Introduction

In this paper I introduce the process of creating a healer's self-image by examining the case of a contemporary healer and diviner living in Rádfalva, a village in south Hungary. My inquiry is based on the narrative autobiography of this magical practitioner, named Erzsike, whom I recorded on several occasions. Focusing on the integration of diverse ideologies and traditions of different origin, I highlighted certain events which are interpreted as turning points in the healer's life. Considering the magical services offered by Erzsike the healer and diviner, three major patterns of magical knowledge can be identified. First, by employing magic formulae and wax pouring she diagnoses and heals bewitchment, thus seeming closely related to the folk healers still active until the most recent times in the South Transdanubian area of Hungary. Second, her activity is connected to that of the seers and diviners practising rather more in urban environments, because she reads cards in order to foretell her clients' futures or to reveal facts about their present or past. Third, her use of a certain book to conjure angels and the preparation of angelic amulets can be related to the currently flourishing methods of post-New Age/esoteric angel lore. However, her practice of magic as a whole is completely impregnated with her strong and consciously Christian outlook and mission, thus many features of her image as a healer are similar to those of the ‘living saints’.