Korean sham­an­ism, long seen as a tra­di­tional belief sys­tem, is find­ing new life over­seas as emo­tion­ally res­on­ant “heal­ing” con­tent.

“I can’t stop get­ting chills. I’m cry­ing too,” one com­ment reads among hun­dreds on a short-form video clip on the Dis­ney+ ori­ginal tele­vi­sion sur­vival series “Battle of Fates,” which fea­tures sham­ans. “K-sham­an­ism is really amaz­ing,” another reads.

The clip showed cast mem­bers read­ing one another’s for­tunes. When Jiseon Doryeong, one of the sham­ans on the show, looked into the fate of another shaman named Seulbi and told her, “You must have been very lonely,” Seulbi broke down in tears over pain­ful fam­ily memor­ies she had kept bottled up. The clip racked up 610,000 views.

Unlike the dark and fright­en­ing sens­ib­il­ity often asso­ci­ated with West­ern occult­ism, Korean sham­an­ism is being received as a fresh and unusual cul­tural phe­nomenon, espe­cially after the suc­cess of the Net­flix anim­ated film “KPop Demon Hunters” (2025).

The most pop­u­lar K-sham­an­ism con­tent over­seas in recent months has been “Battle of Fates.” Accord­ing to mar­ket tracker Wise­App Retail, Dis­ney+’s monthly act­ive users rose to 2.95 mil­lion as of press time, up about 20 per­cent from 2.45 mil­lion in Janu­ary, before the show premiered.

In Thai­l­and, tick­ets for a fan meet and greet in April fea­tur­ing four Korean sham­ans from the pro­gram — includ­ing Seulbi and Mae­hwa Doryeong — sold out in two minutes. A Dis­ney+ Korea offi­cial said the com­pany’s headquar­ters decided to pro­duce an over­seas ver­sion of “Battle of Fates” based on the suc­cess of the Korean ori­ginal.

The range of K-sham­an­ism con­tent find­ing audi­ences abroad has also widened. “Phantom Law­yer,” a tele­vi­sion legal fantasy series centered on sham­an­istic themes that recently began air­ing on SBS and Net­flix,

ranked fifth glob­ally in Net­flix’s non-Eng­lish TV cat­egory list in the week imme­di­ately after its release, from March 16 to 22.

The drama fol­lows law­yer Shin Yi-rang, played by Yoo Yeon-seok, who begins see­ing ghosts after open­ing a law firm in a build­ing that used to house a for­tune-teller’s shop, and goes on to resolve the grudges of the dead. At times, a spirit pos­sesses Yir­ang, who then con­soles the bereaved fam­il­ies left behind.

Ana­lysts say Korean sham­an­ismbased con­tent began draw­ing ser­i­ous over­seas atten­tion after the global suc­cess of “KPop Demon Hunters” last year. In the film, the story cen­ters on HUNTR/X, a girl group tasked with pro­tect­ing the world from evil spir­its through a blend of power­ful per­form­ances and music, a mis­sion handed down from vil­lage sham­ans of the past.

“‘KPop Demon Hunters’ has trans­formed con­cepts such as the after­life, sham­ans and rituals from ele­ments of local cul­ture into glob­ally pop­u­lar con­tent mater­ial,” said Chung Yeon-hak, head of the Asian Com­par­at­ive Folk­lore Soci­ety.

Film critic Min Yong-jun added that the film “blends West­ern exor­cism with the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of Korean sham­an­ism, shift­ing sham­an­istic belief from the occult genre into fantasy and lower­ing the bar­rier to entry for over­seas fans.”

Experts say what sets Korean sham­an­ism apart from West­ern or Japan­ese exor­cism stor­ies is its dis­tinct­ive ritual of heal­ing. In Korea’s tra­di­tional sham­an­istic world­view, ghosts unable to leave this world are believed to carry deep resent­ment or unre­solved sor­row, and only after achiev­ing hae­won — the release of that bit­ter­ness — can they depart peace­fully for the after­life.

“Tra­di­tional Korean sham­an­ism has a strong tend­ency to see ghosts not as evil spir­its but as people,” Chung said. “Another unique ele­ment is that a shaman’s gut [tra­di­tional Korean sham­an­istic ritual] accom­pan­ied by intense per­form­ance and

sound, cre­ates a kind of com­munal cath­arsis and offers com­fort.”

“In the Chris­tian world­view of the West, exor­cism is centered on driv­ing out evil spir­its,” Min said. “Japan­ese ghosts are also closer to malevol­ent entit­ies, which makes them dif­fer­ent from the world­view of Korean sham­an­ism.”

The emer­gence of attract­ive young sham­ans has also helped lower the bar­rier to sham­an­ism-themed con­tent. In “Battle of Fates,” sham­ans in their 20s — includ­ing Seulbi, Lee Sobin, Mae­hwa Doryeong and Lady Sowon — as well as teen­age shaman Jiseon Doryeong appeared as bold and cha­ris­matic Gen Z fig­ures.

This trend gained momentum after the suc­cess of such works as “Exhuma” (2024), fea­tur­ing the highly skilled shaman Lee Hwa-rim, played

by Kim Go-eun, and former base­ball player-turned-shaman Yoon Bong­gil, played by Lee Do-hyun. SBS also broad­cast “For­tune Tell­ers’ Love” (2024-25), a dat­ing real­ity show fea­tur­ing sham­ans.

Although sham­an­ism-themed con­tent has been pop­u­lar in Korea for years and is now mak­ing an impact over­seas, some warn against blind faith in sham­an­ism. Pop cul­ture critic Kim Heon-sik said real­ity pro­grams should be care­ful not to grant sham­ans author­ity in areas that should instead be addressed by forensic sci­ence, psy­cho­logy or psy­chi­atry.

“In the case of real­ity pro­grams, pro­du­cers need to make a clear dis­tinc­tion on air between the domain of sham­an­ism and its lim­its,” Kim said.