Buddhism (Visalo 2003 : 176). Kitiarsa studied the religious practices in the con-
temporary modernization period and collected popular spirit-medium cults (2012:
23 – 30); they are Buddha as the supreme deity; spirits of famous Buddhist saints or
magic monks, Indian gods and goddesses, Chinese deities, royal spirits (spirits of
late great Kings and Queens), and local guardian and tutelary spirits. This phe-
nomenon coins with what Payutto ( 2001 ): 153 sees as extreme modernization that
causes secularization or even politicization. Kitiarsa ( 2012 ): 118 also confirms that
amulets exemplify the growing worldliness of Thai religiosity and a junction of
religious practice and political anxieties. The politicization of Buddhism can be
seen from the involvement of the Santi-Asoke with the Palang Dhamma political
party (Matichon Daily,February 27, 2006) and the Dhammakaya with Phue Thai
political party. The Thai-Chinese middle class was drawn to these new religious
movements: Buddhadasa Bhikku, Santi-Asoke, and Dhammakaya. Thefirst one is
an intellectual and self-taught Buddhist monk who focused on a vanguard inter-
pretation of Buddhism, the second on a skewed interpretation of Buddha’s teaching
(later the abbot was defrocked), and the last one on commodification of Buddhism
as well as a skewed interpretation of Buddha’s teaching to serve material wealth
(see Payutto 1988, 2008; Formoso 2000 : 101; Ekachai 2001 :93–104).
Buddhadasa’s work is in line with the ecumenical movement of socially engaged
Buddhism that concerns both Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism (Schober 2012 :
16). These later two movements attained some popularity because popular
Buddhism had become tainted with sex, money, title scandals, and astrology; and
also because of the reluctance of the Sangha to reform itself to solve its so-called
spiritual ailings due to consumerism and the materialism associated with capitalism
as well as its reluctance to allow females to be ordained as monks (Ekachai 2001 ).
The mixture of Theravada Buddhism with Brahmanism, supernaturalism, and
belief in spirits (animism) has played an important role in forming the Thai belief
and values system as I will discuss in more detail next.
1.3 Thai Culture: A Mediatized Buddhist Culture................
Klausner ( 1997 ), Mulder ( 1985 , 1990 ) and Servaes ( 1999 ) studied Thai culture and
described the culture as a village culture with mutual trust and informal social
relationships among the inner-groups, but with distrust and formality-oriented
relations toward the outer-groups. The distrust of strangers leads to the belief in
supernatural power to protect themselves from dangers or the seeking of protection
from wealthy or powerful people. The latter was known as the entourage concept or
the patronage system in Thai society (Komin 1990 : 155).
Servaes ( 1999 : 12) suggests that a culture can be analyzed by its four distin-
guishable but interrelated analytical components: a worldview (Weltanschauung), a
value system, a system of symbolic representations, and a social organizational
system. For Thai culture, the worldview of Thais is comprised of patriarchy and a
unique Buddhist worldview, which incorporates animistic, supernatural beliefs, and
8 1 Thai Buddhism, the Mass Media, and Culture Change in Thailand