Constructing ‘sacred’ power in Thai digital amulets through magical pragmatism, design aesthetics, and personalisation

This article examines how auspicious smartphone wallpapers in contemporary Thailand are constructed and marketed as digital amulets, designed to channel ‘sacred’ power towards specific personal goals such as wealth, career advancement, and romantic success. Drawing on a qualitative dataset of 256 Instagram posts and applying visual semiotics and textual thematic analysis, the study investigated how religious iconography, magical thinking, and consumer aesthetics are integrated into commodified spiritual artefacts. The findings reveal four interrelated themes: visual ‘sacredness’ and modular design, personalisation and activation of ‘sacred’ power, pragmatic and goal-oriented magical thinking, aesthetic coherence and legitimacy of spiritual authorship. These wallpapers function not only as visual invocations of divine favour, but also as branded tools of spiritual efficacy, legitimised through design, narrative, and social media visibility. This study argues that such artefacts reflect a shift in spiritual authority from traditional institutions to digital creators and platform economies, where magical thinking and belief are reframed through affective resonance, aesthetic appeal, and transactional logic. By conceptualising auspicious wallpapers as artefacts of the Thai digital spiritual marketplace, this article contributes to the growing discourse on digital religion, religious commodification, and contemporary formations of faith in consumer capitalism.