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This is the fourth in a series of posts providing extracts from my new book, Thailand’s Political Peasants. In Chapter 3 of the book I begin a detailed exploration of rural political society by focussing on the spirit world. Interactions with supernatural powers provide valuable insights into the way in which rural Thailand’s political society “is energized by a fundamental desire to be productively connected to sources of power.”
On the morning of Monday, 14 April 2008, Aunt Kluay prepared an elaborate feast. It was the second day of the new-year celebration and Kluay wanted to honor the spirits that had overseen her newfound prosperity. Early in the morning she made the short journey to the district market and spent a thousand baht buying two pig’s heads, the accompanying sets of trotters, and some choice portions of intestine and flesh. Back at her mother’s house, which lay just next to her own, Kluay carefully arranged the heads and trotters in large metal bowls. Working with her daughter and niece, she prepared fifteen bowls of curry, blood-soaked larb, and fried pork. The bowls were divided onto three platters. On each of these she added a small container of sticky rice, a bowl of vegetable soup, a bowl of sweet coconut jelly, two small bottles of orange juice, and a cup of water. Shortly before ten o’clock in the morning, Kluay and her daughter carried one of the pig’s heads and two of the platters upstairs to the main bedroom of her mother’s house. They were joined there by Grandmother Thip and Grandmother Duang, maternal relatives of Kluay’s deceased father. Grandmother Thip was the custodian of the protective spirit that resided on a small wooden shelf located in the northeast corner of the bedroom. Sitting before the shelf, Thip raised one of the platters of food above her head and, with a few words of offering, presented it to the spirit. Kluay then placed the platter on the spirit’s wooden shelf. The second platter, along with the pig’s head, was left on the floor. This platter of food was offered to another protective spirit that normally resided in a small wooden shrine just outside the house. This spirit was invited inside to join the feast and share in the honor of the pig’s head. The three women said some brief prayers and urged the spirits to eat.
Kluay then turned her attention to a much more public demonstration of her relationship with the spirit world. Just outside her family compound, many of the men of the village had assembled to present the new-year offering to the village’s guardian spirit, the Lord of the Lucky Tree. Giant woks of pork curry were bubbling away over outdoor fires. A small group of women carefully folded large leaves to make rustic platters on which the food would be presented to the lord and his assistants. Inside the lord’s shrine, which had been swept and washed for the occasion, a member of the village committee was collecting donations to help defray the costs. Suddenly, Kluay and her husband marched into the midst of the preparations, bearing the second pig’s head, a bottle of whisky, and the third platter of food. Their presence was all the more notable because both were wearing bright yellow shirts, the auspicious color of both Monday and Thailand’s king. They climbed the steps of the shrine and knelt before the long wooden shelf where the lord resides. The lord’s custodian then held the pig’s head and whisky above his head and presented them to the guardian spirit. He placed these offerings, along with the platter of food, on the wooden shelf. Kluay and her husband then returned to their home, while preparations for the village’s communal offering continued.
…
The spirit world is a useful place to commence a detailed exploration of Ban Tiam’s political society. Attitudes toward spirits reflect quite fundamental orientations toward power. These orientations are not fundamental in the sense that they derive from some unchanging cultural foundation. On the contrary … there is a significant degree of pragmatism and adaptability in dealings with the spirit world. Rather, orientations toward the supernatural power of spirits are fundamental because they relate to very basic concerns about safety, morality, health, and prosperity. Exploring the ritual relationships between the social and supernatural domains provides useful insights into the way in which dispersed and malleable nodes of power are drawn into the day-to-day worlds of livelihood, aspiration, and ambition. Aunt Kluay was an excellent networker, and she was determined to create an appropriate place for her spiritual guardians in the increasingly prosperous network of connections that she was building around her.
Yawn … Maybe AW should start renaming this website ‘Old’ Mandala. Ennui definitely has crept in.
AsianCorrespondent too, in my impression, had succumbed to boredom. At least BangkokPundit seems to be doing something about it with his . . . gasp, take on “Thailand’s vulva bleaching industry”.
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Must be the first time I agree with Vichai N.
As I stated elsewhere, when a blog like this becomes ‘clubby’ and ‘chummy’, when moderators post comments from one person and refuse to post similar or identical comments from another person, then the blog is effectively on its way to becoming moribund. This has happened here recently.
When a blog is so bereft of interesting articles that it resorts to re-posts and articles on ‘folk magic’ and other pap, then even the owners know its got the skids under. This is happening here right now.
I believe New Mandala will close before too long, based on precedent elsewhere. Whether the owners will get clued up in time to stop it will become apparent in due course. If they want to stop it, I will be happy to tell them how and why they are where they are and how to stop it if they write to me.
But I betcha they won’t… the loss of face would be too hard to take.
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Exploring the link between superstition and poverty might have been more useful.
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Why do you think that would have been more useful R.N. And what do you mean by superstition?
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It’s a problem with Australian anthropology, that it regards all cultural practices as equally valuable, whether they bring benefit or misery to the people involved. The black-magic spiritualism described here can certainly be described as superstition.
I can think of two kinds of superstition. The first is an innocent mistake, such as when somebody utters an incantation over a sick person, and when that person recovers, believes that the incantation caused the recovery. An example of the second, less innocent kind is blood-letting that was practised by the medical profession in former centuries for profit.
In either case, effectively disabusing people of superstition helps them improve their lives by guiding them away from ineffective or harmful behaviour. Cultural practices are thus extinguished, and a culture becomes leaner as a result. But the lives of individuals are more important. Utility is about giving decent lives to individuals, not preserving every aspect of a culture.
This argument leads straight to the heavy responsibility that the Australian anthropological profession bares for the present-day misery of Aboriginal Australians. It insists that they be encouraged to wallow in ignorance because of its loyalty to the cultures rather than to the individuals that are afflicted by many aspects of those cultures.
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The problem is that superstition underpins all cultures at all times. Mostly, superstitions are referred to as ‘religions’, but superstitions suffuse even those cultures (eg communism), where it is said no religion exists. One could even argue that communism is a mere superstition with its own hierarchy of guardian spirits and demons.
It has been stated (rightly or wrongly), that 95% of the world population has a belief in ‘unseen’ beings of one form or another. Many of the versions of evolution (including the ones hawked around by the amazingly bigoted John Dawkins) are superstitions writ differently. I think I agree.
The world is full of people who ‘know better’. The world is full of folk who consider themselves ‘wiser and more enlightened’. The world is full of folk who tell other folk how to make their lives better, more fulfilling etc etc. I’m sure they do so from what they think are the best of motives but they are a minority of 5%.
All religions are superstitions by definition, and all rely for their popularity upon children being pre-disposed to believe whatever they are told by someone they trust or respect. The less educated and less intelligent the child and the later adult is, the more the superstitions are likely to stick Buddhism (the Thai variety is particularly superstitious), Christianity, Shinto, Judaism, Islam, you-name-it. They’re all superstitions.
What makes this article so horrible – apart from what I believe is its outrageous superficiality masked as academic analysis – is that it involves one superstitious person subtly mocking what another superstitious person believes. As most such articles do.
What makes most commentaries offensive (including I’m afraid, RN England’s in this case), is their calamitous smugness.
Annie
In general I am not so very impressed by people…
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Sorry, that should not have been John Dawkins, it should have been Richard Dawkins. Apologies to John Dawkins who is an Australian politician respected by many, and treated as a God by some.
Annie
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But how does cultivating good relations with spirits in Thailand contribute to people’s misery? It’s not a matter of whether the cultural practice is “valuable” or not but of understanding how it operates in context. My book attempts to place spirit beliefs in their broader social, economic and political context. My argument is that spirit practices can tell us a lot about how people forge connections with sources of power in their pursuit of security and prosperity. For me, the lesson from anthropology is not that all practices are equally valuable. Rather the lesson is that judgements about practices are best made after an open-minded engagement with them. Rushing to dismiss a certain type of practice as “superstition” is a missed opportunity for learning.
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And here I thought the misery of the Aboriginal Australians had something to do with all their land being taken.
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There are 2 distinct and obvious ways Andrew.
First, the belief among Thais in karma, predisposes them to accept what happens to them (often as a consequence of what some Thai pooyay has done to them or has done which affects them), in the name of it being ‘the consequence of some error in this or a past life’. It reduces self-determination and the willingness to take responsibility for what they do and what happens to them.
Second, it predisposes Thais to believe the fairytales that the King is an incarnation of Buddha and the Queen an incarnation of Suriothai – spread by the palace in order to ensure the longevity of the corrupt monarchy in Thailand.. To this extent, a major part of the propaganda campaign waged by the CIA in Thailand involves sending ‘lucky’ pictures of the king to all Thai households and encouraging Thais to burn incense and make offerings before the picture. This is still prevalent in thailand today.
Both aspects predispose Thais to compliance and docility. Just the way the establishment wants them.
Annie.
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Thanks Annie – perfect evidence of the desirability of open minded engagement with actual practice rather than resorting to tired stereotypes. AW
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Let me expand a little … to suggest that spirit practices reflect “docility and compliance” is, I think, to fundamentally misunderstand what is going on. Making offerings to spirits is about drawing them into local circuits of exchange and tapping into their power. Dealings with spirits are all about negotiation, pragmatic deal-making, domestication, evaluation and, in some cases, outright abandonment. The ability of villagers to be able to deal with spirits is, in fact, fundamentally threatening to those who hold power in the centre – whether it be kings or governments. Villagers don’t have to rely on just one monarch (but, of course, why not cultivate him too) but they can deal with a wide array of lords and princes and install them in their own local palaces. If we are interested in challenging domination, as I think both Annie and John Francis are, we should engage with the unruly, untidy and subversive world of spirits rather than recycling standard elite disparagement of alternative approaches to power. (You can read more along these lines in Thailand’s Political Peasants.)
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I’m trying to understand who has the power? (I can see the power of those holding the guns and those controlling them, but if it’s the spirits, don’t they only have power over those who believe?)
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It’s a common misperception but it is a misperception.
One needs to draw a distinction between occultism, which engages with what are visualised as the forces of nature, and suggestion, which engages the unconscious components of the psychology.
If one is engaging in suggestion, belief is important. If what I would call occultism, it is not.
Unlike portrayed in the movies, power being exercised generally does not manifest quickly. Most occultism is about gradual change, for good or ill, though the overall gradual change is usually achieved by a series of single instances of discrete change – this is the way of nature and therefore is the way of life.
Hope this helps,
Annie
Did you know the brain of a horse and the brain of a human are structurally similar in that they have the same basic components? Ditto dogs, ditto sheep. Interesting – no? Annie wonders what it all means.
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Hi Annie,
I normally agree with your analysis and comments on this blog. However, concerning your statement that Thais believe the King is an incarnation of the Buddha is not correct. Thais know and understand the concept of “nirvana” which teaches that when one reaches this state one is no longer subject to the cycle of life and death-the Buddha cannot be reincarnated. Thais do believe that the King may be a reincarnation of Shiva or Indra (Pha Ind or Pha Isuan). This belief is pre-buddhist from the Khmer-Indo Hindu culture. Concerning an enlightenment, it is a matter of perspective. I consider myself as an enlightened individual (having or showing a rational, modern, and well-informed outlook). No, I am not a “Miss know it all” nor do I think of myself as “Miss perfect.” There seems to be a general hopelessness for the Thai populace among the commentators of this blog. This quote should remind us that there is hope among the Thais:”Not all those who wander are lost.”
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Simple intersession by eavesdropper.
In Theraveda Buddhism as believed in Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka mainly, Buddha is the last enlightend being to go to Niverna with no more of this suffering being any more.
In Mahayana as is the one Dalai lama heads in Tibet, Korea, China, etc., there is living Buddha and they do reincarnate and there is hierarchy of the status of the order of priest as well.
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In Theraveda Buddhism as believed in Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka mainly, Buddha is the last enlightend being to go to Niverna with no more of this suffering being any more.
That’s simply not true. Theravada argues for the continued existence of Arhants. Any human being can achieve arhanthood, and an arhant, by definition, has achieved nirvana.
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I think there was mis-understanding of the statement. Yes. One does not required to be Buddha to end the circle of birth at all. But Buddha as is accepted in the Theravada Buddhism are the very end of the circle for themselves. Four have been in this world. One more is to come.
But one dose not need to be a Buddha to end the circle. Right. and that was not the suggestion.
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Thanks Ohn for weighting-in on my comment. I do believe my addressee was “Annie” rather than “Ohn.” Annie was discussing about the Thai belief system which was misrepresented and I feel I must elucidate of what she has written.
Yes, I do aware of the Great Vehicle-Mahayana Buddhism. Many Western writers have misunderstood and mistook that Shakayamuni Buddha (in the tradition of the Mahayana) continues a perpetual rebirth. This notion is incorrect and even the Dalai Lama has acknowledged that Shakayamuni Buddha is not subject to the cycle of life and death. The Bodhisattvas, on the other hand, who are destining to become the next Buddha, are the one who are subjected to the cycle of rebirth at their own wills. Their goal is to help deliver all transient-being from the realm of suffering.
Now, please don’t assume that I am incapacitated. Your statement, “A simple intersession by (an) eavesdropper,” makes you sound like a bullying old harridan or a misguided elitist. I can choose to submit (to the Mandala) of whatever I see fit. However, it is the Mandala who will choose to publish my comments.
-“All that is gold does not glitter”-G/G
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Sorry if you feel offended. Apologies. There was no assumption of your own personal knowledge.
Simply to give some explanation because as you stated “many” do misunderstand the serious difference of the two belief systems, both called Buddhism.
For example, many were disappointed Dalai Lama did not intervene when there was Buddhist- Muslim clash happened in Burma, and is happening now.
Fact is Burmese Buddhist as a rule would not have in store much reverence to Dalai Lama even to the level of average “westerner”.
So it was intended for, and only for the people who might not know the differences, not meaning to imply any level of understanding various schools of Buddhism by the on going discussants or effect the line of reasoning’s of the main thread, hence eavesdropper.
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Well yes, if you say so Andrew, whatever it was that you were actually saying. But then I expect I know more about the related fields of psychology and occultism that most.
Erm. By tired stereotypes, do you mean stereotypes that are not actually useful or stereotypes that people would rather call ‘tired’ because they are politically incorrect?
Bucket of cold water: How do you think stereotypes became stereotypes?
By the way Andrew, political correctness is itself a dreadful superstition. A belief that the gods of truth are dead and the gods of saying what you think people might want to hear have replaced them. After all, in the late 19th century, it was announced that there was nothing left to discover in physics (Lord Kelvin as I recall). It was politically incorrect and professional suicide to disagree with him. But he was quite wrong of course, as most sound-byte academics are.
But then I’m sure you know that already.
Annie
The only thing an excessively open mind does is to let the crap in and good stuff out. Still, many people with an excessively open mind think of themselves as enlightened. We think they are just unable to be discriminating. Always useful to be able to tell the difference between bottom and elbow. You’d be surprised how many people can’t. Or perhaps you wouldn’t be.
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Let me expand a little … to suggest that spirit practices reflect “docility and compliance” is, I think, to fundamentally misunderstand what is going on.
I don’t agree. And I didn’t say they reflect docility and compliance, I said they predispose to compliance and docility, which they most certainly do, precisely as religious adherence do to some ad-hoc rulebook. Ask any psychologist, you probably have one or two in the psych department.
Making offerings to spirits is about drawing them into local circuits of exchange and tapping into their power. Dealings with spirits are all about negotiation, pragmatic deal-making, domestication, evaluation and, in some cases, outright abandonment.
Sorry Andrew, you have this almost completely wrong. In Thailand, propitiating spirits is all (and only) about attracting good luck and repelling bad luck by means of merit-making or ‘tamboon’, with the possible exception of the local mere-mot and paw-mot. And perhaps a few of the monks, though these latter are generally a case of the emperors new clothes.
The ability of villagers to be able to deal with spirits is, in fact, fundamentally threatening to those who hold power in the centre – whether it be kings or governments.
Wrong again. I have yet to meet any Thai pooyay who is in the slightest concerned about the spirits beyond whizzing down the local wat and lighting a few joss sticks to keep the evil spirits at bay. What they choose to conniver to the hoi-polloy may be different, but what they really think and feel is precisely as I have stated. The reason for this is that the king is conceived as being all-powerful spiritually as well as temporally and is in fact superior to the spirits. Thus if you perceive yourself to be a ‘good man’ (ie one upon whom the king smiles), then you cannot err and you are not in any danger.
Villagers don’t have to rely on just one monarch (but, of course, why not cultivate him too) but they can deal with a wide array of lords and princes and install them in their own local palaces.
I assure you that there is quite a big difference between muttering a few crude spells and exercising affective occultism. There are only a few who can do the latter. I suspect you haven’t talked to any of them. But you make an excellent point of illustrating the extent of the superstition in Thailand (though not uniquely).
If we are interested in challenging domination, as I think both Annie and John Francis are, we should engage with the unruly, untidy and subversive world of spirits rather than recycling standard elite disparagement of alternative approaches to power.
There we have it Andrew, nicely put but I regret to tell you that if that is your experience of occultism in Thailand then you really do need to speak with different people. There is nothing whatever “unruly, untidy and subversive” about the ‘spirit world’ as you put it. If it appears so it is because the people playing with it lack the necessary knowledge and/or control (which two things are related).
Sorry to be so negative, but as I said, in my opinion, the article is superficial and altogether horrible. It betrays an almost complete lack of understanding of the worlds of psychology and occultism (folk or high). I know that people tend to believe almost anything written by someone with a ‘Dr’ in front of their name, but it ain’t necessarily so.
But of course that’s only my opinion. I say tomahto, you say tomayto.
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Can you explain more?
Particularly about occultism: “which engages with what are visualised as the forces of nature“
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“I assure you that there is quite a big difference between muttering a few crude spells and exercising affective occultism.”
I agree Annie! Affective or effective? But there was a time (40 years ago?) (and you can take it or leave it), when effective (meaning it works) occultism was like a Seven-Eleven convenience even here in Bangkok. Getting a thief to return a stolen, or a cheat to return your lover or your money only needed a consultation with an old thin man from India (with his very young virgin assistant) at some dark corner at Chinatown. From the stories of my aunt(s) and uncle (many still living), those shamans from India were worth every Baht for occult services served and done.
Maybe those ‘professional shamans’ could still be found at remote Thailand, but more likely they’re doing their mystical practices in Cambodia, Laos and/or Myanmar.
(We still remember Thaksin and his voodoo witch ET from Myanmar, eh?)
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“Making offerings to spirits is about drawing them into local circuits of exchange and tapping into their power.” >> One problem with this formulation is that spirits do not exist, and that they therefore cannot have any power. Thus, the question is what precisely is it that is drawn into “local circuits of exchange”?
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“Spirits do not exist” Are you serious? They are everywhere in Thailand. Here are two filthy forest spirits that I saw with my own eyes. They were invited to attend a large festival in Ban Tiam as representatives of the spirit world. Their behaviour left something to be desired but, by and large, they represented the spirit community with style.
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” . . .Here are two filthy forest spirits that I saw with my own eyes. They were invited to attend a large festival in Ban Tiam as representatives of the spirit world. Their behaviour left something to be desired but, by and large, they represented the spirit community with style. . .” – AW
With this admission, AW has entered a very exclusive (blessed or cursed?) group who had seen or could see ‘spirits’. For many of us such encounters with the spirits or ghosts are second-hand, or close relatives and friends who tell us of their encounters.
But do tell us more AW of your particular experience with the two forest spirits. You are usually very eloquent on most matters and your readers, myself included, want more: (1) how long was the encounter (2) how did those two forest apparitions look (human or unhuman features?) (3) do they float or do they walk? (4) were they naked or were they clothed? (5) do they make any sounds at all? (6) what exactly do you mean by your impression that “Their behaviour left something to be desired but, by and large, they represented the spirit community with style”?
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“(6) what exactly do you mean by your impression that “Their behaviour left something to be desired but, by and large, they represented the spirit community with style”?
I am not sure what AW meant, but I assume that he thought they lacked previous experience with Halloween.
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That encounter by AW with not one, but two, forest spirits must have a very jarring experience (I am presuming that’s the first time for AW); jarring yet left him obviosly with a deep impression.
Having seen and ‘touched’ the two apparitions, what is it (from his encounter) that made AW believe that ‘you can actually negotiate with, make deals with and domesticate them’?
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Oho, р╕Щр╣Ир╕▓р╕гр╕▒р╕Бр╕Ир╕▒р╕Зр╣Ар╕ер╕в!
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It’s reasonable to compare how people relate to spirits and rulers /gov’t. This certainly holds in the Mien areas where I used to work. But doing so may upset educated westerners’ convictions regarding politics and religion and how oh-so-well they can tell these apart. In my experience, people do this in a realist manner; they have no blind faith but are willing, interested, or compelled to try to make and manage such relations, in the same way that they may try to influence the Tambol Admin Org or provincial dignitaries with a sports festival, a spiked-up dance show, or a nice meal with alcohol. Once you have done this over some years, you have more experience and have perhaps created familiarity across ethnic and political lines. And then you may even re-name a local mountain Doi Thewada in order to try to draw a Thai crowd to the area in the cold season. As with spirits, the encounters sometimes succeed and at other times they flop, and the benefits are usually unevenly distributed. The Doi Thewada (‘spirit mtn’) that “came about” in my area by 2005, was, to reach another Thai crowd, also said to be locally known as Doi Nom Sao (“Mount Maiden’s Breasts). People were trying to draw the Thai into a minority region, and a Thai contractor with connections was granted 20M Baht to lay a road up the mountain. Reading the Thai language tourism literature, I find mostly interest in temples and waterfalls, and it seems to me that the appeal to Buddhist spirituality and male sexuality is a two-pronged local Mien theory about who are the Thai and what might move them to visit.
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A dubious mysticism, associated by design with the king, has been present in Thai and other cultures for a long time.
In Thailand, perhaps mediaeval in origin, perhaps a throw-back to the Sukhothai or other ‘golden age’, it has been successfully resurrected in modern times through a persistent, pernicious and sometimes quite subtle propaganda campaign, supported by copious governance by self-interest from the palace and its hangers-on. There has been a clear and deliberate attempt at the deification or semi-deification of the present king in order to embed this idea in the minds of the Thai people for the purposes of enhanced control by the establishment, who fully understand the state of education and superstition of the relatively primitive people of up-country Thailand. Key to the art of effective propaganda is to so embed key ideas into the unconscious mind of people that their habitual behaviour is changed in favour of the desired responses. If you can somehow keep the people poor, uneducated and under-intelligent then this makes the job even easier. It’s social engineering on a breathtaking scale in Thailand.
We can see the consequences of these principles in Thailand now – today. It isn’t a matter of whether or not the spirits exist (some people say yay, others say nay) – this is a personal belief stance (manipulated or otherwise by those in power) – but the way in which the spirits are propitiated (mainly the rituals and images) is a feature of the local custom and culture. In Thailand, it has clearly been co-opted to prop up a (now) predictably failing monarchy in order to underwrite its longevity.
There are at least 2 debates:
1. Does the spirit world exist? Is it beneficial to have contact with it? and how may this be effectively done?
2. How can this train of thought, common to 95% of the worlds peoples across all cultures and nations, to be co-opted to be of benefit to those (including the churches) and the establishment?
It is no surprise to see that traditionally, monarchs of all stripes have been declared, or declared themselves, to be ‘defenders of the faith’ or at the head of a national mysticism as well as the head of the national government – an ‘identity’ figure, or totem, possessed of a mystical or magical power or capability. The present Thai king is no exception. Hence the film clips of magic rice seeds and attempts to identify with Hindu/Thai legends by film clips seen at cinemas. Vide also the recent prognostication that floods in Thailand would “not be as bad as last year”. A transparent attempt to suggest the king has access to sources of knowledge denied the common folk.
Last year while touring around Thailand after the major floods had subsided, I spoke with one of the prominent ‘paw-mot’ (soothsayer, shaman or folk-magician) in the region. He said that that floods and other natural tribulations would continue, and that Thailand would continue to have bad luck and continue to decline in various ways because the spirits of the land were angry that the leadership had abandoned their mission to develop the Thai people, choosing instead to develop themselves and their bank accounts. He predicted there would be a general background of decline and bad luck until Thailand changed its course, but that against this background, some catastrophic single event would happen from time to time. Is this latter prediction a genuine prognostication or engaging in the time-honoured way of soothsayers everywhere of stating the perfectly bloody obvious based on the normal behaviour of mother nature but shrouded with a cloak of mystery and mysticism? I don’t know.
But I suspect we will see yet more severe floods this tear and Thailand appears to me to be in unquestionable decline. Who knows why? According to metaphysical tradition, the spirits inhabit an invisible dimension, co-existing with but invisible to our own. This being the case, they are obliged to interact with the ‘here and now’ through the use of natural laws. None of the spooky looking ‘undead pee’ so beloved of the Thai soapies, just a shift in the natural behaviour of things. Spirits? Global warming? Global warming harnessed by spirits? Who can say? Not me.
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Thailand is in “unquestionable decline,” New Mandala has become a rotten “club,” the world in general has been going down the drain. Time to move on to outer space, I guess. I also wonder whether there are spirits in an environment void of humans.
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Sure “spirits” have power but like all power relations they exist within a historical and cultural context.
This idea that somehow they are just ahistorical independent “phenomena” to be judged by some adequately trained and discerning Western academic doesn’t stand up without looking at this wider context.
What I’d be more interested in is a historicisation of these “spirits”.
When, for example, did the female floating-organ Kra Sur “spirit” emerge? There are multiple “spirits” like this supposedly proliferating all over Thailand. Like the endless political rumours and conspiracy theories that circulate in Bangkok they remain elusive and beyond the ken of earthly things like “evidence”. Just like the unearthly Men in Black during 2010 who provided the context of a massacre the elusiveness of evidence certainly does have real-life consequences.
I also find the huge and very profitable “amulet” market intriguing. Who controls it? Who makes the money?
Like most things when you look for the people who benefit the most you can begin to understand the context.
Absolving any cultural phenomena of context is like trying to forecast next week’s weather by only looking at the sky above your head.
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Fully agree but want to clarify one point. The symbol representing a spirit is not the same as the spirit itself any more than an avatar on a computer is the person it represents.
“When, for example, did the female floating-organ Kra Sur “spirit” emerge?”
Your example asks a reasonable question but would be better phrased as: “When, for example, did the symbol of the female floating-organ Kra Sur “spirit” emerge and what spirit does it represent or what former representation did it replace?”.
The answer to this question is indeed to be found in the cultural roots of a society, and in the way the culture developed (and what it developed into) along the way.
Annie
The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.
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Since we now seem to be in basic epistemology, one might add that the symbol of a spirit does not represent it, because spirits do not exist. The symbol of a spirit only represents the image of a spirit that people have constructed themselves. Therefore, a spirit does not have any power, and there cannot be any power relations with it. Only the images have “power,” and they merely relate to themselves. It becomes a little more tricky when one says that the word “tree” does not “represent” the “tree,” but also merely is an image. The shift here is one in emphasis. “Representation” refers back to the “thing,” while “image” puts the emphasis on those who construct it. Though I by and large agree with this view, I gladly leave the details to the constructivists.
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“Since we now seem to be in basic epistemology,
You might be, I am not, I am discussing opinion and beliefs – to which I might add, we are as entitled to have as you are to have opposing opinions and beliefs.
It is in the nature of things that we adopt beliefs after accepting what we believe is adequate evidence, however that is constructed.Your denials of what someone else believes merely signifies you have not seen adequate evidence for you, whereas others have adequate evidence for them. Perhaps you ought to just accept that some people have more or better evidence than you have.
one might add that the symbol of a spirit does not represent it, because spirits do not exist.
That is your belief, probably based on a lack of knowledge, experience or understanding, and you are entitled to it.
The symbol of a spirit only represents the image of a spirit that people have constructed themselves.
Correct.
Therefore, a spirit does not have any power, and there cannot be any power relations with it. Incorrect, faulty logic.
Only the images have “power,” and they merely relate to themselves. Incorrect. Allow me to illustrate: We have all seen those sould who, when seeing a picture of the king of Thailand, burst into tears. Assuming this is real emotion and not just humbug or hysteria (which I am not at all sure about), this illustrates the power of symbols. Anothe example: if you are driving and you see s stop sign, it is a symbol representing an action. You stop (well, you may not but I do). Your argument is not only specious but naive as well, The human mind only thinks in pictures, and establishes links between those and actions, emotions or knowledge etc. This is how the human mind works. Including yours.
It becomes a little more tricky when one says that the word “tree” does not “represent” the “tree,” but also merely is an image. The shift here is one in emphasis.
Not al all. The sound of the word when heard and the shape of the word when viewed evoke a mental picture of a tree. Nothing to do with emphasis or tricky or anything else, merely cognition.
“Representation” refers back to the “thing,” while “image” puts the emphasis on those who construct it.
Wrong but understandably – because you have extended upon your own faulty reasoning above.
Though I by and large agree with this view, I gladly leave the details to the constructivists.
Given your apparent expertise in the subjects of cognitive psychology and religion, I think that is probably the best and safest course.
Annie
A human being responds to exactly the same emotional states as other animals. More evolved perhaps but not otherwise different.
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Here is one straight-forward way of looking at the subject. The spirits don’t exist, but the mumbo-jumbo certainly does. That is what is used to exploit people, or at the very least, waste their time.
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One thing is for sure: This is a rather “spirited” debate!
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Andrew’s article does reflect what i have seen on numerous occasions in villages, especially in my wife’s village.
There is a very pragmatic streak in the relationship between the spirit world and in our mundane world. I remember one ceremony i have photographed, in which the clan medium went into a trance to allow an ancestor spirit to possess her, and who then in turn, while drinking a whole bottle of Lao Khao, gave over more than one hour advice (and admonishment) to different family members. What still somehow baffles me, is that when the old lady came out of the trance, she was absolutely sober, nevertheless the whole bottle of Lao Khao she drank in large gulps during the ceremony.
Anyhow, one of the for me most fascinating things during the now almost 7 years of protest was that on all sides the spirit world was part of this conflict. All sides drew power from the spirit world, be it in large ceremonies, such as Sondhi’s infamous curse lifting by surrounding the Rama 6 statue with sanetay napkin’s of female PAD supporters (which was a freshly invented ceremony as there is no example in Thai tradition), or the blood ceremony of the Red Shirt Brahmin priest at Government House and the Democrat Party headquarters (and members of the Democrat Party straight after the Red Shirts left quickly sprinkling sacred water over the blooded steps of the entry of their headquarters, while in the next days the held more elaborate ceremonies to lift the curse).
During the time of the 2010 protests i photographed a Red Shirt protester, a villager from Buriram with a mummified arm of an “Ajarn Thong” which he used as a curse against Abhisit and the Democrat Party. This example in particular shows Andrew’s point of using the spirit world to challenge authority.
I have a large collection of Amulets given out at protests, or even issued in direct connection with the protests. Lets remember, for example, the 1-Baht Jatukam Ramathep amulet, which was minted under strong resistance by the coup government, which in itself was a direct challenge to the military, which at the time issued countless Jatukam amulets for soldiers fighting in the South.
Or even more sensitive, the different King Taksin amulets worn and distributed under Red Shirt protesters, especially from the hardcore Thonburi organisations…
I agree fully with Andrew Walker in his view here. One may not believe in spirits, but one cannot ignore the complex relationship between the spirit world and the mundane world in all aspects of Thai society and also in conflict, in which indeed power from the Spirit world is channeled to challenge authority.
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Since we already have discounted the possibility of “Annie” being the clever invention on aw and nf, maybe she is the image created by a poor soul, and this image now reproduces itself in that person’s compulsive posts. Not sure whether an old mayong master could help.
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The one thing I gather from this discussion is that Structuralism seems to be coming back in vogue.
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@Lleij Samuel Schwartz
In what way?
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Well, the discussion is centered around pii-worship as a system of signification.
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In fact, is structuralism something bad? Social actors, after all, do not produce their actions and thoughts ad hoc and out of nowhere. This also applies to their meanings and actions regarding their imagined world of spirits. Can we imagine new mandala without structures? No.
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Thanks, Andrew, for an intro to your new book! I can’t wait to check it out!
I’m surprised at the skepticism towards anthropology and the anthropology of popular religion/magic/spirits in the comments here. Quite obviously belief in power shares something across the board, whether that power be supernatural or occult or royal or political or economic. How we think about one category affects how we see others – Pattana Kitiarsa, Peter Jackson, and others have written plenty of great articles about the bleed-through between Thai conceptions of political power, economics, and such “superstition.” Looking at such a thing helps us to not only de-mystify it, but also gives us insight towards mystifications which we might otherwise accept as realities. It’s too simplistic to say “I see through it all, and it’s all political oppression,” especially without careful study.
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Further on spirits, see (from the TLC mailing list),
Andrew Alan Johnson, Naming chaos: Accident, precariousness, and the spirits of wildness in urban Thai spirit cults http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2012.01394.x/abstract.
Remarkably, the author argues that, “by naming the potential for accident and death as a spirit with which they can communicate, informal-economy workers attempt to change the potential for misfortune into its opposite.”
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Lord help us! Not another crazy anthropologist taking what people think seriously! How will we ever understand human action if we start focussing on what they believe?
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This is probably a question for my local university librarian, but how does someone like me, not affiliated with a university get access to these gated academic journals? Is there an ANU library membership option that would allow online access to articles like the one in this post?
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Unfortunately academic journal subscriptions are (rather unfairly) priced pretty steeply. Universities will put some barriers to unaffiliated people getting access (at least online) and individual subscriptions are steep. I’m not sure how ANU’s library would work, but in my old library at Cornell anyone could walk in and access the resources via a computer in the building.
Of course, you could always email the author of the article (which, re: the above post #23, is me. My email is aj2520 -at- columbia.edu) and they are usually happy to give interested parties a pdf copy.
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Thank you. I will do that.
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Thanks for posting this — a very interesting piece. Conceptions of the spirit world play an important role in Thai social life, yet they’re ignored in most works on Thai politics. I look forward to reading more from the book.
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