TY - BOOK ID - 119404687 TI - Capitalism magic Thailand : modernity with enchantment PY - 2022 SN - 9814951978 9814951099 PB - Singapore : ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, DB - UniCat KW - Magic KW - Wealth KW - Cults KW - Economic aspects KW - Religious aspects. KW - Alternative religious movements KW - Cult KW - Cultus KW - Marginal religious movements KW - New religions KW - New religious movements KW - NRMs (Religion) KW - Religious movements, Alternative KW - Religious movements, Marginal KW - Religious movements, New KW - Religions KW - Sects KW - Affluence KW - Distribution of wealth KW - Fortunes KW - Riches KW - Business KW - Economics KW - Finance KW - Capital KW - Money KW - Property KW - Well-being KW - Magick KW - Necromancy KW - Sorcery KW - Spells KW - Occultism UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:119404687 AB - 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 - <i>Capitalism Magic Thailand</i> 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. ER -