Looking Back: Dancing plagues and mass hysteria
An article on mass psychological illnesses, from Middle Age dancing plagues — where people would dance for days on end, leading to exhaustion, sores, and sometimes death — to modern-day penis theft (in several African countries, people have been killed, we’re in the 21st century now, believe it or not, for “stealing” or shrinking people’s genitalia).
There are many things to be said about such epidemics. One is that we must be careful what we believe. Dancing plagues and mass hysteria follow patterns set by the superstitions of the day: people will act in accordance with whatever supernatural beliefs are in vogue at the time. So, sure enough, it was a popular belief at the time of the dancing plagues that gods or demons could issue such plagues on humans, while none have occurred after this belief became universally rejected. Nuns, supposedly pure beings living in poverty and chastity by choice (not always their own, mind you), would act out all the possession scenarios popularly believed to be possible at the time, and people have been burnt at the stake for bewitching nuns into making lewd gestures and comments and generally acting crazy and out of their socially determined role. During the Gulf War, when fears about biological warfare were being broadcast in all channels, there were mass hysterias involving nausea, vomiting, trouble breathing and strange odours, which turned out not to be caused by any real pathogens. In all cases, the hysteria is triggered by psychological stress, but it acts in accordance with the threats currently held in the popular imagination, be they possession, dancing plagues, or bio-warfare.
To people who vocally speak out about superstition, supernaturalism, and other irrational beliefs, a standard answer is: “while you can believe what you want, why don’t you let others have their harmless superstitions. These beliefs don’t have any negative impact on daily life. Believing in Heaven, God’s Will or Possession isn’t hurting anyone.” There was a time when I delighted in discussing these matters and broadcasting a skeptical perspective, but I quickly got really bored with the whole thing and lost the motivation to get into lengthy, long-winded discussions about that sort of thing. Most of us, frankly, have better things to do than spreading rationalism and debating supernatural claims. That makes the above retort easy to accept. But mass hysterias show that at least sometimes, irrational beliefs have far-ranging consequences that are hard to predict, but very real. Score one to the skeptics who are more patient than me.
The article goes into some detail about how subjects are “prepared” for dissociative hysterias by absorbing supernatural worldviews and being encouraged to enter trances etc. during, for example, religious ceremonies:
… What the historian Edward Shorter calls the ‘symptom pool’ for psychosomatic illness has varied significantly over time and between cultures (Shorter, 1992), and the changing incidences of conversion disorder, somatoform disorder and dissociative trance are all attributable, at least in part, to shifting norms and expectations (Nandi et al., 1992).
There is also this more detailed article, both articles via Mindhacks.
Another thing I noted about the article was this case report:
In both Western and non-Western settings, mass motor hysteria usually occurs in schools. In 1962, for example, several girls at a mission school near Lake Tanganyika developed a compulsion to laugh and cry by turns. The affliction soon spread to neighbouring populations (Rankin & Philip, 1963). Similar outbreaks of laughing have been recorded in both Zambia and Uganda.
This is the perfect segue for me to once again recommend that you read Steven Millhauser’s collection “Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories”. The title story concerns a fad among teenagers one summer: laughing parties. One girl, in particular, rises to prominence among her fellows for her laughing talent, but is soon left by the wayside when everyone else moves on to crying parties. It ends with her final performance, and is good but quite tragic. The collection also has other, even better stories in it. Read!
