Witchcraft and hysteria are linked as people convicted of witchcraft were believed to have suffered from mass hysteria. The Salem witch trials were a result of unexplained physical ailments, leading to mass hysteria in a society where all misfortunes were attributed to supernatural causes.
Witchcraft and hysteria are related because people convicted of being witches are believed to have suffered from mass hysteria. Mass hysteria occurs when an individual exhibits symptoms of an illness and then people around him or her start exhibiting similar symptoms believing they have caught the cause of the first person’s symptoms. An oft-cited case of witchcraft and hysteria is the Salem witch trials, where hundreds of innocent men and women were accused of being witches and, in some cases, tortured and killed. Belief in witchcraft dates back hundreds of years and spans countries around the world, although the specifics and acceptance of it varies.
Stress, certain medical conditions, and fear are some potential causes of hysteria. Its presence makes a person overwhelmed with emotion to the point that sometimes he cannot speak or walk. At one point hysteria was believed to be a health problem caused by a woman’s uterus and cured by pregnancy. Modern doctors have mostly given up on the term hysteria in favor of more specific diagnoses. In fact, some past doctors have documented hundreds or sometimes thousands of symptoms of hysteria, so essentially any unexplained medical condition could be attributed to it.
Mass hysteria is a little different from the hysteria experienced by a person. This type of hysteria can affect hundreds of people due to one person or an accident. For example, an individual might experience a real attack from an undiagnosed health condition, but the people in the same room or city as that individual only know that he or she has had strange symptoms. When those people believe that the original condition is contagious or that the source of the problem has also afflicted them, mass hysteria occurs. Witchcraft and hysteria are linked due to historical examples where mass hysteria has been triggered by suspected witchcraft.
The Salem witch trials were the result of unexplained physical ailments in an environment without proper scientific understanding, ultimately leading to mass hysteria. Not only did the citizens of Salem not understand modern science, but they lived in a society where all misfortunes were attributed to supernatural causes. People who were first accused of being witches during this event were accused of harming young girls. These girls have been behaving strangely, but the true cause of their ailments has not been discovered. Witchcraft and hysteria are related because this combination of events, combined with an uneasy wartime atmosphere and a strongly religious society, led to many people being accused of witchcraft.
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