Paper short abstract:

Drawn on historical data and long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the paper highlights at the “re-enchantment of medicine”. It examines the medical landscape around a Hungarian Marian shrine pointing at the interactions between traditional and recent manifestations of spiritual healing.

Paper long abstract:

After the 1989 political changes in Hungary one could observe the re-emergence of alternative practices of healing. Those operating with the so-called “human energy field”, like reiki, prana-healing, psychotronics or táltos-massage, were completely unknown before. These new holistic methods embraced the long-missed magical-religious-spiritual sphere of healing therefore they soon gained outstanding popularity.

I have already examined some aspects of the medical landscape of present-day Hungary, including but not restricted to the life course of individual alternative therapists, the client-healer relationship, the strategies of health seeking, and the network and rivalry of practitioners.

Drawn on historical data and my long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this time I will highlight the “re-enchantment of medicine”. Miracle cures at a Marian shrine and the individual therapeutic repertoires of healers practicing in its region will be scrutinized in order to point at the interactions between traditional and more recent spiritual manifestations of religious healing in the social context of small rural and urban communities in South Western Hungary.