Eras of Satanic Panic Through the years, hysteria has been prevalent in all parts of the world. Periodically, however, there is a new, more dangerous form of hysteria that sweeps across a large area and causes great panic among the people involved. This wave of panic is now called mass hysteria. It is defined as a condition affecting a group of persons, characterized by excitement of anxiety, irrational behavior or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness. We have seen this in Europe during the Black Plague. The people felt that they were being punished by god and killed “witches” to rid their town of evil. 300 years after this bout of mass hysteria, America saw its first rise of hysteria. The Salem Witch Trials resulted in many deaths …show more content…
They had many children attend their school with no problem until Judy Johnson, a mother of a child that attended their school, contacted the police accusing Ray of molesting her son. The police, of course, had to investigate. They contacted Judy again and scheduled checkup for the child to see if anything was wrong with him, but they found nothing. Even with this knowledge, they arrested him and searched his home for evidence. Their evidence was: a rubber duck, a graduation robe, Playboy magazines, and a teddy bear. Their next decision is what really began this bout of hysteria. They contacted 200 parents of children who attended the preschool, told them about Ray’s suspected child abuse charges, and also asked them to question their child about any wrongdoings going on in the preschool. The Chief of police also asked “…To please keep this investigation strictly confidential because of the nature of the charges and the highly emotional effect it could have on our community” (Linder, Doug). Of course, no one kept it quiet and soon, all of California knew about it. With the publicity, Judy’s accusations began to be less and less believable, but there were some who were unwaveringly on her side. She accused Peggy of taking her son to a Satanic church and forcing him to watch grotesque mutilations of babies and animals, and she accused Ray further of sodomizing
The Salem Witch Trials were a series of prosecutions of men and women who were accused to practice witchcraft or have associations with the devil. The first Salem witch trial began with two girls in 1692, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams who started to have “fits”, in which they would throw tantrums and have convulsions. The random outburst of the girls threw the town of Salem into a mass of hysteria. Although historians have not found a definite reason or cause for the witch trials, they have taken different approaches to explain the hysteria that took over Salem. Some historians approach a psychological theory by proposing the girls suffered from diseases that made them act out. Other historians refer to factors such as religion, economics, and weather to explain the beginnings of an unforgettable time in Salem, Massachusetts. For over 300 years, historians have tried to reveal the truth about the beginnings of the Salem Witch Trials, but in order to do so historians must look at both the way of life in Salem in the seventeenth century and use knowledge that is available now to explain the phenomenon.
Hysteria was a very obvious theme shown throughout the play, The Crucible. It was all started by a few young girls in Salem, Massachusetts. They were all dancing in the woods one night and were caught by Paris, the reverend in that small town. The next day two of the young girls were sick and would not move, talk, nor eat . The town began to start talk of witch craft because of the forbidden dancing that took place the other night. When the girls heard of that at first they denied it, but then they realized they could get out of being punished if they put the blame onto someone else. The began to shout out the names of people they clamed to have seem with they devil. It seemed like a logical explanation to the people in the town, so they had the people accused of being witches arrested. The whole town was in an uproar crying out witch craft to gain respect and power in the town and to get revenge on those who they were jealous of . Everyone began to thrive on this hysteria in particular Abigail Williams. She was having an affair with Elizabeth Proctors husband, John Proctor, when she had lived with them as t...
As a child he was sent to many reform schools. He has spent the last four decades behind bars. He will never get out prison. He will eventually die in prison. This is the life of Charles Manson. Charles Manson is a sick and cruel criminal.
A team of FBI agents, psychiatrists, and psychologists reached a different conclusion than that of the media. A conclusion that was “both more reassuring and more troubling” (At last we know, Cullen). Cullen says in the same article, “We can’t understand why they did it until we understand what they were doing.” It was more than just a school
One cause of the hysteria in the Salem witch trials was that the residents of Salem were fundamentalists. Fundamentalists follow the Bible’s word to the letter; if something is written in the Bible, it’s true and is is the law. In the book of Exodus, it states, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Document 1). The other citizens thought that if a person was a witch, they would cover it up to avoid death. Residents wouldn’t know who was a witch and who wasn’t, resulting in hysteria. Not only did the people of Salem follow the
The Salem Hysteria started in 1691 in Massachusetts. When Betty Parris and Abigail Parris heard stories about witchcraft from their slave Tituba, they started having visions and sharp pains. When they went to the doctor the doctor said it was witch craft. So the girls started blaming women that were poor, had low social class, and did not go to church of witchcraft. They even said that their slave Tituba was using witchcraft. Once they stared accusing higher class people the court started questioning if the girls were actually telling the truth. Once the court realized they had made a mistake they made a day of mourning and silence for all the people they wrongfully accused and killed of witchcraft.
Hysteria is an uncontrolled fear complemented with excessive emotion that leads to poor decisions and actions done with complete lack of forethought. The hysteria that existed in the town of Salem was largely caused by the people’s extreme devotion to religion, as well as their refusal to delve into other possibilities to explain the predicament of the time. These circumstances still exist today, and it is quite possible, as well as frightening, that a similar event could recur today. One would like to think that one would never lose control of their opinions and thought, but hysteria is a powerful force and can bring even the most intellectual of people to lose sense of what is occurring. More modern examples of hysteria such as the McCarthy trials and the ostracizing of people infected with AIDS show that learning to properly evaluate a situation for it’s reasonability and integrity prove to still be a valuable lesson for today.
The Communist Scare in the 1950’s also demonstrated this idea. Senator Joseph Miller, well aware of American fear of the Soviet Union after World War Two, claimed that the American Government was overrun by Communists. This one event led to the beginning of an epidemic as now fear of Communism ran across the country. Eventually, it reached a point in which the government, using the Smith Act of 1940 as their basis, arrested anyone that could be against the government. There became a large trial of Hollywood actors that may be communist sympathizers. Like the accused in Salem, these actors were assumed guilty from the start of the trial, and it was difficult to prove against being Communist. The goal of the trial was to get the “actors, directors, and producers to ‘name names’ of colleagues who had Communist ties or sympathies”(Roberts 2). This just created more people to investigate, and therefore a larger epidemic of Communism in the United States. The event is evident of mass hysteria as the fear of Communism became rampant across the entire county, even though the threat of Communism in the United States Government was not likely. It also demonstrates the traits of an epidemic as described in The Tipping Point. The fear of Communism started out in a Women’s Club in Wheeling, West virginia, and then within the year there was a House for Un-American Activities. The point at which the fear went from local to national is the “dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once”(Gladwell 9), and this moment is known as the tipping point. The Witch Trials lacked the element of an epidemic as it never was contagious enough to spread passed salem, but both events clearly demonstrate mass hysteria across a given
Although witch trials were not uncommon in Puritanical New England, none had reached such epidemic proportions as Salem. In 1691 the mass hysteria began when several young girls dabbled in witchcraft and began acting strange. When villagers took notice the girls were seriously questioned and so they began naming people, mainly woman, who had supposedly bewitched them (Boyer, p66). Several other who had been accused were woman displayed ‘unfeminine’ behavior and those who
As Linder explains Billy’s mother took him to the doctor after school because he said his anus itched. The doctor encountered spots of blood that wasn't supposed to be there. It was result of this doctors visit they came to a conclusion of what had happened earlier that day at school (Linder, "Chronology of the McMartin Preschool Abuse Trials"). A worried mother, Judy Johnson was determined to make this situation known. Linder confirms that Johnson called the police after leaving the doctor’s office because she suspected that Billy’s symptoms consisted of were caused by the faculty at the school earlier that day (Linder, "Chronology of the McMartin Preschool Abuse Trials"). As Kathryn Shelton, a research associate at the O’Neil Center at Southern Methodist University and Richard B. Mckenzie, a professor emeritus in the Merage Business School at the University of California, Irvine notes, this being the first accusation of child molestation brought it straight to trial (Shelton and
Throughout history, public hysteria has been conducted and exploited as a means to obtain power and control. People often fall prey to public hysteria and all that it entails. Oftentimes it’s something that starts off as a little white lie and spirals out of proportion. Moreover, public hysteria is used to turn citizens against one another and push them into the hands of a new leader; one they often feel can protect and restore society. Public hysteria fogs judgement and cultivates suspicion in the minds of many.
In conclusion, the two events of hysteria have many negative effects on individuals. Hysterical events were examined through the AIDS epidemic and the Salem Witchcraft Trials which were two complete separate points of history. The events had many similarities even though they cover completely
Hysteria has no place in a society because it is wrong. It causes chaos and confusion and in these cases death.
The victim of mass hysteria may never fully move past what happened to them. Mass hysteria is a illness that in both of these cases have had large effects on the kids and in the community. For the boarding school in Eendobe village in Africa, the students that were getting it had symptoms that were able to be seen but were not able to be explained. That is same with the school in Bangladesh. The doctor couldn’t figure out what was happening to these kids. Both of these can relate back to the Salem Witch Trials in a way. For all three had symptoms that could not be explained. The only difference was that in the Salem Witch Trials the girls were being the duplicit ones. Do you think that all three outbreaks can be brought back to the same thing?
Humanity has lived, and still continues to live, in a world where there is one hidden killer—mass hysteria. Mass hysteria has been known to cause quite a lot of deaths and commotion in the past centuries. Many do not believe in this peculiar phenomenon, but here are some facts about this secret killer. The three main causes of mass hysteria are fear, stress, and supernaturalism. The “Millions are dead!