Ghosts and the mass hysteria theory.

[Fluffy]

Can anybody explain what the "mass hysteria" term used by skeptics means and how it is applied?

. Skeptics use the term "mass hysteria" for situations like this, but nobody has offered an explanation for the core catalyst causing many brains to suddenly go haywire.

The abstract above was from an article about the theories of ghosts.



Whistler.

 

[Checkmite]

Mass hysteria is a condition in which a large group of people is compelled to act or think a certain way due to conscious or subconscious triggers in combination with an external catalyst.

A grand example is the Salem Witch trials of colonial fame. Spite or malicious intention led a small group of people to levy charges of "witchcraft" against a couple of community members. Subsequently, the onset of "mass hysteria" led many people to levy similar charges against each other. Talk of supernatural matters as if they were real, and occuring regularly, precipitated a highly suggestive atmosphere in which normal events were misconstrued. For instance, an observation immediately before a rainstorm led an observer to believe that "Mrs X" caused the rainstorm by taking off her socks.

Mass hysteria usually involves a group of people with a common goal or need. In the witch trials case, the need was either that of safety, or of pre-emptively establishing one's "righteousness" (and therefore innocence) by turning in suspected witches. A bit more recently, a couple of children in Japan began feeling ill after watching a specific episode of a popular cartoon. Within a day or so of the story making the news, dozens, or even hundreds, of children began reporting feeling "ill". A possible "common need" in this case was the avoidance of pending exams in school.

Interestingly, the person or persons responsible for catalyzing the mass hysteria event tend not to have been provoked by the "common need". The witch-trial, again, was started by individuals who simply wanted to get someone else in trouble, for "fun". In Japan, a few of the children may actually have become ill at the beginning, due to epilepsy (brought on by a certain animation effect).

 

[Suggestologist]

Mass hysteria usually involves a group of people with a common goal or need. In the witch trials case, the need was either that of safety, or of pre-emptively establishing one's "righteousness" (and therefore innocence) by turning in suspected witches. A bit more recently, a couple of children in Japan began feeling ill after watching a specific episode of a popular cartoon. Within a day or so of the story making the news, dozens, or even hundreds, of children began reporting feeling "ill". A possible "common need" in this case was the avoidance of pending exams in school.

A negative placebo effect might be responsible for some as well.

 

[apoger]

>A negative placebo effect might be responsible for some as well.

A placebo? As opposed to the "real" hysteria that everyone else got?

 

[Kopji]

A recent example that was in the news for several weeks was the 'Monkey Man' incident in India.

At least three people panicked and fell to their deaths from buildings during the two-week saga because they were convinced the attacker -- described varyingly as a monkey-like creature with metallic claws and a cat with tawny, glowing eyes -- was pursuing them.
Monkey Man

This one is interesting because there was lots of 'evidence': sightings, claw marks, deaths, etc.

Some similarities to the 'fires' outbreak in Italy, so I am curious to see if this turns out the same conclusion.

 

[MRC_Hans]

>A negative placebo effect might be responsible for some as well.

A placebo? As opposed to the "real" hysteria that everyone else got?

No, placebo effect and hysteria are essentially the same thing: People feel something they expect to feel, sometimes to the extent of having objective physical symptoms.

The reason for the term "negative placebo" is, I assume, that "placebo" literally means "I please", but the effect needs not be pleasurable.

Both mass hysteria and placebo effect are real and well documented phenomenon.

Hans

 

[iain]

Not sure if this counts, but a current example of mass hysteria (albeit at a lower level) might be the idea current in the UK that merely finding yourself sexually attracted to people under the age of 16 makes you a fundamentally evil person, probably worse than a murderer, whether or not you actually harm a child in any way at all.

How has this happened? Why are parents suddenly scared that there's a paedophile lurking around every corner? How more hypocritical can we get regarding sexuality? I guess it will die down when the next bogeyman comes along and the media jump on that bandwagon.

 

[Suggestologist]

No, placebo effect and hysteria are essentially the same thing: People feel something they expect to feel, sometimes to the extent of having objective physical symptoms.

The reason for the term "negative placebo" is, I assume, that "placebo" literally means "I please", but the effect needs not be pleasurable.

Both mass hysteria and placebo effect are real and well documented phenomenon.

Hans

Think about it this way. If you give someone a sugar pill and tell them that it will cure them -- they will be like "ok, it'll probably take a while" and there will not be a huge change in their outlook. On the other hand, give someone a sugar pill, let them swallow it, and only then tell them that it's poison that might kill them, and watch what happens -- people have a much more active reaction, start feeling nauseous and such -- er...., not that I've tried this myself.....

That's why it's very important to establish positive expectancy in any type of psychotherpy or medical intervention. Sometimes a strong pre-existing negative placebo (negative expectancy) is refered to as "death wish".

 

[Suezoled]

(snipped)

(snipped) A bit more recently, a couple of children in Japan began feeling ill after watching a specific episode of a popular cartoon. Within a day or so of the story making the news, dozens, or even hundreds, of children began reporting feeling "ill". A possible "common need" in this case was the avoidance of pending exams in school.

(snipped) In Japan, a few of the children may actually have become ill at the beginning, due to epilepsy (brought on by a certain animation effect).

Ah... I have that Pokemon episode on tape. got it straight from Japan. My, what pretty flashes of pink and white light came about in that story.

 

[Tricky]

Mass hysteria is a condition in which a large group of people is compelled to act or think a certain way due to conscious or subconscious triggers in combination with an external catalyst.

A grand example is the Salem Witch trials of colonial fame. Spite or malicious intention led a small group of people to levy charges of "witchcraft" against a couple of community members. Subsequently, the onset of "mass hysteria" led many people to levy similar charges against each other. Talk of supernatural matters as if they were real, and occuring regularly, precipitated a highly suggestive atmosphere in which normal events were misconstrued.

A good example. If I may suggest another, it was the Iraq invasion. Few if any worried about Iraq until the external catalyst (the Bush administration) started to levy charges against Saddam. This led to many people levying charges against each other (The Dixie Chicks) and talk of supernatural matters (WMDs that vanish into thin air) leading to a highly suggestive atmosphere in which normal events were misconstrued (selective interpretation of intelligence data.)

Okay, maybe this should be in politics, but I couldn't resist.

 

[bjornart]

No, placebo effect and hysteria are essentially the same thing: People feel something they expect to feel, sometimes to the extent of having objective physical symptoms.

The reason for the term "negative placebo" is, I assume, that "placebo" literally means "I please", but the effect needs not be pleasurable.

Both mass hysteria and placebo effect are real and well documented phenomenon.

Hans

There's a perfectly good word for a "negative placebo", namely "nocebo".

 

[Suggestologist]

There's a perfectly good word for a "negative placebo", namely "nocebo".

You're right. But to me nocebo seems like it's saying there is no intervention (no sugar pill); placebo is synonymous with expectancy in my thought process, so I prefer "negative placebo" instead.

There's also the problem with expectancies that are not clearly positive or negative. But anyway,

Here's an article; "The Nocebo Effect, Placebo's Evil Twin":

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2709-2002Apr29

 

[Yahweh]

Ghost Documentary

 

[Checkmite]

I think it is important to note that people involved in a mass hysteria event are typically not mentally ill, or even enduring a "strange mind state". When dealing with mass hysteria as it relates to ghosts, it is also important to know that many people use the term "mass hysteria" improperly. The quote in the OP:

Skeptics use the term "mass hysteria" for situations like this, but nobody has offered an explanation for the core catalyst causing many brains to suddenly go haywire.

...seems to (possibly) imply that the author thinks "skeptics" insist that "mass hysteria" causes people to hallucinate; to see or hear things that aren't really there. If this is a "the skeptics are wrong" argument, it would at first glace seem true - it's highly unlikely that a large group of people would share the exact same hallucination. However, if somebody is using the term "mass hysteria" properly in a context involving ghosts or hauntings, that would not be the case. A group of people inflicted with mass hysteria would not experience "communal hallucinations"; they would simply interpret (or remember) normal or natural events in a bizzare or irrational - and typically erroneous - fashion. The suggestiblity of the group may have been brought on by a person or persons (the catalyst) which did experience hallucinations.

I've got another example of mass hysteria, which happens to be my personal favorite. Although not nearly as famous as the Salem trials, the "satanic ritual abuse" (SRA) mass hysteria event of the 1980's had - and has - effects both farther-reaching and longer-lasting. It was also extremely complex, with several smaller "instances" of mass hysteria both drawing on an fueling a nationwide epidemic.

It started (arguably) with Anton LaVey establishing the "First Church of Satan" in California. LaVey was a person who really did not like Christians, and he set up his church to spite them. He and those who joined his church held "black masses" which lampooned Christian services, and he wrote a book called "The Satanic Bible" which really had nothing to do with Satan. However, the idea of "Satanism" had long been tangled with the ideas of ritualistic sacrifices and all that jazz; so when local media outlets began interviewing LaVey and self-proclaimed "Satanists" (there was one or two in every major city), people helped along by fear-mongering religious groups got the impression that Satanism was a huge thing, and that there were "hundreds of thousands" of Satanists everywhere. Rebellious high school kids started dressing in black and sacrificing squirrels and such, making up their own ceremonies.

It's uncertain exactly when it happened, but a some point a couple of disturbed young women, with help from "recovered memory" therapists, began describing horrible abuse at the hands of a "Satanic cabal". They were used for sex, beaten, scarred, and everything-else'd. After a couple of news stories, other women began "recovering" similar memories. Nevermind that the overwhelming majority of these women had no scars (or else the scars were surgical artifacts and the like), or were virgins (and so probably weren't used for sex); the public digested all of it. The catalyst (the "exposure of Satanism") led to the mass hysteria atmosphere. Then, a second catalyst within the mass hysteria bred a worse atmosphere - one of the women claimed to be used as a "breeder", who was made pregnant over and over again simply for the purpose of having children to be used in sacrificial rituals. That accusation opened up a whole 'nother can, and outrageously stupid "facts" (like the assertion that literally millions of children in the U.S. were sacrificed every year in satanic rituals!) were accepted without a second thought.

The "climax" (as I see it) of all this was the infamous McMartin Preschool Abuse debacle, which remains the most expensive criminal trial in American history. It happened in Florida. A rather unbalanced woman leveled accusations of abuse (her son being the victim). "Experts" in recovered memory were brought in, and through gestapo-like interrogation of the other kids eventually gleaned a few stories of sexual abuse (involving, coincidentally, such elements as "turtles, rabbits, lions, a giraffe, a sexually abusive elephant, dead and burned babies, dead bodies in mortuaries and graveyards, goat men, flying witches, space mutants, a movie star, and local politicians"). Prosecutors and therapists recovered enough "memories", discounting all the ones that sounded too incredible, of course, to hold a two and a half-year long trial. Cooler heads prevailed and the two defendants (the owner of the preschool and her son) were finally acquitted after having spent the entire duration of the trial in jail. Despite this, there's still a lot of pissed-off parents and some unfortunate children who now really believe they were abused in "underground tunnels" and secret rooms that never existed. For more information than you ever wanted to know about McMartin, go here.

The beautiful failure of the McMartin trial (and similar trials in other locations) killed (for the most part) the SRA hysteria in the U.S., and although there are still accusations and fear-mongers, the phenomenon is not nearly an epidemic of the proportions it once was.

 

[crocodile deathroll]

Jonestown Massacre

Everyone has forgotten about Jim Jones in the Jonestown Massacre , that is one of the most tragic examples of mass hysteria. They happen to be not all cuckoo they were victims of mind control and most of them were just ordinary people like you and me that fell for all these irrational delusions on mass.

CDR

 

[thatdisasterguy]

I don't want to get too way off course, but when I read Josh's reply I was reminded of a PBS story about the Salem Witch Trials and something about fungus in the rye they used.

A quick google and I managed to cull the following from the site below, which would seemingly contribute to the mass hysteria theory, especially if a significant portion of the population was affected.


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_salem/clues.html

"Ergot is caused by the fungus Claviceps purpurea, which affects rye, wheat and other cereal grasses...

... Within them are potent chemicals, ergot alkaloids, including lysergic acid (from which LSD is made) and ergotamine (now used to treat migraine headaches). The alkaloids affect the central nervous system and cause the contraction of smooth muscle -- the muscles that make up the walls of veins and arteries, as well as the internal organs...

...Toxicologists now know that eating ergot-contaminated food can lead to a convulsive disorder characterized by violent muscle spasms, vomiting, delusions, hallucinations, crawling sensations on the skin, and a host of other symptoms -- all of which, Linnda Caporael noted, are present in the records of the Salem witchcraft trials. Ergot thrives in warm, damp, rainy springs and summers. When Caporael examined the diaries of Salem residents, she found that those exact conditions had been present in 1691. Nearly all of the accusers lived in the western section of Salem village, a region of swampy meadows that would have been prime breeding ground for the fungus. At that time, rye was the staple grain of Salem. The rye crop consumed in the winter of 1691-1692 -- when the first usual symptoms began to be reported -- could easily have been contaminated by large quantities of ergot. The summer of 1692, however, was dry, which could explain the abrupt end of the 'bewitchments.' These and other clues built up into a circumstantial case against ergot that Caporael found impossible to ignore. "

 

[Checkmite]

I don't want to get too way off course, but when I read Josh's reply I was reminded of a PBS story about the Salem Witch Trials and something about fungus in the rye they used.

A quick google and I managed to cull the following from the site below, which would seemingly contribute to the mass hysteria theory, especially if a significant portion of the population was affected.

Everything I've seen and read up until now is consistent with the initial deception/resultant mass hysteria theory of the Salem incident. However, if the ergot posit ends up panning out (and the people really did hallucinate ghosts or whatever), then Salem would no longer be an example of mass hysteria after all.

 

[The Mighty Thor]

The "Virgin Mary" phenomena are good examples of mass hysteria among folk with a common expectation.

One Mary statue was seen to move by crowds of believers. But the scientific explanation was that the 'xmas tree lights' on the Virgin's head caused a well-known optical illusion. Also see Randi's recent commentary on the Virgin in the window.

 

[Suggestologist]

The "Virgin Mary" phenomena are good examples of mass hysteria among folk with a common expectation.

One Mary statue was seen to move by crowds of believers. But the scientific explanation was that the 'xmas tree lights' on the Virgin's head caused a well-known optical illusion. Also see Randi's recent commentary on the Virgin in the window.

It's called the autokinetic effect; something pilots have to stay aware of.

 

[FutileJester]

It's called the autokinetic effect; something pilots have to stay aware of.

Amazing what I pick up here sometimes. I'm going to start flight training soon, and now I know one more thing I didn't before... Thanks!

I found this interesting article when I googled this. There are some other illusions of interest to aviators described there as well.