A new political anthropology of Buddhism, animism, supernaturalism, and scams in Thailand

Abstract

The anthropological record clearly shows that there remains a strong political undercurrent in terms of Theravada Buddhism, spiritualism, animism, supernaturalism, and scams in Thailand. The literature review of this new anthropology provides the main academic works that have been published vis-à-vis the Theravada Buddhism, animism, and supernaturalism. Scams have been added to this academic paper as they are based on the former, and scams in late modernity have emerged and evolved from the new anthropology. It is a new anthropology for the following three main reasons: (1) it adopts a modern approach to understanding such cultural, social, and traditional phenomena; (2) the method involves both normative and quantitative methods used in the social and political sciences; and (3) a more objective and scientific approach is adopted in the new political tropology because of the uneven distribution of power in these cultural and social phenomena. Individuals actually have a choice to avoid being scammed. Yet, millions of people seem to prefer to be duped. People keep losing billions of dollars to scammers. Why is this so? This study seeks to explain this social phenomenon. Think of the word “scam” and what comes to mind is a wide range of scams targeting old people’s life savings; insecure women in Singapore seeking romance and erotic love from Turkish men; poor Turkish men in Singapore living off their Singaporean girlfriends and wives (they usually have one of each simultaneously); financial scams by lawyers and foreigners in Thailand; phishing scams in Malaysia; as well as gambling scams and online scams in Singapore. Millions continue to be lost in scams involving fake government agencies, including Singapore’s Income Tax Agency and Singapore’s CPF Board. While legitimate governments spend billions of dollars on countermeasures to combat these nefarious tricksters, there appears to be little to nothing that is achieved. People are very easily misled. This study focused on multimillion-dollar scammers who prey on individuals who believe in magic, ritual, occult, tradition, religion, and superstition. Ignoramuses, the mentally retarded, and simpletons are often superstitious; they are the most likely to fall for scams. Scams take place in crowded places with a high walk-in, street-level crowd, and the profits range from a few cents to thousands of dollars a second. This study concludes with a clear solution to the problems associated with superstition and scams in Southeast Asia. There is a politics to Asian scams because of the uneven distribution of power among those who believe in superstitions, animism, and religions; it is a paradox that makes many people vulnerable to being scammed.