ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book introduces the ‘field of misfortune’ and showed that Korean shamanism can only be understood in terms of this field, and not as a medical modality. It points out that the essential component of shamanism for Koreans is that it allows the spirits to speak. The book explores the secrecy in which most shamanic rituals take place and the reasons why they are mostly ‘rituals without audience’. It shows the contradictory relationship between the shamanic world and Korean public culture, and explains the paradoxical situation of shamanism in everyday life. The book describes a shamanic ritual carried out at the request of a widow in Soy, and examines the ritual to the various underlying levels of her stories-never-to-be-told.
