Shamanism in the Modern Era

A pig ready to be balanced on a pitchfork, offered to the Gods, then eaten by all

             I stand amidst a rural garden, listening to constant drumming and chanting, surrounded by close friends and strangers from distant cities.  I traveled to a small town outside of Seoul to witness a Korean shaman’s ritual, but I did not only find superstitious elders and a rural population.  Instead, at this ritual in the middle of nowhere I found CEOs, politicians, artists and scholars, all in attendance out of respect for this Korean shaman and the necessity of this ritual to their lives.  Here I saw that the Kut (the Korean traditional shamanist ritual) remains alive as an integral part of modern Korean life.

             A Mudang is a profession and lifestyle that can take 2 minutes or 2 weeks to explain, and even in my extensive time working with Korean performance I have not fully grasped it.  At its core, a Mudang is someone who becomes possessed by what they call a “ghost” or a “god,” using the Mudang’s body as a translator between the material world and what Mudang call the “spirit world.”  This results in a period where the Mudang becomes possessed by their ghost and enters what anthropologist Michael Harner calls the SSC – a shifted state of consciousness.  During this shift, the Mudang’s ghost may tell fortunes and give advice on the future, perform a Kut (which ranges from dancing on knives to the slaughtering of a pig), or simply enter a clever banter with the client, remarking on their dress or demeanor.