This Millennial Shaman Heals Your Dead Ancestors To Solve Your Problems

“I saw a kitchen knife flying above my head at 5 years old and had an out-of-body experience at 8 years old,” Kim told VICE. “I also saw a succubus and a dragon that ascended to the sky when I was in high school, and was sick all the time for no reason.”

In college, Kim finally found a satisfying explanation for all these experiences—he believed that he was possessed by spirits. 

“I couldn’t move. I lay in bed with an unidentified illness and there was blood in my urine,” he said. “Clinics couldn’t cure my illness and I only got better when I accepted the spirits.”

Korean shamans call it the “illness of the spirit.” They believe that spirits make some people gravely ill in order to make them shamans.

Kim believes that finally accepting the spirits during his near-death experience turned him into a mudang, a Korean shaman that connects the living and the dead. 

He has done so for about seven years, helping troubled individuals make sense of their life through fortune-telling and shamanistic rites called “gut” (pronounced “goot”).

A gut ceremony is a clamorous ritual performed by Korean shamans. “My main job is to resolve the dead family’s sorrow or anger by singing, dancing, and talking on behalf of spirits,” Kim said.

“We soothe souls and stop them from bothering the living.”

Korean shamans believe that people go through troubles in life because their dead family’s souls have undelivered messages or unfinished business.

Supernatural experiences are all part of the job. Most of the time, this means fortune-telling.

Kim said he once met a client and saw an image of an old couple holding hands in his mind. The client was surprised upon hearing this because their grandparents died by suicide together while at sea. He believes that his client’s troubles were caused by their dead grandparents’ unresolved issues. Getting these details right, Kim said, is important to earn people’s trust. From there, he can advise clients on how to deal with their problems.

Most people who seek his help are those who have experienced paranormal or mysterious occurrences, or have been bombarded with one bad event after another. They visit Kim’s shop in Seoul, a small room filled with crystals, sculptures, candles, silks, and bottles of soju.

But fortune-telling is just one part of Kim’s life as a mudang.

“One day, a man in his 20s came and told me that he was experiencing a supernatural phenomenon. He saw things flying around when he lay down. The client couldn’t stop things from showing up,” Kim said, adding that this client had trouble sleeping “without reason.”

Kim treated the man by performing a ritual that involved soothing the souls of his client’s deceased family members. After the ritual, the client was instantly more comfortable. He eventually slept better and even landed a job, Kim claimed. 

When possessed by a spirit, he said he can also perform superhuman tasks like dancing on the blade of a straw cutter and playing on swings made with a sharp blade.

It’s all part of Hwanghae-do Pyeongsan Sonoreum Gut, a shamanistic ritual that originated in the southwestern province of Hwanghae in North Korea.

It dates back to Korea’s Joseon Period (1392-1910) and involves dancing, singing, and acting. An exorcist disguised as an ox prays for a good harvest, business, and success. 

“Before the division of the country, Korean shamans came to the South and inherited the ritual, but the ritual is not very common today,” Kim said.

“You can say that there are many shamans who do this ritual from North Korea in the South, but the essence of the ritual is often missed. Not many people follow the original ritual with authenticity.”

The gut from the North is now considered an Important Intangible Cultural Heritage by the South Korean government, but in North Korea, practitioners have mostly disappeared.

“Since [the leader] Kim Jong Un and his father and grandfather have been deified and don’t allow religions and traditions, I heard it is no longer being passed on in the North,” Kim said. 

Now it’s up to him and other young South Korean shamans to keep the tradition going.

For Kim, the hardest part of the job is feeling the emotional and physical pain of every person he helps. When a client’s mother got surgery on her arm, he said he felt the pain on his arm, too.

An arts major, Kim brings his learnings from college to his life as a shaman.

“Everything artists do, from singing and dancing to performing belongs to what mudangs do,” Kim said, adding that both artists and shamans’ works are about visualizing the invisible.

Kim crafts tools needed for his work, setting him apart from more traditional mudangs. Apart from performing rituals, he also paints and makes handmade crafts.

“I don’t want to be stuck with the definition of a traditional shaman who only leads the ritual,” Kim said. “My dream is to be a shamanism icon of Korea and make my name known to the world. I also want to redefine the concept of a Korean shaman in the 21st century.”

There are about a million shamans in South Korea. The Korean Kyungsin Federation and the Korean Fortune-telling Association each have around 300,000 registered and 200,000 unregistered members, according to a report from The Korea Times. 

Many now see them as swindlers, overly superstitious, or unable to adapt to the modern world, but Kim said these are misconceptions, and tries to debunk them.

“I know that there are many secular shamans who only do it for the money. Those shamans want their clients to do the ritual even when they really don’t need it. Because of them, other good shamans have a bad reputation, too,” Kim said.

He hopes people would see the value in his work as something that’s part of folk culture and spiritual therapy. Above all, he believes that he can be a healer of troubled souls.

“I feel accomplished when I can help people solve their problems,” Kim said. “I’m happiest when people feel happy and relieved after visiting me.”

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