Gourmets from the other world

 

The popularity of the film Famyo bears witness to people’s renewed interest in occult and shamanism. These days, we, including younger generations are not that religious, and I am not an exception. I am kind of ‘not religious but spiritual’ guy quote-unquote. I lately visited a shaman themed local eatery in Gunpo where you may find out interesting things normally not in an ordinary setting of restaurants. There stand an altar with Dokkebi (fairy or sprite in Korea) and other statues of traditional deities. They serve many Korean dishes that go very well with soju and even Santori highballs. Behind bar, instead of bottles of liquor, there is a portrait of mountain spirit with his lovely pet tiger, incense vase, and two white slander candles.

In many spiritual practices in the world, offering of foods to sprits is a common practice. Although it is not as popular as it was in the past, even in this country, offering of foods to worship long gone ancestors has been important elements in traditional holidays like Chuseok and Lunar New Year’s Day season and some occultists argue that it is the energy emitted from the offered dishes that attract and appreciated by them.

In many countries, it is a wide spread daily practice to keep aside the first food item that is cooked for departed souls. Before starting the first meal of the day, each family member also keeps aside a portion for them. In fact several ancient text (especially Indian texts) recommended offering the first dish prepared for the day to a cow, a crow and a dog. In these cases, the belief being that whatever is fed to them will hopefully reach ancestors and other sprits.

In some Southeast Asian countries, people leave the foods near some trees as offering for sprit. The photo shown above is taken in the Lumpini park in Bangkok during our Thai trip.

Not only in Asia, evidently food as an offering plays an important role in almost all ceremonies and observances connected with sprits all around the world. We are familiar with “Treat or Trick” of Halloween but less familiar with similar Mexican tradition of “Del Dia de Muertos”. The pan de Muertos is a sweet, sponge bread available only during late October and early November in Mexico. In addition to usual flour, butter, eggs, yeast and sugar, it also has orange flowers or zest, which makes it distinctive. I might have this bread when I was there without knowing it. There are anywhere between 700~1000 varieties of pan de Muertos made across Mexico, each with a twist on the ingredients and shape. Therefor chances are you may not know or recognize what you ate was a kind of these breads.

Many paranormal researchers pointed out that making food offering is a universal theme. Sprits do not have corporeal bodies as us and therefor do not require food for survival, but many spiritual traditions emphasize on feeding of the dead. These practices may be based on our perspective or even magical thinking that living creatures to worship them by giving what we think is most important thing for living.

With growing number of shamanic professions in Korea, the popularity of shamanic themes and increasing paganism believers in foreign countries have something to do with slowdown of technological innovations. Despite of exaggerated claims of what AI can do for us, now, it is obvious that low hung fruits of scientific discoveries were already plucked. Again, we may ask a question if we can seek peace by exploring the other world hidden from us.