Duang muang (Thailand)

Duang muang 🇹🇭
Location: Thailand
Definition: Fortune-telling and spiritual guidance; a method of political analysis and influence shaping political decisions
Keywords: Thailand – Southeast Asia – Spirituality – Divination – Occult – Influence – Elite – Patronage
Clusters: Patron-client networks
Author: Akkharaphong Khamkhun and Wasin Punthong
Affiliation: Pridi Banomyong International College, Thammasat University and Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University, Thailand

By Akkharaphong Khamkhun and Wasin Punthong, Pridi Banomyong International College, Thammasat University and Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University, Thailand

In Thailand, duang muang literally means ‘the fate of the city’. In a Thai-Lao language, muang simply means city, town, or network of administrative units; and it is also colloquially used to refer to the whole country, Muang Thai. The term duang means a pre-determined fate, or destiny, controlled by supernatural powers. Everyone’s life is preordained from the exact minute of birth. The destiny cannot be changed but reading its astrological movements and forces at work can help achieve some control. Thus, duang is professionally calculated by astrologers, who are highly visible in Thailand. Most magazines and newspapers around the globe feature horoscope sections, but in Thailand it is common for people to use it and for astrologers to give advice through mainstream media and in almost every national daily. When people are getting married or open a new business, they usually seek consultation from astrologers or monks who have astrological knowledge. Interpreting duang based on its astrological revelations is therefore a no-nonsense social practice, and trade, in Thailand (see also karma in India).

A duang tablet forecasts and enhances one’s duang. Numbers engraved in the circle on the tablet are calculated by a professional astrologer. Source: Wasin Punthong. © Wasin Punthong.

Historically, the practice of duang reading plays an important part in several royal ceremonies. During a coronation ceremony, the monarch’s birth duang (ดวงพระราชสมภพ: duang phrarajchasompob) is engraved on the surface of a golden plaque. According to the chronicle of Ayutthaya Kingdom since the 14th century, the court astrologers played a prominent role in providing advice to the king. The title of the court astrologer, Phraya Horathipbodi (พระยาโหราธิบดี), was given to those overseeing the Hora department responsible for guidance to the kingdom’s destiny. Although this title was abolished together with the formal advisory role of court astrologers, their ceremonial role endures. Nowadays, the king appoints a Phra Maha Raja-Kru (พระมหาราชครู), an informal advisor. In this respect, for centuries, interpreting duang muang had been a method of political analysis and influence that shaped political decisions of the ruling class.

Prior to the 1932 revolution initiated by the People’s Party, which changed the country’s regime from absolute monarchy to a democratic regime, duang muang was considered a common practice especially in the royal court. With modernisation, duang muang gradually lost its formal prescriptive role in politics. Destiny reading became an obsolete spiritual practice associated with the bygone age that contradicted modern political practices, presumed to be based on scientific grounds and empirically tested decision-making. Beyond the formal political realm, interpreting duang muang by well-known astrologers remains politically relevant for Thai leaders and socially significant for many Thai people. The practices of seeking spiritual guidance are widespread in private sphere, in Thailand and elsewhere (see, for example, a serious study of mundane astrology in the US in Green, Carter and Raphael 2005). However, the scale and the public domain of its application make the divination practices in Thailand specific. The specific feature of duang muang can be associated with its potential to influence a course of political action in highly uncertain contexts, such as coup d’état (Songsamphan 1991). Duang muang has political implications, whereby cultural elements embedded in Thailand’s social fabric can be used pragmatically. Recent research findings on the role of astrological heuristics have confirmed the psychological influence of duang muang (Hamilton 2015).

Political leaders use duang muang as an enabling, or problem-solving tool that helps them assess, or improve, a highly volatile political situation. Duang muang helps build political consensus because of beliefs that the country has inherited its own destiny and that the movement of stars influences the political life of the country, thus legitimising political decisions, if they had been made in accordance with duang muang. For instance, it is widely known among the Thais that the date of installing Bangkok’s city pillar, 21 April 2325 BE, was selected with reference to its most auspicious duang muang (Likitkijsomboon 1994: 78). This particular conception of duang is collective in the sense that all members of a political community are united under the same duang muang. This belief purports that political changes are to some extent conditioned by duang muang at every particular moment in time. The right for interpretation of duang muang can also be contested. Only a handful of elite astrologers are widely acknowledged in the society as being able to accomplish a political reading or divination, and their number is kept under control. The Thai Astrologer Association, an active professional organisation under the Patronage of Her Majesty the Queen, was founded in 1947. Its founders include several prominent members of establishment, including an Oxford graduate, ex-privy council member, Phraya Srivisarnvaja (Tienliang Hoontrakul) [(พระยาศรีวิสารวาจา (เทียนเลี้ยง ฮุนตระกูล)].

Most of the political elites and governmental leaders today use the expertise of political consultants who provide analyses of the political context, forecasts, and advice on policy responses to particular situations. These experts tend to be those qualified in economics, political science or similar disciplines. Parallel to this practice, political leaders often develop close relationships with astrologers. Politicians, including the Prime Minister and cabinet members, approach astrologers for advice and divination in order to boost their popularity. In reverse, such close interactions with politicians enable professional political astrologers to gain access to the elite networks, exercise political influence, and even get a political appointment. For example, the Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, who staged a coup in 2014, has appointed his once spiritual advisor and an acclaimed astrologer Panuwat Punwichatkul (ภาณุวัฒน์ พันธุ์วิชาติกุล) to the political affairs unit of his Secretariat (101World 2020).

In times of political uncertainty, when they are expected to be the pillars of stability and leadership, governmental agencies and political analysts tend to be overruled by leading political astrologers who publicly reveal the duang muang through mass media and de facto substitute for, if not clash with, the functions of these agencies. This practice can be understood as a form of informal political analysis that attempts to explain politics with reference to astrological patterns. As those astrologers are socialised and integrated into the society, their interpretation of duang muang reproduces an existing metanarrative, accepted by Thai society. Duang muang provides a political frame through which political activities are enacted, perceived and assessed, as if supernatural forces kept the country in a mould. From this perspective, duang muang creates a space free of secular political control. It is an objective movement of the stars that enables or disables events from occurring.

Duang muang plays a crucial role in Thai society since it shapes the way political activities are enacted. Political elites tend to cling to an astrological prophecy when making a decision on critical matters, such as forming a new government or staging a coup. Before the bloodless coup that changed Siam from an absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, the People’s Party, the group that planned and staged the coup, consulted the astrological constellation (Museum Siam Knowledge Center 2019). Duang muang is also used instrumentally to legitimise the political incumbency by mounting evidence that the current leaders’ personal astrological registers could enrich the duang muang (see Panpeerapit and Pongsawat 2019, Tipyamasgomen 1996). In parallel with formal hiring of political consultants to provide political insights, politicians and leaders benefit from the informal advice of astrologers able to interpret duang muang in both political and personal domains. The coexistence of the two practices highlights the political and social significance of interpreting duang muang.

References

Green, H.S., Carter, C. E. O. & Raphael. 2005. Mundane Astrology: The Astrology of Nations and States. MD: Astrology Classics

Hamilton, M. A. 2015. ‘Astrology as a Culturally Transmitted Heuristic Scheme for Understanding Seasonality Effects: a Response to Genovese (2014)’, Comprehensive Psychology, 4: 1–11

Likitkijsomboon, P. 1994. Horasatwipak [Critique of Astrology]. Bangkok: Namthai Publishing

Museum Siam Knowledge Center. 2019. Horasat : Kruengmue Kanmuang Bab Thai Thai [Astrology: a Thai-Style Political Tool], 5 April, https://www.museumsiam.org/da-detail2.php?MID= 3&CID=177&CONID=3130&SCID =242 Panpeerapit, K. & Pongsawat, P. 2019. ‘The Relationship Between Astrology and Military Coup in Thailand’, Journal of MCU Buddhapanya Review, 4: 115–132

Songsamphan, C. 1991. Supernatural Prophecy in Thai Politics: The Role of a Spiritual Cultural Element in Coup Decisions, PhD thesis. The Claremont Graduate University, California

Tipyamasgomen, S. 1996. An Analysis of Politically Astrological Content in Printed Media During 1991 – 1993, Master’s thesis. Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

101World. 2020. Jorluek Hora Thai : Muea Duang Muang Shu Thahan Rerng Amnaj [Understanding Thai Astrologers : When Duang Muang Complements the Military], 20 January, https://www.the101.world/thai-astrology/. Accessed on June 28, 2020