ethnography, fiction, and the meanings of the past in Brittany

Adopting a reflexive approach, this article interprets a recently created healing ritual in Brittany that integrates local 19th‐century notions about the curative powers of prehistoric monuments with diverse elements from non‐Breton sources. Parallels are noted between this New Age therapy and witchcraft, an older explanatory framework for illness and misfortune in Brittany. The therapeutic discourse associated with the ritual draws on the past …