Masks That Feed on Laughter

In a time of famine, twelve spirits came wearing bone-white masks. They offered a bargain: Feed us stories, and we will feed you life. From the salt-winds of Korea's Hwanghae Province comes a myth that transforms everything we think we know about masks, laughter, and the relationship between the living and the dead. When twelve wandering spirits appeared during a devastating famine, they brought not salvation through prayer but through comedy. What began as a desperate ritual became a revolution. Peasants wore sacred masks to mock the aristocracy who would have executed them for speaking truth. Performers channeled divine forces and discovered that laughter could silence hungry ghosts. Artists buried these masks beneath crossroads during war, where they whispered through the ground, calling lost souls home. In this revelatory lecture in the tradition of the mythic lecture, discover:Why a deaf storyteller was the only one who could see the spirits' true natureHow comedy became a sacred weapon against oppression and death itselfThe haunting story of the actor whose mask refused to come off and what it teaches us about transformationWhy the Korean mythmakers placed their wisdom in the threshold between mourning and mirthWhat these twelve ancient spirits are still trying to tell us todayThe dead do not depart until their stories are performed once more. Part mythology, part social history, part spiritual practice, The Masks That Feed on Laughter reveals how one of Korea's most subversive myths offers us a radical path through our own times of crisis: when direct resistance seems impossible, put on a mask and let truth speak through laughter. The spirits are waiting. The performance is about to begin. Will you cross the threshold?"e;Comedy could summon mercy."e; From the Sandae Myths of Hwanghae Province