Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/529

 Insanity is considered the worst of diseases and is caused by a most "poisonous" imp. The pansu comes to the house, invites all the household gods to a feast and asks them to secure the presence of the evil spirit. This accomplished, he feeds the ugly fellow and tells him to depart for ever. If this does not prove successful, he reads a magic formula from the book, which gives him power over the imp. The latter is seized and corked up in a bottle and is whipped. He may escape, and if so, he must be feasted again ; but this time a peachwood cork is used and the beating is done with peach sticks, which reduces the spirit to helplessness. The bottle is then given to a mudang to go and bury, the direction in which she is to go being minutely specified. The cure is now complete. "Spirit sending divination" is used to cure men at a long distance. "Ten-thousand spirit divination" is a sort of congress of all the spirits, at which the pansu presides. The "spirit imprisoning divination" gives a man a sort of amulet that will protect him from evil. "Spirit liberating divination" is used in case one of the spirits is in prison and the rest want to get him out. One of them goes to earth and afflicts a man with disease. The pansu intervenes, and the spirit tells him that he will leave if the pansu will secure the release of the imprisoned one, and he promises to go security for the spirit's future good behaviour.

In every Korean book-stall will be found a little volume called "The Six Marks of Divination," or sometimes "The Five Rules for Obtaining the Ten-thousand Blessings." It represents some of the grossest superstitions of the Korean people. It is the common people who make great use of this book, but the woman of the upper class is almost sure to have a volume hidden about the house, from which to cast the horoscope of her infant sons and daughters. It is a curious mixture of Buddhism, spiritism and fetichism. One can see at a glance how Buddhism has joined forces with the original elements in Korean religion to form a conglomerate that will suit all tastes.