For many people, scientific facts and supernatural beliefs are mutually exclusive. They stand against one another on opposite sides of a binary. However, the announcement by the prime minister or suggestion by fortune tellers in response to the explosion of King Kaew factory on 4th July 2021 and the outbreak of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that there should be a merit-making ritual to ward off Thailand’s misfortunes manifests the persistence of magical beliefs and rituals in modern-day Thailand. In her article titled “Against Hostile Nature: The Role of Magic and Science in Thailand’s Cave Rescue,” Kanya Wattanagun, a folklore specialist from Chulalongkorn University, argues that the word “belief,” generally understood as a complete trust in the truth value of a proposition, cannot describe magical rituals carried out during the rescue mission at Tham Luang cave in Chiang Rai, Thailand, from 23 June – 10 July 2018.
Source: https://mgronline.com/local/detail/9610000066690
Impeded by the cave’s geology, malign weather, and several other hindrances, the rescue of the Wild Boars seemed hopeless. After several rescue attempts failed, the families of the young players resorted to myth, magic and rituals. The first ritual was conducted to placate Princess Nang Norn – a deity at Tham Luang who was believed to have detained the missing boys for an offence they committed. Then a soul-calling ritual was carried out to retrieve the boys by making contact with their souls. Toward the end of the rescue mission, a charismatic Buddhist monk – Kruba Bunchum – showed up at the cave and performed several rituals. Miraculously, the malign weather turned benign, as did other natural factors that had hindered the rescue mission prior to Kruba Bunchum’s rituals. Ultimately, the Wild Boars were rescued and the mission came to a happy conclusion.
To set the stage for her argument, the author draws on a description of the rituals at Tham Luang from a BBC documentary and audience comments. These are placed in contrast to the viewpoints of ritual participants expressed in interviews with domestic and national news agencies.
The author notes a prevalent assumption, discernible from the documentary and audience comments, that rituals always stem from belief in supernatural agents. Then she argues that this assumption, which presupposes a direct and causal relation between belief and ritual, cannot explain the basis of the rituals in the Tham Luang rescue mission. In this case, belief did not lead directly to ritual. Instead, it was uncontrollable natural forces and futile practical actions which led the boys’ parents and the rescue teams to consider the possibility that supernatural beings were wreaking havoc on the rescue efforts. The precariousness of the situation, rather than belief, was the source of rituals and ceremonies at Tham Luang.
The author suggests that ritual participants viewed the reality of supernatural agents as a possibility, not as a self-evident truth, and the mystical approaches to the mission were intended to complement rather than replace practical actions. Both rescue workers and parents seemed to think that there might be a conscious agent deliberately sabotaging the rescue, since the mission was constantly impeded by unfavorable natural factors. Moreover, the first ritual was performed after a long and vigorous search for the boys did not yield the desired outcome. Concerned parents and relatives concluded that primary approaches – non-mystical ones – were inadequate and so decided to use alternative measures to ensure the success of the mission and boost morale. However, practical actions undertaken by the rescue teams in collaboration with experts were always regarded as the key to success. To illustrate these two attitudes, the author draws on interviews that Tham Kanthawong – a relative of one of the missing boys – gave to local news agencies. Tham said that her morale rose after seeing international volunteers and experts taking part in the mission. However, she was willing to try anything that might help because the possibility that the boys had caused offense to some sacred being could not be rejected out of hand. This, and other supporting evidence and examples, allow the author to conclude that a magical approach is not antithetical to practical action. Instead, magic and rituals were intended to ensure the success of the rescue plan.
Having explained the role of magic vis-à-vis science at Tham Luang, the author finally suggests that “belief”, as a concept, cannot convey the mental attitude underlying the rituals performed at the cave. She also questions the belief-disbelief dichotomy, as neither conceptual extreme can do justice to the range of views people hold regarding the reality of the supernatural world. It is the time that this dichotomy be reconsidered and revisited by scholars. I regard this suggestion as a theoretical contribution of this study as it emphasizes the necessity of rethinking a western concept in light of cultural data from a non-western society.
Athit Woo