Even a cursory glance at only the endnotes of this impressive and somewhat intimidating text reveals that John Jorgensen—as well as copy editor Patricia Crosby—has wrestled with a mighty beast. This collection of Korean political and social prophetic literature, what Jorgensen terms the “Chŏng Kam nok corpus,” consists of deeply arcane texts likely composed by anonymous authors from the eighteenth century to perhaps the early twentieth century. They represent a hybrid of divination practices based on the Yijing, various understandings of the interactions of the yin/ŭm and yang energies, the five phases, and the flows, blockages, and channelings of qi/ki, or “vitality,” in the landscape as understood in the Sino-Korean geomantic arts. The Chŏng Kam nok genre, as Jorgensen points out, is of particular interest because of its insurrectionary nature. These prognostications revolve around the expected collapse of the Chosŏn state in a...
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