Contemporary illustration of the London Monster
Well-documented but not well-understood, the phenomenon of mass hysteria goes back for generations.
In its simplest terms, mass hysteria defines instances when many people believe in a false affliction or circumstance. A good example is the children’s story of the emperor’s new clothes. When a few people actually believe that the emperor is, in fact, wearing fancy clothes, then more and more people honestly believe the same thing — even though he is actually walking around in his underwear.
Psychologists and sociologists thoroughly examine accounts of mass hysteria, but so far there are only guesses as to what is behind the condition.
Below are some of the more bizarre instances of the phenomenon.
In London in the late 1700s, there was a wave of attacks on women attributed to a criminal the newspapers dubbed “the London Monster.” The Monster allegedly approached wealthy women from behind and slashed their clothing, stabbing their buttocks. These attacks continued for two years but the police started to suspect there was something strange going on. The descriptions of the Monster varied greatly from attack to attack. Some even added the bizarre detail of the Monster having knives attached to his knees. The attacks stopped after two years and although there was an arrest, theorists now looking back on the events wonder if women weren’t cutting their own clothes and then convincing themselves that they had truly been harmed by the Monster.
Centuries later a similar incident occurred in Halifax, England. On November 16, 1938, two women reported being attacked by a stranger with a mallet. In the next few weeks more women and several men reported similar attacks but with different weapons. The police were frustrated following such varying reports. Eventually one of the “victims” confessed he had inflicted the wounds on himself. There were a few similar confessions, but many victims insisted that they had, indeed, been attacked by a strange man. The police weren’t convinced and the investigation was closed.
In May of 2006, a swarm of Portuguese teens reported strange illnesses. The situation became so serious that several schools were closed in the face of an apparent epidemic. It was soon discovered that the teens who were initially afflicted by the symptoms had watched a particular soap opera on TV where one of the characters was experiencing the same symptoms. Experts concluded that the teens first reporting their illness had “contracted” the symptoms from the fictional character and then influenced other teens to believe that they had the same “illness.”
And one of the most famous instances of mass hysteria centered around the October 1938 radio broadcast of a dramatization of H. G. Wells’s story “The War of the Worlds.” Countless listeners who didn’t realize it was a fictional presentation reported seeing UFOs, smelled some kind of toxic gas, and fled their homes.
Some scholars even attribute the frenzy accompanying the Salem Village witch hunts to mass hysteria: one disturbed girl may indeed have believed that she had been cursed, and soon many other girls believed the same.
Fraud or fantasy or fact? The jury is out on this one, and until scientists can pinpoint a cause to the condition, there will undoubtedly be instances of the phenomenon in the future.
Sources
“London Monster” Wikipedia, pulled 8/23/11
“Halifax Slasher” Wikipedia, pulled 8/23/11
“Top Ten Bizarre Cases of Mass Hysteria”, Listverse website, pulled 8/23/11
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