Known colloquially as “mass hysteria” (which is now considered a non-PC term), it’s one of the most controversial formally named diseases/diagnosis. MPI is basically where multiple people in the same place simultaneously or in rapid succession experience sudden delusions, psychosis, or other mental issues of a similar nature to each other. Notable examples include the dancing sickness in Medieval Germany where people in a town suddenly got a severe urge to jump up and down in the streets, some doing it until they literally died from exhaustion, as well as the laughing sickness of Tanganyika, where a number of children suddenly started laughing uncontrollably.
It’s said to be triggered spontaneously by things like severe collective stress (for example, the stress of living in a medieval town or a country actively pushing for independence from Britan). For some cases, it may also be due in part to exposure to neurotoxic pollutants, like the infamous ergotism that also caused the Salem Witch Trials. It can start with a single person going into psychosis and triggering similar symptoms in people around them who see the strange behaviour.
It also tends to resolve spontaneously after some time, or some cases are resolved by things like exorcism rituals through the placebo effect and the sufferers believing that the “treatment” would help.
I’ve even heard some theories that MPI is responsible for things like miracles supposedly seen performed by religious figures throughout history, or in more modern times, mass sightings of UFOs and paranormal activity.
Do you think this disease is a real thing? Or do all the documented cases have a different underlying cause that we simply haven’t discovered?
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Undoubtedly it is a real thing, but i would propose that it is incorrect to describe this phenomenon as a “disease”, rather i would say it’s just part of human nature since we evolved as highly social animals and in extreme situations we can easily influence each other in ways that amplify heightened emotional response states in a sort of mutual feedback loop. When you then also add the influence of mental state altering chemicals the effects can only compound.
It is real, but is dangerously utilized against minorities and oppressed groups to classify them as delusional/mentally ill, such as the LGBT community, Jews, and communists historically.
Yes, conspiracy theories like QAnon are proof of such.
I still vehemently believe that HS was made up. It’s wayyyyy too convenient that only Western people, almost all of which in embassy/intelligence/military, experienced symptoms exclusively in countries they hate. You think if there’s a sonic weapon there would be at least one case of “collateral damage” as the West likes to call people affected by their own war crimes.
I have no doubt that it’s bunk made to justify expanding budgets, promotions, and further activity in those places, but a part of me wonders if some experience either psychological stress caused by a guilty conscience formed from living as a saboteur amongst people who’ve done you no wrong for nothing more than a paycheck or a Road to Damascus Moment that need to be explained away by Saturday morning cartoon villainy
Plausible considering the Cubans, unlike the Russians and Asians, have a social history directly traceable to Europe, making them far more recognizable as human to Americans than people in Russia and Asia.
Russians don’t have a social history directly traceable to Europe?
Most of Russia in an Asia. Russia itself has never been considered a European country. There’s interactions with Europe for sure, more than many other non-European nations, but Russia is not a European country nor a historical European colony. It is specifically non-European.
Being Norse descendant with an 800 year long dynasty that started west of the Urals along with a good bit to a majority of their historic population as well doesn’t count as European?
When we consider this from a social perspective and not a physical perspective, we see that we don’t say European countries are African. The same is true of Russia. Socially, the concept of Europe excludes Russia.
I definitely believe things like insanity and fear and peer pressure get scarily strong exponential gravitational pull when crossing a certain event horizon. I see no reason why severe enough cases of this wouldn’t be dissimilar to the point where it’s identifiable as a phenomenon. I’ve seen the capacity for people (myself included) to do incredibly…intense things under the right stressful circumstances.
I do hesitate to use it to write off UFOs/paranormal/miracles/etc. because I strongly believe in cases of these things being true in ways not explainable by MPI.
Humans can do crazy things with adrenaline, certain drugs can also cause your body to automatically go into overdrive in the same way. That’s why the Nazis were able to do the seemingly impossible with Blitzkreig. I wouldn’t call it mass hysteria, but I guess it could be linked, like how the people in the German town were able to have the stamina/will to dance for so long
Yes, my-go to example was as a kid hearing a story of a hiker that was getting mushed under a 1-ton rock and he shoved it enough to slide over him and save his life, tearing all the muscles required in the action in a way that normal circumstances would allow you to overexert to such a degree
