Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive show news, updates, and more!
Is Mass Hysteria Real? How the Satanic Panic in Peacock's Hysteria! Could Really Happen
Even thoughts and behaviors can be contagious.
Most of us are pretty comfortable with the concept of microscopic pathogens. We know that the world is awash in bacteria and viruses capable of passing an infection from one person to the next. But what about intangible infections of the mind? Mass hysteria – otherwise known as epidemic hysteria, psychogenic epidemic, or mass psychogenic illness – is characterized by the spread of symptoms through a population, where there is no infectious agent responsible. It is a purely psychological, but still contagious, disease.
Perhaps the most famous example of mass hysteria in recent memory is the Satanic Panic of the 1980s (the setting for Hysteria!, Peacock’s new horror series starring Bruce Campbell, Julie Bowen, and Anna Camp), but it’s far from the only one. Mass hysterias of all kinds crop up rapidly and disappear just as quickly inside isolated groups of people.
Usually, symptoms spread by sight, sound, or direct communication, but the advent of global communications technologies has allowed instances of mass panic to transcend borders. No specific predispositions have been identified, and mass hysteria can appear in anyone under the right sets of pressures.
The Halifax Slasher and other mass hysterias throughout history
In Halifax, England, circa 1938, two women claimed to have been attacked by a man with a mallet, wearing bright buckles on his shoes. Five days later, another woman reported a similar attack. Soon, attacks were being reported all over town, swapping the mallet for a knife or a razor. Scotland Yard showed up, local police and vigilante groups patrolled the streets, all looking for the Halifax Slasher.
Townspeople began to accuse one another, resulting in several injuries before one of the alleged victims admitted he had injured himself. The other victims soon followed suit. The Halifax Slasher had never existed. If we’re being more generous, he did exist, but only in the collective consciousness of the townspeople.
In the late 14th century, thousands of German people took to the streets and danced together until they fell over from exhaustion. Similar instances impacted other communities across Europe. Outbreaks of hysterical illness also occur in nunneries, factories, and other places where life is highly regimented.
Singapore saw six cases of mass hysteria in factories between 1973 and 1978. Symptoms included sudden screaming and violence, trance states, fear, coldness, numbness, dizziness, and the sense that workers were being controlled or influenced by wicked spirits.
In 1962, dozens of workers in a U.S. textile factory started exhibiting nausea and outbreaks on their skin. Some of them believed they had been bitten by bugs from a fabric shipment, but no bugs were ever found. Analysis after the fact found that most of the affected individuals were responsible for supporting their families, were overworked, and overstressed.
Making sense of mass hysteria, as portrayed in Peacock's Hysteria!
In recent years, mass hysteria has made the jump to the internet. Doctors have seen an uptick in Tourette’s-like tics and other symptoms, mostly in young girls. While prior instances of mass hysteria were constrained to communities or groups of interrelated people, the advent of social media allowed this particular psychogenic illness to spread internationally.
Several popular internet creators with Tourette’s or at least exhibiting Tourette’s-like symptoms have cropped up on visual social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Interestingly, as these creators have grown in popularity, so too has the number of patients reporting their own tics. Importantly, many of the individuals exhibit behaviors which superficially resemble Tourette’s but are clearly distinct to medical experts. Researchers traced the online outbreak to anxieties about the environment and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Whether we’re talking about dancing in the street, faking a slasher, factory ghosts, or Tourette’s spreading on TikTok, the common thread in all these cases is overwhelming stress. When the mind is overwhelmed by stressors, it will find a way to communicate that, even if we often misinterpret the brain saying, “I need a break” to mean “your son has been possessed by demonic forces.”
Watch Hysteria! Streaming now on Peacock!
