Mass psychogenic illness
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Search complete. 104 mentions across 21 episodes found for "Mass psychogenic illness".
Oct 19, 2026
Darren MarlarHOST
Even the Salem Witch Trials.
Darren MarlarHOST
Just a few of the cases of mass hysteria I'll be sharing with you.
Darren MarlarHOST
January 7, 1950.
Darren MarlarHOST
Events began in what became one of the strangest disappearances of the middle 20th century – the vanishing of a West Point cadet.
56 MINS LATER
Darren MarlarHOST
But what happened to him remains unknown.
Darren MarlarHOST
Coming up, nuns that meow like cats, people who can't stop laughing maniacally, an entire high school begins twitching, even the Salem witch trials.
Darren MarlarHOST
These are just a few of the many cases of mass hysteria I'll be sharing with you when Weird Darkness returns.
Darren MarlarHOST
Hey Weirdos, Church of the Undead Book 1 is on presale right now.
PhilHOST
The teachers gave statements, and they were kind of conflicting.
PhilHOST
Some teachers just were really pushing the hysteria, mass hysteria point of this.
PhilHOST
And there were a few teachers that described evil or an evil presence or an evil feeling in the atmosphere of the school at the time.
PhilHOST
Now, if you take into account the area, highly Catholic, Santeria, so there has to be some hesitation or leaning of that way.
TravisHOST
Yeah.
PhilHOST
So I think that does play a very pivotal part of the story.
PhilHOST
Now, the official story of this is mass hysteria.
PhilHOST
It's triggered by stress, cultural fears of demons and witchcraft.
Bryce BlankenagleGUEST
... continues, "Some supporters of the task force publicly speculated whether the governor had been pressured by influential people in the state who are Satanists," because of course everything's a conspiracy, right? Uh, "University of Utah professor of psychology David Raskin said he thought the state had become a pawn for those who believe in the existence of Satanic ritual abuse, even though no evidence exists for it.
Bryce BlankenagleGUEST
He accused the task force of inciting mass hysteria." And that's a point that I wanted to make, of like, once, once p- enough people opt into this LARP and people buy into it-
Chris SheltonHOST
Yeah
Bryce BlankenagleGUEST
... then creating a task force to investigate this creates, it fuels the mass hysteria.
Bryce BlankenagleGUEST
Whether there's a there there or not-
Chris SheltonHOST
Right
Bryce BlankenagleGUEST
...
Bryce BlankenagleGUEST
it fuels the mass hysteria, right? Uh, but then of course, being Sunstone, they present the opposite side here.
BillHOST
And Now, historically, regarding the Laudan possessions, there's a lot of theories about what happened here.
BillHOST
Mass hysteria is a pretty obvious one.
BillHOST
Like, if you want to talk about, like, why this happened.
BillHOST
Again, you have sexually repressed women with a religious, heavy religious indoctrination.
Ken Melvoin-BergGUEST
Yeah, they actually like so there was a lot of comparisons made between that and the Salem witch trials, for example.
Ken Melvoin-BergGUEST
And the one thing that like they were noting that it like there was like it was very unlikely that there was any sort of like ergo on the rye causing like fungal stuff that it was actually one of the.
Ken Melvoin-BergGUEST
first and most widely recorded cases of mass hysteria.
Ken Melvoin-BergGUEST
So when you hear about a lot of this in, and I've actually heard it in some like other TVs and documentaries where they refer back to this one particular event as an example of mass hysteria, where I think it was a combination of the young age of the nuns coupled with giving themselves the first Kind of sexual freedom that they had.
Daven HiskeyHOST
So going back to Dr. Hempelbin- Hempelmann, so he notes of many such mass hysteria events.
Simon WhistlerHOST
Now we call it mass psychogenic illness, MPI.
Simon WhistlerHOST
It's psychogenic, meaning it's all in the minds of the people who showed the symptoms.
Simon WhistlerHOST
It's not caused by an element in the environment like food poisoning or a toxin.
speaker_4HOST
Yes.
speaker_4HOST
Historically, this is called mass psychogenic illness.
speaker_3HOST
How does that actually work mechanically? I mean, how does a whole group start exhibiting the same symptoms without a real virus?
speaker_4HOST
It operates through the psychological mechanism of conversion disorder, compounded by social contagion.
Caroline BaniewiczHOST
I think there's only one who sells Tourette's.
Caroline BaniewiczHOST
Well, because it was mass hysteria.
Caroline BaniewiczHOST
I do believe in mass hysteria.
John FeitelbergHOST
You know what they say? It's happened
Caroline BaniewiczHOST
throughout history many times.
John FeitelbergHOST
know, the greatest example of it is what people say.
John FeitelbergHOST
Witch trials.
Caroline BaniewiczHOST
Mass hysteria, yeah.
Emmy HikinsHOST
No.
Trevor GearHOST
Well, it used to be called mass hysteria.
Trevor GearHOST
Do, do you think there's such a thing as mass hysteria?
Emmy HikinsHOST
Uh, no.
Trevor GearHOST
How would you describe mass hysteria?
Emmy HikinsHOST
I, I think, I think you'd, you'd have...
Emmy HikinsHOST
You, you wouldn't have a mass hysteria, would you? Um, you'd have, you'd have an individual one where, you know, an individual is actually, uh, feeling something like that.
Emmy HikinsHOST
But not, not, not on that scale, I don't think.
Emmy HikinsHOST
Mm
Trevor GearHOST
... was mass hysteria, but ultimately because of the huge stresses these people were under.
Trevor GearHOST
But when they, you know, destroyed the s- the, um, stages, stopped the music, uh, and then took a lot of them to the, the, uh, the burial ground or the, the place for, uh, St. Vitus, then they, they were able to see that he wasn't offended.
Trevor GearHOST
He- they'd atoned for what they'd done, and gradually it stopped.
Trevor GearHOST
It, it's worth a box of medicine, box of tablets, isn't it, when you really laugh.
Emmy HikinsHOST
Mm.
Trevor GearHOST
But to do it when it's midway between crying and laughing, and it veers from one to the other, and you can't stop, that this is the reality of what happens when there's mass hysteria.
Trevor GearHOST
And apparently this caused in some people, um, uh, even seizure-
Trevor GearSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
I like Dolly Parton
Trevor GearHOST
Started laughing and he couldn't stop laughing um it was as i say it wasn't joyful sometimes it developed into crying and this this grew this grew and grew around the school um i think it started with three three really started it and then within a few hours 95 of of the 150 students in this school were affected they could not stop laughing and i mean you say it's like a happy problem but it wasn't it was it was it was desperately frightening for them because they could can you imagine i mean it sounds odd doesn't it but not being able to stop laughing not being able to stop dancing i mean one of the questions we asked a week or so ago on here i asked you if um would you rather one of those things and one was would you rather have to sing everything you say for a week or would you or would you rather dance everywhere you go for a week and i i forget what you said because neither is a particularly desirable option but we think of laughing as a great health which of course it is it's worth a box of medicine box of tablets isn't it when you really laugh but to do it when it's midway between crying and laughing and it veers from one to the other and you can't stop that this is a reality of what happens when there's mass hysteria and apparently this caused in some people um even seizures but breathing difficulties asthmatic attacks um panic attacks all sorts of physical symptoms but after a lot of research there were no physical organic problems with with the pupils it was purely put down to stress and once they withdrew the stresses so took them out of the stressful situation they recovered nobody died in that that situation but again it's what can happen with mass hysteria and medics nowadays take a very serious concerned view they don't think oh well someone's pretending to be ill or people are you know falling down like flies very often it is mass hysteria once some somebody apparently if you see something like there's a case of some people watching a pier at the seaside collapse and it caused in some of them a mass hysteria somebody panicked and saw something they just couldn't handle and some of them just went into this kind of freeze of mass hysteria but we're not we're not here to make people worried but just an interesting side so what what can happen in the old brain department when we're under a lot of stress and if we're under a lot of stress it's a good idea to to deal with those stress causes if you possibly can generally i'd say have a good laugh because that is a good a good medicine so yeah incomprehensible facts and think about the cards and and the chess is that really what it what it the facts are about that it seems hard to believe in both cases but i for one for what it's worth i believe it
Emmy HikinsHOST
Well, I've learned so much today.
Emmy HikinsHOST
Now when I see a group of people dancing, not to join in.
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