Shamanism in Korea

I have always been interested in the Korean Shamanism. It's a very weird subject even among the Koreans. Most people dismiss it as being an old religion that no one believes in. Yet there are still many shamans who actively practice it, and are able to make a living out of it. Then recently, a Korean president was accused of associating with a shaman and basing most of her decisions on her advice. Just what is Shamanism to the Korean people?

Despite the disdainful view that most Koreans take against Shamanism, there are weird things that the Koreans do (for example, they never write people's name in red ink) because of the influences of Shamanism. Almost no one does it consciously; it's just something that you see your parents and grandparents do, and you also just follow in their footsteps. Many Koreans still believe in the supernatural beings, they consult shamans to fix the date of your wedding, etc. Although the majority of Koreans are Catholics or Buddhists, the cultural aspects of Shamanism cannot be ignored.

For the foreigners, I feel that there is almost no comprehensive resource that explains what Shamanism means to the Koreans. And this is understandable.

How do you explain a religion with thousands of years of history in a blog post? The answer is, you can't. Shamanism has almost nothing in common with the well-known religions of the world, and it would be an insult to try to summarize it in a blog post.

There are some books about Shamanism, but I think this is also not ideal, because books are too formal. They are mostly written by scholars who dedicated their entire lives on the topic, so they tend to be too theoretical. But given that most Koreans practice it to some degree, it shouldn't be intimidating.

I decided that I would take a combination of both approaches. I never wanted to write a single post about Shamanism and claim it to be a complete answer, but I also wanted it to be fun! So, I am going to take an approach not so different from the bible. I am going to treat Shamanism as a collection of stories. There are many different gods, there are many different demons, and they all interact with us humans. Each god and each demon is remembered by the Koreans by their stories, and I hope to share little bits and pieces of them through many blog posts. I really believe that this is how the Koreans acquaint themselves with Shamanism.

So, without further ado, here are some stories well-known to the Koreans. When you amass enough of these stories, I hope that you will have some understanding of how the Korean Shamanism works.

1. Hobgoblin's magical club
2. How to beat a hobgoblin in wrestling
3. Beware of the vixen
4. The vixen sister
5. Korea might still be haunted by tiger-demons
6. Just how real are the tiger-demons of Korea?
7. How the Korean dragons are born
8. Pay attention to your dreams
9. How to find your true love (feat. Would U by Red Velvet)