The tradition of Korean shamanism is still alive,
even for people who grew up outside of the country:
"From a young age, Soholm says she’s been having mystical dreams, dreaming about making contact with the spiritual world. As she got older, she began dreaming about things that would happen in the future.
'If I meet somebody, for example,' said Soholm, 'I would have a dream about them and get information about them that they didn’t tell me. I began to have such intuitive knowledge and they’ve just been growing stronger and stronger as I got older.'
Usually, those who felt tormented by a so-called spirit illness in Korea look for different ways to be treated, but end up admitting that the affliction marks a call to become a shaman, or mudang in Korean, and receive naerimgut.
Her spirit illness hasn’t been as serious as other traditional shamans, but Soholm says her health has been deteriorating, especially after deciding on the naerimgut date.
'Deciding on receiving naerimgut took a long time for me because I never considered myself that way. I thought I was just intuitive,' recalled Soholm. But after years of research and interviews she did with Western shamans, she realized that the stories she gathered mirrored her life."
No comments:
Post a Comment