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How did shamans respond to beliefs that illness was caused by soul loss?
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Shamanism
Korean shamans, or mudang, performing a ritual dance in South Korea.
In the context of shamanism, illness is sometimes attributed to soul loss, a condition where a person's soul departs from their body and falls into the possession of spirits who are angry with it and cause it torment.
To address this, the shaman acts to liberate the strayed soul, thereby curing the patient. This process is part of the shaman's broader role as a healer, where they utilize their ability to communicate directly with spirits to resolve health crises, whether by appeasing spirits, driving them out of a patient's body, or retrieving a lost soul.1