Korean Shamanism

A mudang at work.

In a previous post I mentioned shamanism in South Korea. It will probably come as a surprise to learn that shamanism is alive and well  in this country, where it is practised alongside other religions.

So, just what is shamanism? The term is used by anthropologists, rather than any actual believers, and derives from a word in the Tungus language of Siberia, which is where the first anthropological studies were conducted. Shamanism, one can say, is the first of humanity’s spiritual belief systems, and is a form of animism.  A person acknowledged by their community to be a shaman is believed to have mastered the world of the ‘spirits.’ The shaman  ascends to the sky to commune with the spirits of the human dead and those that inhabit all of nature, or experience possession,  the descent of spirits into their own bodies. In the first case, the anthropologists say the shaman becomes the equal of the celestial forces, while in the second  they are the means of its incarnation. Shamans are considered experts at channeling and riding the often dangerous energies that pervade the world.  In Korea, shamanism is an ancient, deep-rooted  and still enduring tradition, though one that is largely unpublicised because it is considered a  ‘primitive’ cultural residue that runs contrary to Korea’s modernising project.

Importantly, almost all Korean shaman are women, called mudang, and one ceremony they are especially called upon to perform is called a gut. This is undertaken for different purposes, such as after a death, or for exorcisms. The mudang sets up an altar, and going through multiple costume changes, and using props including, masks, paintings,  fruit,  and paper flowers,  becomes ‘possessed’ by the psyolsang – the spirits. These spirit avatars can be traditional animist gods, which are often animals, or Buddhist bodhisattvas. But nowadays, the spirits can also take the form of Jesus and the angels, or even people like General Douglas MacArthur. He is an important man for Koreans, said Hazel. The costumes represent the various spirits the mudang is channeling, and during the ceremony she will interpret the spirits’ message to her.

Shamanism in Korea is also very secretive. Though many Koreans consult mudang, they are usually embarrassed to admit it, because shamanism smacks of superstition  and is deemed  culturally backward. But Korean people continued to arrange visits in secret. This was not so much in fear of breaking the law, however, but because of the shame they’d feel if it became known in their own community. They continue to go for many reason:  because they are sick or mourning the death of a loved one, because they want something or someone, or  want to curse them, or more generally, because they are anxious about what the future holds for them or their loved ones.

Many older Korean people believe they are afflicted by an   debilitating emotion called han, a feeling of animosity, bitterness, malignancy, and a  profound sense of being ill at ease with what seem to be the obvious injustice of the world. Han has greatly occupied Korean culture, and many ways have been developed for purging souls of the malaise. It seemed that one of the principal roles of the  mudang is to satisfy this han, the grudges,   of the dead, and to pray for their peace. Through connecting with the spirit world, they cleanse the world of the living of the bitterness of the dead.

Korean Protestantism and the Virus

Disinfecting a Protestant Church, Seoul.

The news from South Korea concerning the new spike in Covid-19 cases, which can be traced to a Protestant church in Seoul, called Sarang Jeil, comes just five months after another church, Shincheonji, in Daegu, propelled South Korea to unenviable pole position in the pandemic. This coincidence compels me to write  something about Christianity in South Korea.

It is probably surprising to most people to learn that South Korea is fast becoming a majority Christian country. When I arrived here for the first time in 2008, I thought Koreans were mostly Buddhist. Some are, but not many. Here are the current statistics: the majority of the population, 51%, claim to be irreligious. Buddhists amount to only 15.5%. Of the Christian denominations, 19.7% are Protestant (mostly Presbyterians, Like Sarang Jeil,  or Methodists), and 7.9% are Roman Catholics (like my wife, though lapsed). Shincheonji, although derived in part from Christian beliefs, is considered a cult, or  more fairly, a ‘new religion’. There are many in Korea. The most well-known is the Unification Church, or the Moonies, which was founded in South Korea and is now a worldwide movement, with followers especially in the United States. Also, the category ‘irreligious’ doesn’t mean the same thing as it does in the UK, where in fact, only 29.7% claims to be irreligious. Behind the smoke screen of irreligion a good deal of religious activity is going on in South Korea.

Two other important religious infleunces need to be considered. The first is shamanism. This predates all the other religions currently characterizing the syncretistic mix of modern South Korea, and although officially frowned upon, and not an official religious creed, shamanism is still a very significant part of Korea’s deep spiritual consciousness (more on shamanism in a future blog). The other important ‘religion’ is Confucianism’, although for many, Confucianism isn’t so much a  religion as an ethical code because it gives no place to a supernatural dimension  – which is why so many claim to be ‘irreligious’. However, Confucianism is definitely a religion in the broader sense,  as binding the secular dimension to a sacred one, and the sooner we Westerners recognize this fact the  sooner we will grasp what it is that underlies much of what happens in East Asian societies, not just Korea – North and South – but also China. I will discuss Shamanism and Confucianism in  later posts.

A church like Sarang Jeil is inspired by American-style evangelical Protestantism. I was baptized a Presbyterian –  the Church of Scotland – by Sarang Jeil-style Presbyterianism has very little in common with that austere and staid denomination. First of all, it’s far more evangelical and fundamentalist. But a little historical context is first necessary in order to better understand Korean Protestantism.

Koreans identify Protestantism with the heroic struggle for independence from Japanese colonialism, because many of their leaders were Christian, and so they also identify it with proud South Korean nationalism, especially in the face of the anti-religious fevrour of North Korea.. Another key aspect of Korean Protestantism is its relative rejection of the acutely patriarchal system that underlies traditional Korean culture  largely as a result of the influence of Confucianism. Women find Protestantism more attractive than both Confucianism and Korean-style Buddhism – which is similar to Zen (more on this, too, in  later post).

Koreans also identify evangelical Protestantism with something else that chimes with their cultural background – a powerfully emotional, irrational  faith based tied to the infallibility of a charismatic leader. This chimes with an instinctual suspicion Koreans have for the official leadership, who they see has inevitably corrupt and will betray them. During the Joseon Dynasty, it was commonly believed by the peasantry that the ruling elite inevitably abandoned them to fend for themselves when enemies invaded.  But while suspicion of the ruler is deep, the desire for leadership is even deeper, and inclines Koreans to ally themselves with anyone who claims to speak for their special interests.

Korean Protestantism it also charismatic. This  links Sarang Jeil to Koreans’ subterranean bond with shamanism. The ecstatic ‘trance’ like dimensions central to shamanism, which are deeply ingrained in Korean culture, seem to have found a new and more acceptable outlet within this kind of Protestantism. Koreans associate shamanism with the past, with the failed Korea of ‘Oriental’ culture, and Protestantism is allied with the positive future.  Above all, Koreans identify Protestantism with a preferable affirmative model of the future, which is closely allied with the embrace of neoliberal  capitalism, adoration and emulation  of the United States, and  of Westernization in general.

Some of the Korean  Protestant churches are huge. Sarang jeil is a mega-church. Its congregation numbers 4,000.  There are several of a similar size in South Korea. Each one owes allegiance not so much to a general governing body but to a charismatic pastor. In this case,  the leader is the now widely vilified Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon, who is also the incumbent president of the conservative Christian Council of Korea. Jeon is a vocal critic of the present liberal President of South Korea, Moon Jae In. So this crisis also has a political dimension.

Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon after he was diagnosed with Covid-19. As you can imagine, when this photo was published in the Press, Jeon became an instant pariah.

Jeon’s defiant, non-conformist,  behaviour is a reminder of the roots of Protestantism in protest, in the refusal to adhere to the laws of a society  where the believers see the hand of Satan at work. Jeon encouraged his congregation to defy the government ban on church services due to Covid-19, and organized rallies in Seoul to protest against the current government despite their ban too. But he had been organizing rallies for months before the pandemic began. So the current Korean spike is linked to Korean politics, another instant of the more general corruption of the struggle against the pandemic by sectarianism worldwide.

In the mental universe of these Korean Protestants, the world is coloured in stark black and white – evil against good, with them, obviously, on the side of the good. Jeon also assured his followers that God would protect them from Covid-19. Now hundred have the virus, including Jeon himself.  But we can be very certain that there will be no mea culpa,  or not one in which Jeon or his followers admit that God didn’t protect them, after all. Rather, they will come up with some other explanation – however rationally absurd. Remember the claim made by the woman of the Shincheonji church, who said that Satan was jealous of her church’s success, and this is why the virus struck them.    It is commonly known among psychologists who study cults and other closely knit groups whose bond is strengthened by a sense of righteous opposition and perceived persecution, that cognitive dissonance leads to a re-affirmation of belief in the face of overwhelming challenges.  

So why did Covid-19  profit from Protestants? I suppose the broadest answer is to say that this kind of Protestantism is a faith that is overwhelming based on the ‘heart’ rather than the ‘head’. On the role of intuition, instinct, emotion, impulse, subjective experience, loss of individual ontological boundaries through immersion in the collective, joined with a concomitantly child-like belief in the infallibility of the chosen leader. This belief system excessively relies on fast and easy cognitive processes which are  very susceptible to bias, what the psychologist Daniel Kahneman   in his classic Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) dubs System 1 thinking. This kind of cognition is  notoriously prone to poor decision-making and excessive reliance on top down group influences.  What Kahneman dubs System 2 thinking,  by contrast, is slow and requires conscious effort. But as a result, it is much more resistant to cognitive biases.

When a religion massively over-emphasises System 1 it is likely, sooner or later, to cause major societal problems, especially during something like a pandemic. The fact that the evangelical churches in the United States have not  also been hotbeds of the virus is interesting, however.   Perhaps the reason is political. While in the US the evangelicals have the president they want, in South Korea they do not. As a result, their willingness to follow orders differs. Although, what exactly President Trump’s ‘orders’ have been is rather difficult to ascertain. But it does seem that American evangelical mega-churches, are not, so far, major Covid-19 hotbeds.  

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

I live near the DMZ (the Demilitarized Zone), a strip of land running across the entire Korean Peninsula, cutting it roughly in half by crossing the 38th parallel at an angle, with the west end lying south of the parallel and the eastern to the north. It is 155 miles long, approximately 2.5 miles wide and is the most heavily militarized border in the world. Where I live the DMZ is only fifty miles from Seoul, and at some points it dips even closer to the capital.

It was created with the cessation of fighting in the Korean War in 1953 (the war is officially still on, as no peace treaty was ever signed), and in fact consists of two lines of defenses marking the edges of a buffer zone spreading out on both sides of what is known as the central Military Demarcation Line - the true border between North and South Korea. This line, which only a few patrolling UN soldiers ever see, is indicated by a string of small yellow rusting metal signs written in English and Korean on one side and Chinese and Korean on the other. The Southern limits of the buffer zone are established by substantial defense line (and presumably something similar exists at the Northern side).

Our village is surrounded by army bases, so we often see soldiers, and hear the sound of rifles and machine guns, and occasionally, bigger ordnance. Sometimes, helicopters fly over on their way too Panmunjom, ten miles away, which is where the two sides have meetings, and the only place along the DMZ where you can cross over from one Korea to another - Trump, Kim Jong-un, and Moon Jae-in all stepped back and forth recently, which made for a good photo opportunity. From the roof on our house we can see the mountains of North Korea beyond the Imjin River. At night, isolated lights appear near the peaks of the closest – lookout positions, no doubt. Sometimes, I imagine North Korean soldiers peering at us through binoculars.

I feel as if I’m at the edge of the world – the known world, or maybe the 'Americanized' world. It’s a bit like being located on a map from the Middle Ages next to the area designated terra incognita. There can’t be many such places left on Earth today, certainly not ones that are entirely humanly constructed, in this case, the result of a temporary political expedient thought up by American engineers at the end of World War Two, which has since gotten frozen into place.

In fact, nothing much has happened along the DMZ in the period since it was established. Ironically, as long as you abide by the strict rules imposed, the DMZ is undoubtedly a much safer place to be than Gangnam, the busy downtown district in south Seoul, and certainly safer than London or New York. Nevertheless, occasionally bad things have happened. Between 1966 and 1969 there were several confrontations; in 1968 alone 181 serious violations in and around the DMZ resulted in the deaths of 145 South Koreans and 17 US soldiers, and an unspecified number of North Koreans. In 1976, down near Panmunjom, the most infamous incident took place - what became known as the Axe Murder Incident, in which North Korean soldiers hacked to death two US officers who had ventured out with a crew to prune a tree obstructing surveillance. Occasionally, North Korean soldiers defect across the DMZ, the most dramatic being a year or so ago when a soldier ran across the line at Panmunjom itself.

Today, the business of postmodern warfare is being conducted otherwise. Paul Virilio outlines the transition: from obstruction, to destruction, to communication. From castles, to artillery, to technologies of information control - the ‘information bomb’ and weapon-systems of elusive interactivity. Anachronistically, the DMZ perpetuates the first stages of warfare – it is all ‘ramparts’, ‘shields’ and ‘elephants’. But contemporary war-making has also moved on beyond the second phase - old-fashioned destruction. For, as Virilio notes, what in 1983 he was calling ‘Pure War’, characterised above all by speed, by 2007 when he published a new edition of his book, Pure War: Twenty-Five Years Later, had ceded to ‘Impure War’ or ‘Infowar’. Contemporary warfare is asymmetric and transpolitical, inaugurating a dangerous new era of belligerent ‘metropolitics’ in which the focus of aggression is the city, the camouflage of choice a sweatshirt, jeans and backpack. “Pure War is still around,” Virilio clarifies: “it’s still possible to press the button and send out missiles – Korea can do it, Iran can do it, and so can others; but in reality the real displacement of strategy is in this fusion between hyper-terrorist civil war and international war, to the point that they’re indistinguishable.”

DMZ tourism is on the rise. You can, for example, do bus tours of the zone, and visit three tunnels dug by the North Koreans. Their height and width is decidedly claustrophobic, and for me, a tall Westerner, very low, though probably not for the soldiers of what Christopher Hitchens called the “nation of racists dwarfs”. There are bicycle tracks, an annual marathon, and art exhibitions - one, called REAL DMZ, in which I participated in 2012. There are cycle routes. The area covered by DMZ itself is an accidental nature reserve, giving some idea of what things would be like without human interference.

You could say that the DMZ has been increasingly normalized.