Mass Hysteria and Island communities May 16, 2008
Well. Consider this as a little update. I said something about this mass hysteria thing before. I tried some how to make the Makunudhoo island crisis and the Nigerian Genitalia Vanishing Epidemic look similar. In Congo this year (200 
sorcerers were arrested for stealing penises (again? u must be joking?). In Maldives this year (200 sorcerers were arrested for allegedly doing some sort of white magic ( Jon Stewart here / don’t miss this). My o my.
If you are one of those who is scared to go to the toilet alone at night, then Do NOT watch this. I warned you.
Constant reinforcements of these scary images can make your heart beat faster. Don’t look behind you. A jini is watching over your shoulders right now. LOL
Infact, mass hysteria is a scary thought and interesting social phenomenon. It can run in schools and other organizations. Most notably, research indicates a considerable number of these cases arising in situations and places where there is a strong belief in supernatural and such. I was reading through stuff related to this and came across a very interesting story from India, where mass hysteria ran in a family for 2 decades affecting 10 members of 2 generations. Sounds interesting , isn’t it? I had to post about this case. It is such a cool case. It seems only 4 reports of family mass hysteria is known to be recorded so far. The case is taken from
Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences (2002), 56, 643–646
Short Communication
Mass family hysteria:A report from India
SURENDRA K. MATTOO, md, NITIN GUPTA, md, APRAJITA LOBANA, md AND
BALRAJ BEDI, ma
Department of Psychiatry,Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India
In 1997 the index family brought its member RL, a 24-year-old male married laborer with 8 years of schooling, for treatment of affective disorder . This Hindu extended family from a north-Indian village consisted of 31 members including RL’s parents and three siblings, grandfather, and four uncles and aunts and their 16 children. The highest educational level was school completion in children and 5 years of schooling in parents.While three uncles were full-time farmers, RL’s father and one uncle were unskilled workers with the government. The government-serving uncle and his family stayed at a town 50 km away and visited the village almost every month and for vacations, farm work, and family and social events. The remainder of the extended family stayed in the village. RL’s parents and uncles pooled and shared equally the financial resources and expenses, while the kitchens were separate. There had been no legal, financial or social problems within or outside the family. The family was the best educated and the most well off in an all-Hindu village. The villagers had a strong belief in the goddess (multi-incarnation, worshipped by Hindus across India), but additionally worshipped two local village deities (Guga Peer and Kheda) whose temples were adjoining the houses of the index family. The family had a strong religious orientation.
While daily evening prayers would be joined by most of the family members, all members would join special religious celebrations (two to four per year), when there would be feasting during the day and musical prayers late into the night. In some daily prayers and in all special prayers, two to four men of the village would have possession attacks characterized by rotatory movements of the head and body in a squatting position, initially loud invocation of the deity, later utterances as if they had been possessed by the goddess, and responses to peoples’ queries about problems such as illness, theft, loss, business etc. by explaining the problems and suggesting solutions in terms of prayers and rituals. The possession would spontaneously end in 10–30 min, with a patchy memory of the happenings afterwards. The villagers believed such episodes to be god’s recognition of the person’s religious devotion. The villagers also had a strong belief that faith-healers of the area could cause misfortune (accidents, financial loss, illness, death etc.) or relief from such misfortune, by prayers and rituals. In 1975 the eldest aunt of RL had sudden unconsciousness for which doctors could find no cause or cure. On the third day she responded to the treatment of a faith-healer from a neighboring village. The faithhealer continued to visit them for the treatment and became a family friend. Some months later he offered his daughter in marriage to the youngest uncle of RL.
After accepting the offer the family came to believe that he was a dishonest faith-healer (casting spells on people to extract money for treating them, he was suspected to be the cause of the aunt’s illness that he had treated). Also, as a relative his social behavior was found to be unacceptable. In 1980 RL’s family reneged on the marriage proposal despite apprehensions about some reprisal. Later, they heard that the faith-healer had talked of his revenge by causing pain and suffering to their womenfolk. With in a few weeks RL’s mother, followed by his second aunt, developed vague ill health: aches and pains, easy fatigueability, indigestion, insomnia, menstrual disturbances, occupational dysfunction etc. There was no evidence of depression in terms of sadness, undue worrying, guilt, suicidal ideation, loss of appetite/interest/libido etc. Many doctors who were consulted over the years could neither find a medical cause nor provide any relief. Convinced of the faithhealer’s mischief, in 1982 the family went ahead with the marriage of RL’s youngest uncle. The would-be bride and her family were aware of the faith-healer’s wrath. Within a few hours of joining the family, the bride suddenly developed severe pain in the right side of the abdomen. Yelling in pain, she rolled on the ground for approximately 10 min before becoming semiconscious for approximately 30 min. Recovery was spontaneous, with residual generalized aches for a few hours and a patchy memory of the episode. Such ‘dissociative’ episodes recurred every few weeks or months, with repeated medical examinations revealing no abnormality. Six months later, in 1983, RL’s first sister developed persistent vomiting for which doctors could give neither a medical cause nor a cure. The family was convinced of the faith-healer’s mischief because the vomiting was associated only with food cooked at their own home and eaten at their own home or farms (there was no vomiting vomiting with-home-cooked food eaten at other people’s houses or farms), and there was no weight loss over time.
In view of the financial and psychosocial distress to the family (repeated medical and faith-healing treatment cost heavily and brought no relief), through emissaries and personal visits, the family pleaded with the suspect faith-healer who denied any wrongdoing. Although only 11 at that time, being the eldest son RL felt distressed because he could do nothing to help the family. In this background, in 1985, during one of the aunt’s ‘dissociative’ episodes, RL grew angry and loudly abused the goddess for not ending their family’s misery. The elders reprimanded him for this. Next afternoon he had his first ‘possession attack’. While fully awake he ‘saw’ a lady in a red dress at some distance, felt thrown off his cot by a slap on his face, and started rotating his head and body repeatedly. The family members gathered around him, and, assuming that the goddess had possessed him, addressed her for reasons and relief. RL replied back in a changed authoritative voice confirming the possession to be due to his insulting behavior the previous day, asking for certain rituals and prayers, and assuring relief to the entire family. After the required rituals and prayers were carried out, RL’s aunt’s ‘dissociative’ episodes and his sister’s vomiting stopped completely while the mother and second aunt’s ill health decreased considerably. RL continued to have four to eight such episodes a year during the late night temple prayers (with patchy memory of the same) and became a ‘hero’ for the family and the village. The action pattern exhibited by RL during the possession attacks was similar to that exhibited by other villagers and was accepted as typical of possession by the goddess.
A year later, RL’s fourth aunt followed by the first sister had recurrence of‘fresh ‘dissociative’ episodes once in a few weeks to months. Also, RL’s mother’s and second aunt’s ill health continued with a low severity. From 1991 onwards the elder daughter of the second uncle (living in town) also started having similar ‘dissociative’ episodes, both at the village and in the town. In 1995 RL developed a manic episode (irritability, physical and religious over-activity, overspending, pressure of speech, ideas of grandiose ability and identity) associated with two to four ‘possession attacks’ a day. He got married during this episode. This ‘mild’ episode, passed off by the family as his youthful response to marriage, resolved spontaneously without any treatment. During the family gathering for RL’s marriage,led by the fourth aunt one after another, at intervals of a few minutes, RL’s two sisters, elder daughter of first uncle, two daughters of second uncle, third aunt and her elder daughter, fourth aunt’s elder daughter and a sister of the third aunt (visiting them for the marriage), all had a ‘dissociative’ attack similar to the one described earlier. During the marriage, one after another, two to six of these women had many ‘mass’ episodes. After the marriage these women continued to have ‘dissociative’ attacks sporadically. Faithhealing treatment for these during and after the marriage brought no major relief .
A few weeks after his marriage RL started remaining aloof and quiet, showed decreased interested in self-care, socialization, religiosity and sex, lacked initiative, complained of weakness, spent long hours in bed, missed work and lost wages, with ‘possession attacks’ continuing to occur once or twice a year. In August 1997 he had a second episode of mania with delusions of grandiosity, and auditory and visual hallucinations that necessitated hospitalization.
Physical examination including electroencephalogram (EEG) revealed no abnormality. No hypothalamic or hysterical/dependent traits were evident. On this basis an International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder (current episode mania with psychotic symptoms) and trance and possession disorder was made. Additionally, in 1996 RL’s younger sister developed an episode of mania, similar to that of RL except for possession attacks. Because the family attributed her illness to the suspect faith-healer, she received treatment only from faith-healers. Our management focused on treating RL’s mania and exploring with and educating the family about the illnesses of RL and other family members. RL was treated with haloperidol, lorazepam and trihexiphenidyl, nine sessions of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and lithium prophylaxis. Over the next 4 years good compliance and euthymic status were maintained, except for a depressive episode for 2 months in 1999. All available family members were interviewed to explore and understand their beliefs regarding various events in self, family and the village.
Possible relationships among internal (physiological and psychological) and external (physical and social) events were discussed. Freedom to choose and exercise their belief system was accepted. While in hospital they were allowed to continue faith-healing treatment alongside the ‘medical’ treatment. The family came to accept RL’s and his sisters’s bipolar episodes as illnesses needing medical treatment; they continued RL’s treatment and also brought his sister for lithium prophylaxis. But RL’s possession attacks, RL’s mother’s and aunt’s illnesses, understood by us as somatoform disorder, and dissociative attacks in all other women, continued to be considered by the family as caused by the faith-healer. They never brought them for treatment despite assuring us that they would do so if faith-healing treatment failed. At last contact in August 2001 some of these women were continuing with milder forms of their illnesses while RL, euthymic on lithium, continued to have occasional prayer-related possession attacks.
After reading about this case, as usual, i was wondering about the Makunudhoo crisis and what they have gone through and the long lasting negative effects it will have on the island community.
