For the dissertation:
This service has it available for view (at least for a while at first ): https://www.scribd.com/doc/112534555/Thailand-The-Soteriological-State-in-the-1970svol1
While the url indicates “Volume 1”, the document appears to be complete. I have been able to read it and copy-and-paste excerpts without a subscription, but not download.
Thanks. Interesting reference. I gather a lot of this occurred in His Majesty’s waning years as the “network monarchy” got a tad out of hand and the CP had yet to tap into the official “celestial economy” to fund his hefty living expenses. In the current political climate, one would not wish to offend the Crown Prince by improperly “using his name” to do business or raise money for a charitable cause, like “Bike4Mom” or “Bike4Dad.” That didn’t work out too well for his former astrologer. Or his former in-laws.
Hmm, in my day it was called a literature search. You couldn’t get your Ph.D. without one; certainly professors at major universities would have been familiar with the principle.
Surely articles in journals of the Royal Anthro. Institute (1991) and the American Anthropological Association (1992) weren’t all that difficult to obtain, particularly if one were in that field. Word & Image (1995) was slightly more obscure, but not beyond the bounds of serious scholarship. Academia.edu wasn’t launched until 2008. I was always curious how the dissertation ended up in the ANU library — it is there, right? — particularly since the Univ. of Chicago had a policy of not making dissertations available through Univ. of MI microfilms. I am also curious why some scholars claimed they either “forgot” where they obtained a copy of the dissn. or obtained a copy online before it was online (I believe it’s available now through ProQuest), particularly since some quite prominent professors requested copies of the dissertation and then they or their students “forgot” to cite it. Or their editors insisted on cuts, so unfortunately references to my work had to be cut… It’s also interesting that scholars who claim to have missed the work have articles in books that cite it. And the latest trend: cite it perfunctorily, but attribute major concepts to works by other authors or present them independent of the citation. Cute.
Y’all seem quite invested in missing the point, but that tone is familiar. I was out of the business when a lot of this tap dancing occurred.
What an immense credit to the fine founding principles of your country you are Christine. It would be easy and cheap to publish your thesis, and all later writings as an e-book, with all the promise which the easily accessible “Hegemonic Images” holds.
Thailand to hold nationwide oath-taking ceremony for late king
Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha urged Thai citizens during a televised speech Friday night to take the oath to emphasize their loyalty to the nation, its religion and the monarchy.
The event will take place across Thailand on Tuesday in all 76provinces at city halls and district offices.
Provincial governors and district chiefs will lead the oath-taking ceremonies in front of King Bhumibol Aduladej’s photo.
Arrest Warrant Out for Anti-Monarchy Exile ‘Aum Neko’
BANGKOK — Police said Friday a court has issued an arrest warrant for a firebrand anti-royalist detractor living in French exile on a charge of insulting the monarchy, a count that carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail.
The warrant for Saran Chuichai, aka Aum Neko, was approved by the court on Oct. 14, but technology crime police only told reporters about it on Friday, when a hardline royalist went to the cybercrime headquarters to demand a speedy extradition and prosecution of the former student activist.
“Our commanders have instructed us to proceed with this case swiftly,” said Lt. Col. Uthai Laosil, an officer at Technology Crime Suppression Division.
Uthai said the warrant was approved after Saran, who’s better known by her nom de guerre Aum Neko, posted a video mocking the death of His Majesty the King, who died on Oct. 13 at 88. The video drew widespread outrage from supporters of the monarchy.
Saran, who rose to fame as a transgender student activist, is charged with royal defamation, a law also known as lese majeste.
After the military staged a coup in May 2014, Saran fled to France, where she has since been residing as an asylum seeker.
Dear Christine, it’s such a pity that your PhD dissertation never became a book. For better or worse the academic world seems to place much more store in books than articles. Thai studies seems to have a number of influential PhD dissertations that never got published as books — such a pity. But I agree with the above suggestion that you can reach a wider audience by putting the pdf files of your publications that “have sunk like a stone” online, say on academia.edu, researchgate, etc. When I google search your name I find your 1991 article “Hegemonic Images …” but that’s about it.
A link based on this statement from above: “No one performs kathin at a royal temple without His Majesty’s express permission.” Look at: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1138732/50-years-for-ying-kai-half-sister One of the charges is that she used “fake documents purported to be from the Office of His Majesty’s Principal Private Secretary and conning people to contribute money for royal kathin ceremonies.”
The ‘small trader in the Arabian desert’ created the religion of one and a half billion people and an empire that stretched from China to Spain; a miraculous achievement, some might say.
(Scientific materialism is presently outnumbered 6:1 by religion, 8:1 by 2050).
The article itself is borderline hysterical…The atmosphere is serene…For those that want to provoke…karma will provide…It’s as old as the hills…but…’When in Rome…’
Buddhism, like any religion emerging from the distant past and living on into the contemporary world, is full of what can only be called nonsense.
The moral character of a monarch can influence the weather and hence agricultural production. A man born into a poor family is living out a sentence imposed for moral errors made in a previous life. Spinning what looks for all the world like an over-sized child’s toy or walking in a particular direction around what might as well be a supersized phallus will help an individual get born into a better life next time around and may in fact include a Lexus or Mercedes.
God dictates a holy screed to a small trader in the Arabian desert who acts miraculously as amanuensis and only amanuensis so a 20-year-old woman with a superior IQ attending a university in London, England insists that the Koran is the word of God, unlike the Christian bible, which, although inspired by God, was written by men, and which therefore does not have the same quality of inerrancy as the Koran. And from such a piece of absurdity flow many intractable problems of governance and human rights in the Muslim world.
There are many possible answers to the question of why such absurdities continue on into the world we inhabit today, why women allow these absurdities to keep them subordinate to men or why the poor continue to abase themselves at the feet of the rich on some bogus religious principle like karma, but surely the simple fact that the hocus-pocus of esoteric and obscurantist religious doctrine is always cloaked around otherwise naked forms of power must provide a clue.
Religious discourse is essentially an idiom of power and as such is virtually indistinguishable from what we now refer to as ideology.
What Christine Gray does in her various articles here on New Mandala is the equivalent of someone finding that a reading of the symbolism of various monuments in Washington DC, including such arcane details as why Ionic rather than Corinthian columns dominate in federal architecture, is somehow relevant to the Bush administration and its hypercapitalist approach to the Iraq War.
Or even more foolishly, that the reams and reams of academic/think tank scholarship rabbitting on about the role of the United States in democratizing the world on the principles of equality and liberty has anything at all to do with the reality of power relations between the International Monetary Fund, the Thai stock market, Goldman Sachs and USPACOM.
The use of religious symbolism in monarchical rituals around the globe is common, traditional and not all that relevant to the real structures of power, not in England, not in Denmark, and not in Thailand.
A spectacle filled with a plethora of microscopic secret handshakes performed to be understood by a tiny initiate group in a society is not an expression of power any more than an elaborate onanistic ritual leading to orgasm is an expression of the reproductive urge.
The public face, on the other hand, with its far more accessible displays of wealth and grandeur and its absolute lack of a need for elaborate heuristic gymnastics is the part of the ritual that is related to governance and therefore to power.
And of course behind the curtains in all of the temples and halls of religion and governance, and underpinning the elaborate convolutions of ideology and/or theology, there stands the gun, out of the barrel of which power grows.
As Thomas Carlyle might have said, “Close thy Gray and open thy Mao (or even Giles)”.
As I have said before, this focus on the monarchy, especially this utterly vain exercise in teasing out the esoteric meanings behind each gesture and ritual object in some hieratic ceremony merely serves as a distraction from the workings of real power and a powerful support to those whose role in the power structure depends on the continued marginilization of the people, few of whom give a rodent’s behind about any of it because they know in their bones that it is not where power and subjection actually happen.
It’s because the Crown Prince has secured his ritual bases, which means he’s already secured the transmission of lineage. His royal blood, the lack of alternate male heirs, and his billions of dollars of fortune will buy a lot. Given that he has few if any democratic sentiments, it’s like watching a horror show or accident in slo mo. A lock on power, with the entire nation in attendance through mourning rituals.
Peter Cohen : old Indonesian saying – “always remember, when you point a finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing at your self”. Ali Alatas used to say it, frequently.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
The myth of King Bhumibol
When are they going to take an oath to either Regent Tempore Prem, or alternatively : to the Crown Prince ?
Soul of a nation
And with respect to the scribd.com source, I was wrong; it does not have the complete dissertation.
Soul of a nation
For the dissertation:
This service has it available for view (at least for a while at first ): https://www.scribd.com/doc/112534555/Thailand-The-Soteriological-State-in-the-1970svol1
While the url indicates “Volume 1”, the document appears to be complete. I have been able to read it and copy-and-paste excerpts without a subscription, but not download.
Then it can be purchased in a variety of formats from Proquest, the current successor of the old University Microfilms: http://dissexpress.umi.com/dxweb/search.html
Perhaps there is a licensing arrangement that New Mandala could use to make hard to find or never-made-it-to-book dissertations available on the site?
Soul of a nation
Thanks. Interesting reference. I gather a lot of this occurred in His Majesty’s waning years as the “network monarchy” got a tad out of hand and the CP had yet to tap into the official “celestial economy” to fund his hefty living expenses. In the current political climate, one would not wish to offend the Crown Prince by improperly “using his name” to do business or raise money for a charitable cause, like “Bike4Mom” or “Bike4Dad.” That didn’t work out too well for his former astrologer. Or his former in-laws.
Soul of a nation
Hmm, in my day it was called a literature search. You couldn’t get your Ph.D. without one; certainly professors at major universities would have been familiar with the principle.
Surely articles in journals of the Royal Anthro. Institute (1991) and the American Anthropological Association (1992) weren’t all that difficult to obtain, particularly if one were in that field. Word & Image (1995) was slightly more obscure, but not beyond the bounds of serious scholarship. Academia.edu wasn’t launched until 2008. I was always curious how the dissertation ended up in the ANU library — it is there, right? — particularly since the Univ. of Chicago had a policy of not making dissertations available through Univ. of MI microfilms. I am also curious why some scholars claimed they either “forgot” where they obtained a copy of the dissn. or obtained a copy online before it was online (I believe it’s available now through ProQuest), particularly since some quite prominent professors requested copies of the dissertation and then they or their students “forgot” to cite it. Or their editors insisted on cuts, so unfortunately references to my work had to be cut… It’s also interesting that scholars who claim to have missed the work have articles in books that cite it. And the latest trend: cite it perfunctorily, but attribute major concepts to works by other authors or present them independent of the citation. Cute.
Y’all seem quite invested in missing the point, but that tone is familiar. I was out of the business when a lot of this tap dancing occurred.
Soul of a nation
What an immense credit to the fine founding principles of your country you are Christine. It would be easy and cheap to publish your thesis, and all later writings as an e-book, with all the promise which the easily accessible “Hegemonic Images” holds.
The myth of King Bhumibol
Kim Jong-un would be proud ……………
The myth of King Bhumibol
Thailand to hold nationwide oath-taking ceremony for late king
Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha urged Thai citizens during a televised speech Friday night to take the oath to emphasize their loyalty to the nation, its religion and the monarchy.
The event will take place across Thailand on Tuesday in all 76provinces at city halls and district offices.
Provincial governors and district chiefs will lead the oath-taking ceremonies in front of King Bhumibol Aduladej’s photo.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/national/30300368
Red and Yellow in Germany
Arrest Warrant Out for Anti-Monarchy Exile ‘Aum Neko’
BANGKOK — Police said Friday a court has issued an arrest warrant for a firebrand anti-royalist detractor living in French exile on a charge of insulting the monarchy, a count that carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail.
The warrant for Saran Chuichai, aka Aum Neko, was approved by the court on Oct. 14, but technology crime police only told reporters about it on Friday, when a hardline royalist went to the cybercrime headquarters to demand a speedy extradition and prosecution of the former student activist.
“Our commanders have instructed us to proceed with this case swiftly,” said Lt. Col. Uthai Laosil, an officer at Technology Crime Suppression Division.
Uthai said the warrant was approved after Saran, who’s better known by her nom de guerre Aum Neko, posted a video mocking the death of His Majesty the King, who died on Oct. 13 at 88. The video drew widespread outrage from supporters of the monarchy.
Saran, who rose to fame as a transgender student activist, is charged with royal defamation, a law also known as lese majeste.
After the military staged a coup in May 2014, Saran fled to France, where she has since been residing as an asylum seeker.
http://www.khaosodenglish.com/politics/2016/11/19/arrest-warrant-anti-monarchy-exile-aum-neko/
Soul of a nation
Dear Christine, it’s such a pity that your PhD dissertation never became a book. For better or worse the academic world seems to place much more store in books than articles. Thai studies seems to have a number of influential PhD dissertations that never got published as books — such a pity. But I agree with the above suggestion that you can reach a wider audience by putting the pdf files of your publications that “have sunk like a stone” online, say on academia.edu, researchgate, etc. When I google search your name I find your 1991 article “Hegemonic Images …” but that’s about it.
Soul of a nation
A link based on this statement from above: “No one performs kathin at a royal temple without His Majesty’s express permission.” Look at: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1138732/50-years-for-ying-kai-half-sister One of the charges is that she used “fake documents purported to be from the Office of His Majesty’s Principal Private Secretary and conning people to contribute money for royal kathin ceremonies.”
Soul of a nation
Left out “where”. Should read: And look where the belief in the unscientific is taking us!
Soul of a nation
The ‘small trader in the Arabian desert’ created the religion of one and a half billion people and an empire that stretched from China to Spain; a miraculous achievement, some might say.
(Scientific materialism is presently outnumbered 6:1 by religion, 8:1 by 2050).
Thailand’s black hole: a Deleuzian take
The article itself is borderline hysterical…The atmosphere is serene…For those that want to provoke…karma will provide…It’s as old as the hills…but…’When in Rome…’
Soul of a nation
Why not republish your dissertation on the internet?
Soul of a nation
Buddhism, like any religion emerging from the distant past and living on into the contemporary world, is full of what can only be called nonsense.
The moral character of a monarch can influence the weather and hence agricultural production. A man born into a poor family is living out a sentence imposed for moral errors made in a previous life. Spinning what looks for all the world like an over-sized child’s toy or walking in a particular direction around what might as well be a supersized phallus will help an individual get born into a better life next time around and may in fact include a Lexus or Mercedes.
God dictates a holy screed to a small trader in the Arabian desert who acts miraculously as amanuensis and only amanuensis so a 20-year-old woman with a superior IQ attending a university in London, England insists that the Koran is the word of God, unlike the Christian bible, which, although inspired by God, was written by men, and which therefore does not have the same quality of inerrancy as the Koran. And from such a piece of absurdity flow many intractable problems of governance and human rights in the Muslim world.
There are many possible answers to the question of why such absurdities continue on into the world we inhabit today, why women allow these absurdities to keep them subordinate to men or why the poor continue to abase themselves at the feet of the rich on some bogus religious principle like karma, but surely the simple fact that the hocus-pocus of esoteric and obscurantist religious doctrine is always cloaked around otherwise naked forms of power must provide a clue.
Religious discourse is essentially an idiom of power and as such is virtually indistinguishable from what we now refer to as ideology.
What Christine Gray does in her various articles here on New Mandala is the equivalent of someone finding that a reading of the symbolism of various monuments in Washington DC, including such arcane details as why Ionic rather than Corinthian columns dominate in federal architecture, is somehow relevant to the Bush administration and its hypercapitalist approach to the Iraq War.
Or even more foolishly, that the reams and reams of academic/think tank scholarship rabbitting on about the role of the United States in democratizing the world on the principles of equality and liberty has anything at all to do with the reality of power relations between the International Monetary Fund, the Thai stock market, Goldman Sachs and USPACOM.
The use of religious symbolism in monarchical rituals around the globe is common, traditional and not all that relevant to the real structures of power, not in England, not in Denmark, and not in Thailand.
A spectacle filled with a plethora of microscopic secret handshakes performed to be understood by a tiny initiate group in a society is not an expression of power any more than an elaborate onanistic ritual leading to orgasm is an expression of the reproductive urge.
The public face, on the other hand, with its far more accessible displays of wealth and grandeur and its absolute lack of a need for elaborate heuristic gymnastics is the part of the ritual that is related to governance and therefore to power.
And of course behind the curtains in all of the temples and halls of religion and governance, and underpinning the elaborate convolutions of ideology and/or theology, there stands the gun, out of the barrel of which power grows.
As Thomas Carlyle might have said, “Close thy Gray and open thy Mao (or even Giles)”.
As I have said before, this focus on the monarchy, especially this utterly vain exercise in teasing out the esoteric meanings behind each gesture and ritual object in some hieratic ceremony merely serves as a distraction from the workings of real power and a powerful support to those whose role in the power structure depends on the continued marginilization of the people, few of whom give a rodent’s behind about any of it because they know in their bones that it is not where power and subjection actually happen.
Soul of a nation
Dear Miss Christine, “Everyone is afraid, for good reason”
you cannot be more corrected.
My village 5 people have died in recent weeks 3 suicide. Black everywhere is not good for Thai.
Meetings, and more meetings always – same thing always. TV is dark.
Why can we not celebrate kings life, instead be sad all the time. We cannot even talk.
I know MANY the things you talk about, you are very correct. Many they know but, many they don’t know.
Soul of a nation
It’s because the Crown Prince has secured his ritual bases, which means he’s already secured the transmission of lineage. His royal blood, the lack of alternate male heirs, and his billions of dollars of fortune will buy a lot. Given that he has few if any democratic sentiments, it’s like watching a horror show or accident in slo mo. A lock on power, with the entire nation in attendance through mourning rituals.
Soul of a nation
I must admit to being relatively surprised by how smoothly the transition seems to be going.
More work needed for Indonesia’s democracy
Peter Cohen : old Indonesian saying – “always remember, when you point a finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing at your self”. Ali Alatas used to say it, frequently.