The First Spiritual Technology? Shamanism, and Shamanism in Korea

Medicine (Wo)Men

Witch Doctor

Faith Healer

Sorcerers

Shamans

Priest

I can only imagine the after-images in your mind as you perused the list above. 

"How primitive!" 
"Surely not! You call this important?!" 
"We're way past this, right?" 

And Marc, why did you include "Priest"? Surely you are not going to place a modern American occupation alongside these ... these basic, unrefined and rudimentary terms?

I shall make the case that Shamanism is less a primitive religion than it is a primary spiritual technology. Shamanism is still a spiritual "currency" many still spend. Let me go out on a limb (where the fruit is): We need shamans. 

Briefly understood, all the job descriptions in the above word-list have one spiritual technology in common. Subscribers to the shaman's power bring a working belief (or, faith) in the efficacious power of the religious leader to:

1. Listen to the concerns of her or his people
2. Go into a trance where s/he is believed to be in direct communication with the spirit world, gods, or God. In this trance, the shaman shares the concerns of the people, and receives answers to these concerns from the spirit world.
3. Share the answers from the divine realm to the human realm, a process whereby the people receive peace, calm, assurance and spiritual direction.

The above three actions are common to many-a-religious ceremony, just called by different names. 

Divination

Vision Quest

Fortune Telling

Healing Ceremony

Intercessory Prayer

Dream Interpretation

It'll help to have a short Chinese-character lesson: Shaman in Chinese is this: 巫

The top line represents "sky or heaven"; the bottom line represents "earth." And in-between are "people" that link the two ... which is what a shaman/sorcerer/medicine person/priest does.

The shaman in most societies is most often the misfit, the outcast, the one we might want (in today's world) to "medicate". Perhaps they hear voices, see visions, and "ease into" alternate realities more easily than so-called regular people. Their herbal skills and prescience in understanding natural phenomena are above the norm. (Their very divergence from the norm actually enhances their status.)

Finally, one feature that survives in shamanism is its ecological sensitivity; that is, shamans perceive through the religious imagination that curiously-shaped rocks, mountains, and trees; or the way animals behave or the ways tea leaves settle -- all have spiritual readings that can be understood. The religious can imagine that meaning exists in exterior events, and these events hold sway over human fortunes. Moses at his burning bush and on Mt. Sinai, Mohammad in his cave. The ubiquity of mountains and "high-places" as residences of the gods. These are just a few well-known examples of shamanistic features in religion. These forces of nature are to be respected, addressed, and harnessed.

The above are general characteristics of the shaman around the world. In Korea, as in other places, shamanism is historically the first, and thus the "base layer" of religious accumulation in their histories. In other words, consider the folkways of shamanism as the bedrock or the bottom-most soil, into which all other religions have taken root. While roots may be invisible, they are essential to the life of the tree.

As these other religions take hold in the cultural soil, they take on characteristics and habits of shamanism. They adapt and adopt. Why? New religions rooted in shamanism "feel familiar" to people with deep, unconscious shamanistic habits.

For example, when Buddhism was introduced in Korea, its temples were built on or near the shaman mountain-spirit shrines. Still today, one can see buildings at these Buddhist temple sites dedicated to the shaman mountain-spirits.

The Chinese characters at this Buddhist-site Shaman temple reads: Mountain-Spirits Pavilion.

Shamanism in Korea is women-centered: most shamans are female. Two ideologies that govern the lives of almost every Korean -- Confucianism and Christianity -- are heavily male-weighted here. Women have little voice. Shamanism gives women that spiritual voice denied to her by mainstream spirituality.

This National Geographic video on Korean Shamanism shows how to become a shaman, and demonstrates why a woman may consider being "called" as a shaman (or in Korean, "mudang"). There is also some knife-dancing (if you are squeamish), but no blood.

In Korea, Shamans are consulted for many routine life-questions: choice of marriage partner; auspicious days to launch new ventures; how to deal with crazy in-laws; gaining advantage in business; and spiritual demons. The shaman is consulted (and well-paid!); she goes into a trance, and returns with answers. This video shows a Korean shaman ritual, called a "kut".

What happens in a Kut? First, the mudang invites the spirits. Then the mudang dons the clothes of the god she who is to possess her. She becomes possessed. Then, worries and requests of the homeowners are presented, and then the mudang purifies the space or home with water. Other mudang who are present may sing hymns. Often, a mudang whirls in a frenzied dance, holding a knife in her mouth and rubbing it on her arms to demonstrate the power of the spirits. Usually, the kut's final scene is a dance is performed that uses sword blades and sacred banners. The mudang divines the future by reading the banners. The person who commissioned the shaman ritual takes on the benefits of this cleansing by touching the feet of the mudang and offering money on the altar.

Korean Shamanism, deeply ingrained into the Korean culture and psyche, is practiced more widely than one might first think. Around Ewha University, there are perhaps a dozen churches within walking distance, but many more signs for shamanic services coexist within that same radius. 

There are other ways in which Korean Shamanism finds outlets today. Korea is a very stressed-out, buttoned down, hierarchical place. In the daytime, as strict Confucian roles are played out at work, people's souls feel constricted or imprisoned. After work, they may give into the need to cut loose and seek a different "spirit" to return them to calm and sanity. 

1. Thus the Karaoke Bar (Noraebang), with its copious alcohol (spirit!) consumption, can be to many a person that "Kut" of release from the pressures of the day. 

2. The famous musical performer is, in my estimation, the highest-paid mudang ever. I can think of no better expression of what the mudang does than this very public exhibition by the Korean songster Psy. Watch how the crowd and he get in-synch. What a gathering of desires, concentrated on the one performer, who gives the crowd a sense of control:

3. My exploration of shamanism in Korea must include a treatment of Christianity. I regularly take my students to the world's largest church (in membership) for its Wednesday night Prayer and Healing Service. It is two hours of incredible energy, which I suggest to my students is a kind of "Christian kut" - where people bring their petitions for power, spirit, healing, and release, and the pastor helps them find such. It is NO accident that this church's Pentecostalism is Holy-Spirit centered, which I suggest spiritually "rhymes" with the mudang's petitions before the mountain spirits of ancient days. It is NO accident that such Christian rituals in Korea are tie-ins to ancient, bedrock, religious folkways.

Korean Shamanism is a veritable "living religion of Seoul." 

While my conclusions may not satisfy everyone, it has been my intention herein to demonstrate surprisingly close connections between the most primitive of rituals in the most modern of places. 

No matter our sophistication, perhaps there are perennial human desires and problems for which a shaman-like figure is looked to. What if we just called these figures by different names?

And ... what if we acted more as shamans/sorcerers/healers and priests to each other?

Next time: My favorite Korean word.