10 Bizarre Cases Of Mass Hysteria

In the space of a year, between 1692 and 1693 more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. Some sort of madness had taken over them and 20 poor souls were executed.

It all started when Betty Parris, Ann Putman. Jr, Abigail Williams, and Elizabeth Hubbard began having fits, which a minister described as being, “beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to effect.” Essentially, supernatural fits.

The Salem Witch Trials are a notorious case of mass hysteria, and there are, in fact, few people who haven’t heard of it Inevitably, there have been many theories on its spark, with blame apportioned to religious extremism, false accusations, and isolationism.

It is interesting to note that the same fungus that was thought to cause the Dancing Plague mentioned earlier in this article was also implicated in the Salem Witch Trials. So, maybe the whole thing was just a bad LSD trip.