...This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. It argues that the realization of shamanship is a difficult and by no means certain process. And as in other societies with active shaman traditions, the question of “true” versus “phony” shamans abides. Many shamans perform...

... turtle yin yang toad Bentham Jeremy Foucault Michel panopticon shamanism Shanhaijing goat sheep mad cow disease pig chicken cock rooster fox android compass monkey Yu the Great camel Christianity Islam Buddha Deyrolle École des Beaux Arts Paris horse lion puppetry skeleton...

...This chapter describes a late nineteenth-, twentieth-, and early twenty-first-century intellectual terrain where notions of shamans and their work as objects of “superstition” (misin), “culture” (munhua), and “religion” (chonggyo) have waxed...

...This chapter continues the discussion of inspiration and skilled performance that began in Chapter 3, asking what it means to become a shaman in the present Korean moment. It introduces three flesh-and-blood shamans, all under the age of forty in the 1990s. These three women defy any easy...

...This chapter describes the kinds of problems that clients brought to shamans before, during, and after the financial crisis of late 1997. It argues that small-scale entrepreneurs are no less in need of enchantment as they grapple with an uncertain market. Their religious practices, no less than...

...This chapter takes the reader into the mountains, to the shrines and sacred sites that constitute a shamanic landscape. It describes the peregrinations of some venerable old shrines, forced from their original locations by urban development, and the flowering of new commercial shrines on other...

... the practices are based on a ‘shamanic’ world-view in which life-essence may be lost to external forces, and the body-mind complex restored to good health and functioning through their recovery. Buddha Buddhahood compassion emotion enlightened Buddha or guru master ruler god meditation Tantra...

...This chapter describes the traditional spiritual practices of the Koreans: shamanism and animism. Shamanism is the belief that human beings can interact with any god or spirit—not just those found in animism, but also deceased ancestors or deified heroes from the past. Meanwhile, animism is based...

...This chapter introduces the case study, based on southern Fujian province from the Neolithic through the early stages of sinitic immigration. The discussion covers evidence pertaining to early religious beliefs, including shamanism and totemism, and addresses cults devoted to demonic icons...

..., on the ethereal and the abstract. The spirituality infused in shamanism and animism, in the cultural influence of folk stories, and in a collective family memory based on experiences about which Yang has only heard is more solid than the material, concrete domiciles among which she constantly moves in Thailand...

...The significance of ancestor rites is commonly believed to lie in Confucian ways of thought. This chapter argues that they also feature in shaman traditions. Though the syncretic nature of religious thought and practices on the Korean Peninsula makes any clear separation of Confucian, shaman...

... categories of modernization through representations of belief. It is argued that as Siquijodnon attempt to challenge nationally dominant stereotypes of themselves as backward, the often reinforce the very framework that has defined them as backwards. Dumaguete shamanism Siquijor Mystic Island film...

...This chapter compares two examples of kut, one from 1977 and another from 1992. In March 1977, angry spirits accosted a certain Mrs. Min and drove her mad. Shamans labored throughout a chilly spring night to save her life and restore her sanity. In 1992, a kut...

...The ability to speak the words of the spirits (kongsu) is central to shamanic practice, and the opening of a prospective shaman's “gates of speech” (malmun) is the central task of an initiation ritual. This chapter tells the story of a bashful, reticent initiate...

...This chapter explores as contradictory impulses the desire for and the moral disdain of new wealth and what it can buy. Shamans, gods, and ancestors enact this contemporary paradox through the medium of material goods. Through the aperture of offerings, and offerings turned into props, new...

...This enlightening study of contemporary Korean shamanism makes the case for the dynamism of popular religious practice, the creativity of those we call shamans, and the necessity of writing about them in the present tense. Shamans thrive in South Korea's high-rise cities, working with clients who...