The Foresight of Dark Knowing: Chŏnggamnok and Insurrectionary Prognostication in Pre-modern Korea by John Jorgensen (review)

Abstract

John Jorgensen’s scholarly introduction to and annotated translation of the Chŏnggamnok represents a monumental piece of scholarship that makes accessible for the first time in English a body of material describing the hopes of aspirations of non-educated and disempowered Koreans stretching back to the Chosŏn period (1392–1910) and beyond. The Foresight of Dark Knowing is essentially two books bound together in one: Part I, the Translator’s Introduction (pp. 1–202), is basically a monograph on the history of premodern Korean prognostication and geomantic techniques within its East Asian cultural milieu. Part II, Translation (pp. 203–317), comprises thirty-two seemingly discrete texts that together are known by the title Chŏnggamnok 鄭鑑錄. The remainder of the book consists of an appendix on the sexagenary (kapcha) cycle (p. 319), abbreviations and notes (pp. 321–432), a works cited list (pp. 433–443), and an index (pp. 445–451). Jorgensen’s introduction to the translation is actually a detailed monograph on the various kinds of prognosticative and geomantic beliefs