韓國 新興宗敎의 精神醫學的 考察 ㅡ 基督敎를 中心으로 ᅳ

A PSYCHIATRIC STUDY ON “NEW RELIGION IN KOREA.

The paychiatric study was conducted on 23 founders of so called “New Religion” in Korea which is considered as a subdivision of traditional Christianity and yet not formerly registered at Government. This study only included those which originated in this country. Materials used for the psychiatric analysis were author’s field survey and sources from Tak’s “New Religions in Korea”. 1. Identifying Data； Male founders outnumbered female by 16:7 and their age at the time of founding “New Religion” was mostly in their thirtys through fortys. They have never had any stable job in the past and were raised in rather poor family throughout their childhood. 2. Clinical Diagnosis; All but two seemed to show some form of psychopathology； Thirteen of them were identified as paranoid state, then next in order was schizophrenia (6)，Folie a deux (2 pairs), manic depre-ssive illness (1), and atypical psychosis(1). 3. Religious Experience; The mental state at the time of their first mystic experience was identified in several forms; Seven had gone through trance state, four through overt psychotic symotoms, then hypnagogic hallucination (2)，dream (1), and unknow state (5). Through these somewhat atypical dissociative state, they had received “Heavenly Message” to do certain things in the form of “being controlled” or “being imposed on him”. These religious experience were primarily reflected upon their way of interpreting the Bible and eschatology which were quite deviated from orthodox Christianity, and had also pushed them to identify with specific person in the Bible or to form a syncretism. It is also understandable that most of their religious ritual was intended to induce trance-like state through repetition of monotonous chanting and simple activity. 4. On the followers; The followers were consisted of predominantly female, mostly coming from low socioeconomic class and they had formed a symbiotic unit with, founders, and some were found in the sexually perverted form. This tight relationship was well maintained in their small isolated community since most of “churches” located in the mountains, and followers were highly suggestive and susceptible in many arespects.