The Thai fortune-teller who has lost faith in the future

For a man who has made a fortune out of predicting the future, he sounded a lot like someone who had lost faith in it.

I am talking about Luck Rakanithes, one of the best known fortune-tellers in south east Asia. Channel 4 News spent the afternoon with him at his business complex in Bangkok, as part of an investigation into links between fortune-tellers and senior members of the Thai junta.

You can see more about that in the video below.

Mr Luck had clearly done well for himself. There was a stretch BMW out-front and a custom-built radio studio inside. Through a small window, I could see him gesticulating at the microphone as he churned out weekly horoscopes for his premium-cost telephone line service.

“Listen up Leos,” he bellowed. “You’ll have luck, money, love, a chance to travel.”

In the back office I saw piles of horoscope books awaiting delivery – some of the 600,000 copies he prints every year. On the first floor, we found a squadron of telephonists distributing celestial advice for the equivalent of 30p an hour. When I asked cubicle-based astrologer Chitlekha Thanakornmetha whether she had spoken to any army generals in the last few months she replied: “Oh yes, but they don’t tell me their names – but after they ask me questions I know it’s an important person.”

An hour or so later we got a chance to talk to the pre-eminent clairvoyant himself. We conducted the interview in his richly-appointed office and I expected him to rattle on about the importance of soothsayers, palm readers and the like in Thai culture. We did get a little bit of that – he suggested that sex and fortune-telling are the two things that preoccupy Thais most.

“Sex comes first because it is the mystery of the body and fortune telling is next because it is the mystery of the future,” he explained.

A few minutes later however, the interview travelled in a surprising new direction. Mr Luck – who has made a fortune from fortune-telling – decided to trash his own profession. An innocuous sounding question kicked it off. I asked him what it was like to be Thailand’s “number one fortune-teller”. He replied: “Well that’s what people say… but I want to change my life. I am not kidding. In a couple of years I want the name ‘Luck Rakanithes’ to disappear. I am so bored of going places with people shouting, ‘teacher look at my palm’, ‘tell me my fortune’. Even at the airport they ask me and I am so fed up with it. This is what Thai society is really like.”

At first it sounded like the 42-year supernatural-sensation was simply tired of his job and, as he pointed out, he has been doing for a while. The son of poor farmers, Mr Luck memorized the contents of a couple of astrology books and began “interpreting the stars” for girls at the local high school.

It was not long before he was forecasting the future at local hotels and markets – better than working as a waiter, he said.

“People tell you off in the restaurant, drunk people, they look down on you. But as a fortune teller, you can tell people what their fate will be,” he told us.

After a few years, the celebrities and politicians were queuing up to see him and as far as the future was concerned, Mr Luck could see dollar signs. He now runs a multi-platform business and his name is familiar to just about everyone in the country.

Still, the guy that many call “aajann” – or teacher – is not just sick of his job. It is worse than that. He thinks fortune-tellers like him have a corrosive effect on society.

“You know, you don’t have to come to me to ask why you were arrested if you were driving on the wrong side of the road. You probably broke the law. That’s why you got arrested,” Mr Luck said, warming up.

“There’s no point asking me if you are going to get rich. People have to go back to using their own brains. Don’t try to use the fortune-teller to chart your universe for you. It is crazy. If you want to be successful, get inspiration from a book.”

To me, it sounded like Mr Luck believes he has made his own luck – and he does not seem have much time for those who cannot be bothered to make their own. “I really want to quit (this job),” he told me. “People use us as a way to satisfy their hopes and dreams without actually doing anything for themselves.”

He seemed thoroughly disenchanted with the fortune-telling business – like the magician who cannot be bothered to believe in his own magic – but Mr Luck understands the power that soothsayers wield. He describes the relationship between senior Thai generals now running the country their own super-natural advisors as “frightening.”

If you were wondering what Thailand’s most famous fortune teller plans to do when he turns his back on the stars, I can reveal his future plans. He wants to do a degree in history at Oxford – and I fully believe that the decision to study will be his alone.

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