Why have urban spirit-medium cults been extremely popular in contemporary Thailand? What does the cults' popularity mean to Thailand's postmodernizing economy, politics, and culture? How do urban spirit-medium cults and state-sponsored Buddhism coexist? These questions are addressed in this dissertation.
Based on intensive fieldwork carried out in the municipality of Nakhon Ratchasima (Khorat) in the summers of 1995, 1996, and 1997, the author interprets the phenomenal re-emergence of urban spirit-medium cults in Thailand since the 1960s as the ongoing postmodernization of Thai religion. This popular religious phenomenon is characterized by (1) the frustration, disorientation, and uncertainty in everyday life as experienced by members of the urban working class, especially, urban poor women; (2) discourses and counter-discourses concerning the belief and believability of spirit mediumship; (3) the media-stimulated commercialization of Buddhism and the crisis of authority of the Buddhist Sangha and the official authorities; and (4) the lottery-mania and the fetishism of religious commodities.
It is argued that the current popularity of urban spirit-medium cults is one religious response to the country's rapid expansion of economy and migrant urban population in the past few decades. The re-emergence of urban spirit-medium cults also highlights religious consequences of Thailand's modern ethno-cultural assimilation scheme since the late nineteenth century.
In addition to an ethnography of Khorat-based urban spirit-medium cults, the genealogical construction of the cults, the popular cults of the famous monk, Luang Pho Khun and the late pop queen, Phumphuang Duangchan, are extensively discussed in light of the postmodernizing economic crisis in Thailand since July 1997.
