What if certain practices escaped the all-too-simple categories of “science” or “superstition”?

What if, between technical gesture and intuition, between accumulated experience and mystery, there were another way of inhabiting the world?

As part of the Festival Histoire et Cité, whose theme for 2026 is “Comme par magie” (As by magic), Philo aux Bains is delighted to welcome Virginie Jean, cow whisperer.

In contrast to a strictly technical vision of animal care, his work is part of an ancient tradition: that of the “rebouteux” and “rebouteuses”, who, through touch, close observation, listening to the body and empirical knowledge often transmitted outside academic frameworks, relieve, heal and rebalance.

Is it folk knowledge? An art of gesture? A form of magic?

What does it mean to “care” when you’re working with living beings, in close proximity to the body?

How can we think about these practices in a world dominated by scientific veterinary medicine? Opposition, complementarity, cohabitation?

This meeting will be an opportunity to explore the tensions – but also the possible dialogues – between rationality and belief, tradition and modernity, the visible and the invisible.

In the course of the discussion, we’ll also question our contemporary relationship with living things: what does caring for animals say about our way of being in the world? What is legitimate knowledge? Who decides what’s science and what’s folklore?

The meeting will take place at the Bains des Pâquis, on the pier, under the yurt. Free admission.