Superstition is the Word
To paraphrase Will Durant, religions come and go, but superstition is immortal. The ancient pieties will always rise to the surface; fairies, demons, elves, and ghosts lurk everywhere, and only a talisman known to be lucky (or better yet ecclesiastically approved) can ward off ill-fortune. Even at the top of the world’s power structures, surrounded by experts eager to dispense rational advice, world leaders still manage to place their trust in fortune-tellers and astrologers. Korea's former president Park Geun-hye entrusted state secrets to her personal shaman, a woman named Choi Soon-sil, who coincidentally is the daughter of one Choi Tae-min, who performed the same services for Park’s father, former Korean dictator Park Chung-hee. Sort of a fortune-teller hereditary office. Korean culture has a rich history of shamanic superstitions, and has only in the last century begun to shed them for more rational ways of seeing the world. Choi Soon-sil a...