Shamanism has a long history in Korean culture. The practitioners, known as mudang (무당), are women who were possessed by spirits and gained supernatural powers as a result. A woman never became a mudang voluntarily, but only through involuntary possessions. Although a mudang had a lot of powers among the people she served, she would have occupied the lower ranks of the Korean caste system and not been given much respect.

The exorcism ceremony performed by a mudang is known as gut (굿). There are dozens of varieties of the ceremony, differing by region and function.

Shamanism was severely suppressed by the military dictators and Christians in South Korea, but now is considered a valuable cultural heritage. North Korea's Communists have also severely cracked down on shamanism.

Some mudang were actually biologically male, though performed their ceremonies and lived their lives in a female gender role like all other mudang; this is another fact that the dictators and the Christians wanted to suppress. As a result, some shaman ceremony re-enactments today are performed by men (though their costumes, of course, remain feminine).