based economic growth contradicts classical theories of the relationship of religion and capitalist expansion. As Sanjay Seth observes,