Witchcraft in Saint-Connec

This incident is alleged to have taken place in Saint-Connec (22, Côtes-d'Armor) in 2004. The author is identified as John Carreyou, a staff reporter on The Wall Street Journal. While the author exists I cannot verify the provenance of the article.

French Magnetizer Convinces a Client Neighbor Is a Witch.

A Form of Healing From 1700s Still Thrives in Brittany.

A Wet Cloth for Evil Spirits By JOHN CARREYROU
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 8, 2004
SAINT-CONNEC, France

One summer day, a farmer named Fernand Gallerne stormed over to the house of his neighbor, Valérie Morice, and accused her of casting an evil spell on his farm.

As word of the allegation spread through tiny Saint-Connec, Mrs. Morice started getting strange looks from fellow villagers. Soon, her children were coming home crying because friends were calling their mother a witch.

This scene, seemingly right out of the 17th century, took place in July in this picturesque part of Brittany, a four-hour drive from Paris. The man who sparked the modern-day witch hunt: Michel Le Mer, a magnetiseur, who claims to heal with the magnetic power of his hands.

The trouble began when Mr. Gallerne consulted Mr. Le Mer about Mrs. Gallerne, who was deeply depressed. Mr. Le Mer visited the Gallerne farm and came to a grim conclusion: The place had been cursed by their neighbor, Mrs. Morice, thus causing Mrs. Gallerne's illness. He charged $204 to lift the spell. Then all hell broke loose.

Fingered as an evildoer and suddenly shunned around the village, Mrs. Morice lodged a complaint with police alleging defamation. As Mr. Gallerne was being questioned by the gendarmes on July 22, his face went blank and he started sweating profusely, according to a police report of the interrogation.

Asked what was wrong, Mr. Gallerne replied that Mrs. Morice was "on my back...she's gone to work on me," the police report says. The burly farmer then fainted and was rushed to a hospital. By last month, the affair had landed in court in a trial that gripped the community.

France, a nominally Catholic nation where religious feeling has waned and science reigns supreme, isn't exactly known as a land of superstition. But magnetizers, a type of Gallic healer, remain common in rural parts of the country.

They are especially prevalent in Brittany, a tradition-bound region with a rich lore that boasts its own language and an independence movement. One ancient local legend has it that Brittany is home to one of the gates of hell. Dominique Camus, a sociologist who has written seven books on witchcraft in the
region, says he has come across pierced animal hearts hidden under doormats in the course of his research. "The magical permeates Brittany," he says.

The theory of "animal magnetism" was developed by German doctor Franz Anton Mesmer in the late 1700s. Dr. Mesmer posited that the human body radiates an energy akin to that of a magnet and that illnesses are caused by disruptions in that energy. With the magnetic properties of his own hands, he claimed to be able to restore the energy flow.

After Dr. Mesmer moved to Paris in 1778, the French embraced his theory and he was swamped with patients. But a commission of scientists appointed by King Louis XVI in 1784 branded him a fraud. The commissioners, who included American ambassador to France Benjamin Franklin, concluded that Dr. Mesmer merely had a strong power of persuasion over his patients. Today, his legacy survives in the verb "to mesmerize."

Magnetism nevertheless continued to attract a following in France. Some estimates put the number of French magnetizers today at up to 30,000. They even have their own union, Le Syndicat National des Magnetiseurs. "Fewer and fewer people believe in the Church, but more and more believe in other spiritualities," says Jean-Jacques Rosankis, the union's vice president.

Mr. Le Mer, the magnetizer who convinced Mr. Gallerne that his neighbor was a witch, lives in an old stone house a few miles from Saint-Connec. A sign in front advertises his craft: a hand with its fingers spread. A stocky, balding man with bushy eyebrows and thick glasses, Mr. Le Mer slammed the door on a reporter who tried to ask questions as a patient was entering.

After getting wind of Mrs. Morice's complaint, the public prosecutor for the area encompassing Saint-Connec decided to combine her defamation case with another one pending against Mr. Le Mer for fraud. That one stemmed from an earlier police investigation into his magnetizing activities.

The two cases were tried on Nov. 18 in the district court of Saint-Brieuc, a coastal town 25 miles north of Saint-Connec. Claiming he was sick, Mr. Le Mer didn't show up in court but was represented by his lawyer, Géraldine Blanchevoy.

During the trial, it emerged that Mr. Le Mer claims to be no ordinary man. He tells his patients that he has the power to beat back Satan and that he can cure cancer, sterility and mad-cow disease, according to a report of the police's probe read aloud by the judge.

He also claims credit for former French interior minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement's recovery from a 10-day coma in 1998, and for enabling pop singer Céline Dion to give birth to a baby boy in 2001 after years of trying unsuccessfully to have children, according to the police report.

Asked whether Mr. Chevènement had ever been a patient of Mr. Le Mer's, his aide Jean-Yves Autexier said: "no, of course not....Besides, this is all very much the opposite of what he believes in. Jean-Pierre Chevènement is a very rational man."

Magnetism is a lucrative trade: Mr. Le Mer charges $201 to lift spells from farms, $163 to exorcise businesses and $123 for houses. In one of his treatments, he walks around patients' properties with a wet cloth wrapped around his head to chase away evil spirits. Each lap costs an extra $2. Mr. Le Mer earns about $74,000 a year and had a thousand patient visits in the first half of 2001 alone, according to the police report.

Patrick Elghosi, Mrs. Morice's lawyer, was the first to speak after the judge opened the trial. "The idea that there would be a case of witchcraft in Brittany in the 21st century is something laughable and ridiculous," he said. "Must we remind people that we are in the country of Descartes and that this is nothing but a swindle?"

Bastien Diacono, Saint-Brieuc's deputy public prosecutor, called Mr. Le Mer a dangerous charlatan and likened him to Cagliostro, an 18th-century Italian alchemist who conned the royal courts of Europe into believing he had magical powers. "He might as well put a plaque on his door that reads: 'Michel Le Mer, peddler of illusions,' " Mr. Diacono fumed.

Defending her client, Mrs. Blanchevoy quoted a line uttered by Hamlet, after the tragic hero meets his father's ghost: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Mr. Le Mer, she said, "deeply believes in what he does and in his mission.... He tries to make people feel better."

In the end, Mr. Le Mer couldn't work his magic on the judge. He was convicted of defrauding his patients and drew a six-month suspended prison sentence plus a $5,360 fine.

But nothing will shake Mr. Gallerne's belief that Mr. Le Mer cured his wife, who has recovered from her depression. The mayor of Saint-Connec tried to persuade the farmer to become a plaintiff in the case against the magnetizer, but he refused. Holding a pitchfork in his barn the day after the judgment, he said the evil spirits that once encircled his farm had been chased away and that harmony had returned.

Mrs. Morice feels vindicated by the verdict, but she and the Gallernes are no longer on speaking terms. Of Mr. Gallerne, she said, rolling her eyes: "Someday, someone will make him understand that it's a hoax."

As for Mr. Le Mer, his lawyer, Mrs. Blanchevoy, says he's not feeling well. "He's consulting another magnetizer," she said.

Dominique Camus' book La Sorcellerie en France aujourd'hui can be found here http://www.edilarge.fr/02-pages/02-Cat_4Fiche1.html?titreID=5824&zoom=oui&tracking=