University of Hawaii Press Political Divinations: Making Citizens Sovereign in Buddhist Thailand (New Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory)

In Thailand, divination is a key instrument of power. In earlier times, kings deployed astrology to consolidate sovereignty in accordance with Buddhist cosmology. Once guarded within palace walls, this royal knowledge has diffused since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932. Today, diviners range from tarot card readers to spirit mediums, and serve clients across lines of age, class, and political orientation. Figures of authority consult them to plan coups and elections, while ordinary people seek guidance on career, finance, and romance. In periods of authoritarianism, their prophetic visions have sustained imaginings of democratic futures, shaping events such as the 2020–2021 youth protests. Despite this influence, diviners frequently elude scholarly accounts. Political Divinations is the first monograph on divination and power in Thailand. Based on over a decade of research, during which the author also trained and practiced as a diviner, this ethnography moves from the roadside fortune-telling markets of nocturnal Bangkok to the elite circles where renowned seers advise military generals, politicians, and business magnates. Bridging religious and political anthropology, the book treats divination as an analytical lens to explore techniques of statecraft alongside modes of individual and collective empowerment in a contemporary Buddhist polity. Edoardo Siani traces a historical shift: the mass appropriation of cosmological discourse from the service of royal sovereignty to the realization of popular sovereignty.