The Psychology of Magic - Blog 4
I first read about mass psychogenic illness a couple weeks ago in a book for my honors class on empathy. The book is called Born for Love, by Dr. Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz. Mass psychogenic illness (formerly called epidemic hysteria) involves the spread of illness symptoms through a population where there is no infectious agent responsible for contagion. This could look like epileptic fits, breaking out in hysterical laughter, or vomiting, which then spread to others nearby. The most common victims of mass psychogenic illness are teen and preteen girls. Now, what does this have to do with witches, witchcraft, or magic? Well, you can imagine my surprise when I'm reading a book on empathy and the next thing I know there's a paragraph on the Salem witch trials.
Dr. Perry talks about how one main suspected historical case of mass psychogenic illness was the outbreak that then produced the Salem witch trials. As we touched briefly on it in class, the Salem witch trials began with a teenage girl and two preteens. They began having fits that seemed like severe seizures. This was interpreted, of course, as being caused by witches in some way or another. I find it extremely fascinating to think about the psychology behind this possible explanation for "fits" of people who were deemed as being under a witch's spell. It is especially interesting when we consider that a good amount of accused witches fell in the preteen and teen category, the most common victim population of mass psychogenic illness. While in reality, we probably will never know exactly what happened with the Salem witch trials and why execution was the only answer, it is interesting to think about the different theories of what happened. I'm excited to begin our book on the Salem witch trials to hopefully explore these theories more, and see if there is any discussion on the psychological aspect of being bewitched.
While pondering this connection between mass psychogenic illness and the Salem witch trials, it got me thinking about the overall relationship between psychology and magic. The human brain is quite magical itself when we take the time to study and understand it more. Additionally, when I think of modern day magic tricks, they're usually some sort of illusion, where the magician knows how to get our brain focused on something else so we can't see or understand what's right in front of us. And when an individual get their fortune told (whether through tarot cards, palm reading, or something else) and is convinced that it comes true, was it really because the "magician" could read their fortune or was it because that individual was then looking for whatever it was the "magician" told them? We even talked in class about how a Ouija board has as much power as you're willing to give it. This link between the power of the mind and the power of magic is one worth exploring most definitely.
Great blog. I love your comment that the human brain is magical. I truly believe it is, and I wholly believe in the ultimate power of belief. Believing creates and animates. What is deeply believed becomes real. Such is the case in the witch hunts, and in Salem. I was not familiar with the term, mass psychogenic illness. I've always used the older term, mass hysteria. But both work. I've also read about a mass hysteria of laughing in Africa during the 1950s. You probably learned about this too. It was the same overall patterns of a group of young females breaking our into contagious fits, only their fits were laughter. All young women who were disenfranchised, marginal, and fearful. But most of those accused in Salem were not young girls but older women and men. Of the 19 executed, the ages ranged from late 30s to 70s, and thus all adults. What's interesting, as you note, is that most of the most active accusers were young females.
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