Political Divinations: Making Citizens Sovereign in Buddhist Thailand

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 spread 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 careers, finances, 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 their broad influence, diviners remain largely absent from 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 uses 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.

• Edoardo Siani, Author

  Edoardo Siani is assistant professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

• Political Divinations is an eloquent and risky (in all the best ways) ethnography of the place of magic in politics and everyday life in Thailand. Edoardo Siani moves beyond existing inadequate frameworks to develop a way of comprehending the links between the sacred and politics to contribute to religious studies, Buddhist studies, and Thai studies. What is exciting about the book is that Siani makes a call for readers to take diviners seriously—not to understand everyday religious practice of ordinary people, but to understand national politics. The ethnographic writing is . . . engaging. Combined with a bold methodology—becoming a practitioner of magic and the divine—this book unveils new views of politics and new ways of thinking about how political life is made.
  —Tyrell Haberkorn, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Edoardo Siani’s Political Divinations: Making Citizens Sovereign in Buddhist Thailand is a lucidly detailed series of historical and ethnographic studies of the centrality of divination to Thai political life, both in the past and today. . . . Siani’s book constitutes a major contribution to studies of Thai ritual and political cultures. He lived in Thailand through a series of dramatic political transitions, notably the military coups of 2006 and 2014 and the final years of the reign of King Bhumibol, and his book is a trove of fascinating reflections on Thai political life over the past two decades as told by diviners and mediums of diverse political persuasions.
  —Peter A. Jackson, Australian National University, South East Asia Research