Spiritual Healing in Seoul: Shamanism and other Vernacular Practices

Many Koreans perceive the spiritual healing performed by traditional practitioners as occult, outlandish, and difficult to understand. This stigma has historically marginalized these practitioners, pushing them to the geographical outskirts of villages and relegating them to low-status groups within society. Nevertheless, their continued activity demonstrates that demand for their services remains high. There are over 300,000 practitioners of musok, commonly translated as Korean shamanism, many of whom are kept busy daily with divinations, blessings, and healing for their clients.

In this talk, I propose four explanations for this phenomenon: the enduring tradition of belief in supernatural interventions in human life, the power of sacred place-making, the portrayal of musok in contemporary mainstream media, and the individual agency of spirit mediums and their clients. Together, these factors sustain engagement with this traditional belief system and practice.

Liora Sarfati is an anthropologist and folklorist specializing in religion, society, culture, and media. She holds a Ph.D. from Indiana University, and is currently a senior lecturer (associate professor) and head of the Department of East Asian Studies at Tel Aviv University. Since 2005, she has conducted extensive fieldwork with shamans in Korea, exploring the material, social, and cultural aspects of this living tradition. Since 2014 she has also researched protest movements in Seoul. Her book, Contemporary Korean Shamanism: From Ritual to Digital was published by Indiana University Press (email: lsarfati@tauex.tau.ac.il, website: http://www.liorasarfati.com).