Poetry by Kay Cude. Used with permission.
Mass psychogenic illness or demonic possession? Anomaly or common? Diagnosis depends on worldview
In 2012 I posted a series of essay tracking an unusual incident that occurred in LeRoy NY, where a number of teenage girls (and one boy) suddenly began twitching and shaking and involuntarily emitting other body movements for weeks, to the point where their sports an schooling were impacted. It sounded to me like a supernatural event, though many scientists and civic luminaries, even the famed environmental lawyer Erin Brockovich, attempted to narrow down the cause to a secular or scientific reason. They couldn’t.
In that essay series, I’d mentioned a similar historical incident and that was the Salem Witch Trials, where the ‘symptoms’ were similar.
In posting this Throwback, I’m including a new-to-me piece of information that a friend sent. The Dancing Plague of 1518 is strikingly similar to the above two, the LeRoy NY and Salem incidents. In 1518 Strasbourg, a women suddenly began shaking and dancing in the main street and never stopped. She kept it up for a week. Others began the same, some dancing until they dropped of sheer exhaustion or even died of heart attack or physical stress. The dancing was involuntary. Up to 400 people were affected and there were many deaths.
It is an extremely well documented incident, and no one at the time knew why it began or why it ended. Some scientists then and now surmised there was a toxic mold in the in the rye the people were eating, others today put it down to the same thing that the LeRoy and Salem incidents seemed to be: mass psychosis / mass hysteria. Sometimes it is called ‘conversion disorder.’ This medical epidemiologist said in the linked article just above,
According to medical epidemiologist Timothy Jones, an assistant clinical professor of preventative medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, who also reported an incident of hysteria in Belgium following soft-drink consumption, “Outbreaks of psychogenic illness are likely to be more common than is currently appreciated, and many go unrecognized.”
It is more common than one would think. There are other historic and well-documented mass psychogenic illnesses, including a mass laughing hysteria in Tanzania then continued for 18 months, for example, among many others.
We tend to dismiss such incidents in today’s world, being modern and all that. But when we see sustained, documented cases for which there has been sought a scientific, medical, of civic reason to no avail, it would do well to remember that the evil supernatural is alive and well in the world. Though many origins and causes were proposed, the resulting diagnosis was the same as all the other incidents, mass psychogenic illness. When you see a diagnosis of mass psychogenic illness, the Christian could well be thinking “mass demonic possession”. Don’t dismiss the supernatural possibility. Though we don’t want to become ensnared in an unholy obsession, we do want to be realistic about what the Bible says about demonic activity.
The fact that this occurs more commonly than thought, that the symptoms are nearly identical over centuries and in places distant to each other and in societies widely disparate, made History honors thesis researcher Laura Hatchman at least, came to the conclusion that demonic possession cannot be ruled out “even to this very day.”
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8).
Now to the throwback essay, I wrote this in June 2012:
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On January of this year, I posted an essay which reported that students at a western NY high school in LeRoy NY had come down with…something. At that time, doctors, school officials, and parents were not sure what they were dealing with. A bunch of girls who attend the school suddenly started showing symptoms of Tourette’s Syndrome. They began twitching, having tics, involuntary movements, and for some, their schooling was impacted. They had to drop out of sports teams or drop out of school entirely.
Then a teacher at the school came down with it, and several other people, including a couple of boys. At that point it made national news. The school had conducted tests to determine if their location was a cause. The famed environmental lawyer Erin Brokovich came on the scene to determine if there was an environmental cause. Doctors were consulted. Everyone came up with empty hands.
One doctor dared to state that it was probably a condition known as “mass hysteria” but that diagnosis was resisted. They decided to simply call it Tourette’s. At that point I got interested. Mass Hysteria is a real diagnosis, and is one that is at root of another famed incident: the Salem Witch Trials.
Here are the two previous essays I posted on the Leroy NY mass hysteria incident.
January 20, 2012: “Outbreak of mass hysteria (or demon infestation) in Leroy NY”
January 28, 2012: “Update on LeRoy NY Tourette’s outbreak”
There is new news of the incident. They found no toxins anywhere, the girls were not on drugs, vaccines were ruled out, Tourette’s doesn’t have sudden onset (they finally admitted) and eventually a diagnosis of mass hysteria was declared unequivocally this week:
“Mass Hysteria Confirmed in NY School”
“A bizarre illness affecting nearly 20 students at a Western New York Junior-Senior High school now has an official diagnosis: mass hysteria.The students, almost all of them girls, and mostly friends, began experiencing involuntary jerks and tics. Sometimes their limbs, neck or face would suddenly spasm; other times they would twitch, grunt, or shout. It was strange and troubling behavior, made all the more scary because it had no clear cause.”
“Mass psychogenic disorder is a rare — but not unheard of — phenomenon. The disorder is usually characterized by the mysterious spread of a variety of symptoms without a discernible cause. It frequently occurs in isolated communities. Teenagers and girls are also frequent victims. Collective hysteria can spread when a fear exists of exposure to a disease, combined with a contained, stressful environment.”
This is very interesting to me because as I mentioned in the two essays I linked to above, the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600s began in exactly this same way. Several teenage girls began manifesting symptoms remarkably like the girls in NY, and like wildfire, the ‘disease’ spread from house to house. The reasons for the hangings that resulted has multiple and complex reasons- cultural, religious, demonic, and societal. There was a feud going on between the merchants and the farmers. A growing town always fights over its direction (to develop or not to develop?) when they hit an important crossroads in its identity. The girls admitted to experimenting with voodoo with Tituba, their South American Indian maid who had been a slave in Barbados. Tituba had also made a witchcake containing dog urine and rye, which is fed to a dog in hopes of determining the person afflicting the sick.
Boredom, pride, and covetousness, and gossip can equally be said to blame for the Salem incident’s catalyst. And satan is behind all of those, not to mention the localized practices of voodoo, casting bones, and fortune telling some of the girls and Tituba admitted to!
As the year of the Witch Trials crescendoed and then ended with a whimper, the aftermath included church-wide repentance, and in particular, “On August 25, 1706, Ann Putnam Jr., one of the most active accusers, joined the Salem Village church, she publicly asked forgiveness. She claimed that she had not acted out of malice, but was being deluded by Satan into denouncing innocent people…” (source)
Any time there is unexplained mass illness it needs to be looked at carefully by the officials whose duty it is to serve and protect the vulnerable in our society. However in this day and age, demonic influence is rarely discussed as a possible root cause of the problem. It was all right for the “backward Puritcanical Bible thumpers” to blame satan, but not today.
As I mentioned, the reasons that the Salem Witch Hysteria took off were complex, coming to the fore from a variety of factors. However, the Salem incident is listed today among the medical texts as a case of mass psychogenic illness. (source)
The same could well be true of the Leroy Mass Hysteria incident. There is one question I am sure was not asked amid the tests and diagnoses and reports that resulted in 6000 pages which concluded “We don’t know why this is happening”. Were the girls experimenting with tarot, palm reading, fortune telling or occult in any way? The answer would be very revealing.
Traci Leubner, one of the girls afflicted, said of the Leroy NY testing results, “It’s freaky, because they didn’t find anything. There wasn’t like a, ‘this is what happened’. It was kind of mysterious.” (source)
Please be in continued prayer for the Leroy NY girls and also for the vulnerable of our society everywhere. I long for the day when our children will be safe.
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Further reading
A retrospective looking at the facts:
The Non-Mysterious Mass Illness in Le Roy, New York
The American Family Physician Magazine: What Is Mass Psychogenic Illness?
What’s My Problem With Beth Moore, Anyway?
This is what they forget
Two thousand years is a long time. That’s two centuries.Two bundles of hundreds. Fifty generations, give or take. A long time.
Jesus ascended sometime around 33 AD. Before He left, He promised to come back.
He is coming back.
Men of Galilee,” they said, “Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11).
When He returns, sinners will stand before Him to receive their punishment for their sins. (Psalm 145:20).
We will stand before Him also. We won’t be receiving wrath or condemnation or punishment as the wicked will, but we will account for everything we said and everything we did in His name. (2 Corinthians 5:10, Matthew 12:36, Revelation 22:12).
We have one job. As Christians, we are charged with bringing one message and one message only, containing its necessary elements, to people whom Jesus charged should hear it. (All the world.) We have a job title: Ambassador. Continue reading “This is what they forget”
Our inheritance: It is only going to be one or the other
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 6:23)
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
(2 Corinthians 5:21)
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.
(Mark 1:15)
Social Justice, the Global Church, and Controversies
It has been dizzying this past 3 months in the evangelical wider world, and very worrying in the online evangelical world. The controversies have been deep and fervent. The lines between camps within visible Christianity have widened. Seemingly stable ministries have suddenly swerved hard.
There have been numerous events and controversies which reveal that we are less than unified over Christian foundational beliefs.
The April conference called MLK50 sparked a division in how we as Christians are to approach race discussions. TGC and GCC’s coupling for a west coast conference titled “Enduring Faithfulness” sparked a discussion about how far to delve into the culture and which topics are truly Gospel centered. Agreement was not reached and the two entities uncoupled. Beth Moore’s Letter to Brothers charged the global church with misogyny and threw gas in the cultural #MeToo movement, which in turn and inflamed the evangelical world’s discussion about the global church’s ‘treatment’ of women and their roles.
The ReVoice conference did the same for same-sex attraction and gay identity within Christianity. Paige Patterson was fired. The SBC messengers/members briefly seemed to flirt with the nomination of a woman, sparking a discussion about whether “women are called to positions of leadership” in church or para-churches. International Mission Board President David Platt delivered a 6-minute report to the SBC affirming Isa as Messiah and conversion through Muslim dreams. Popular actor Chris Pratt mentioned God and grace at an awards speech and the undiscerning Christian world joyfully affirmed it as Gospel, sparking a discussion about what the Gospel is and how many elements of it one needs in order to match the biblical message.
Todd Friel of Wretched Radio published a 23-minute excellent video talking about “The Gathering Storm: A Split in the Reformed World“.
In this 1-minute clip, Alistair Begg reminds us that the church’s mandate is not economic, social, or political. However the global church for so long now has been browbeat with the message that it is, that “people who should know better” have allowed its tendrils to creep into their minds and make inroads.
It has been a wild spring.
Nate Pickowitz is a New England pastor and author. Bio below. His wife Jessica wrote a wonderful study guide to the MacArthur/Mayhue tome Biblical Doctrine. This week Nate tweeted a series covering these issues in a gracious and insightful way. He said that “In truth, this thing has so many tendrils, it’s near impossible to wrap my brain around all that it is, but I’m trying.” I am too. I’ve ridden the roller coaster and in the end put my head in my hands wondering “What is happening?!?!”
I decided that still and always my personal call to action is the same as it’s always been. Share the Gospel. Remind people of what the Gospel is. Urge people to reject any different Gospel. Use social media to present these messages. Repeat.
Here is Nate’s message. Perhaps it will help you solidify some thoughts about all this.
—————–Nate Pickowitz—————–
I’ve got serious pastoral concerns about recent growing trends in Evangelicalism. In truth, it seems to fall under one complex, multi-faceted mechanism. Frankly, I’m not sure if using labels is helping or hurting.
We’re seeing terms like “social justice,” “Cultural Marxism,” “liberalism,” even “intersectionality.” Advocates of this movement flatly reject these terms (perhaps they don’t subscribe to all the tenets of them), but we’re certainly seeing a noticeable movement in full force.
In truth, this thing has so many tendrils, it’s near impossible to wrap my brain around all that it is, but I’m trying.
I believe that there are some advocates of this who are masquerading as Christians who are not. I also believe that there are genuine, regenerate Christians who are part of this as well.
However, my biggest concern has to do with the gospel itself. What is the gospel? The gospel is “good news”—it is the message of what Jesus Christ has done on the cross to save us from condemnation due to sin. And this work reconciles us, first to God, second to other believers.
So, “reconciliation” is key. Again, it is primarily about us and God, but when we are transferred into His kingdom, we are reconciled to every other blood-bought believer through the very same gospel.
However, Jesus never promises prosperity, societal prominence, earthly equity, an end to suffering, earthly utopia, freedom from insult & injustice, political success, or any other earthly temporal blessing.
We are seated with Christ “in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:3); we live in the hope of an inheritance that is imperishable, not for earthly gains that are perishable.
With all that being said, there is certainly spiritual fruit that comes from the gospel; there are gospel effects. Regenerate Christians love others, serve others, give to others, seek to help strangers. This is all true.
But this movement seems to be seeking the effects of the gospel, and preaching them *as* gospel. Further, they make the effects non-negotiable mandates. As if to say, affirmative action is our primary Christian mission… except that, it’s not.
Preaching the gospel, making disciples, bearing witness to Christ by our testimony and lifestyle—those are all mandates of our mission. The social benefits are, to a smaller degree, the fruit & not the root.
However, this movement pushes back and is actively fighting for social fruit. And that’s where ‘intersectionality’ comes into play. This is the overarching tool of social justice.
By grouping people into nice, neat categories, they can be dealt with en masse, and coalitions of like-minded proponents can put pressure on others to force them to give them what they want.
This is, at its core, a version of Marxism—to see two classes (the haves & the have nots) warring against each other, with the ‘have not’ minority class attempting to overthrow the “privileged” majority class. But is that what Christ would have us do?
Are we social revolutionaries? Are we culture warriors? Are we supposed to be aggressively fighting to gain earthly benefits? While Bible verses are being used in various ways (ways foreign to the history of biblical interpretation), the scope of the Bible doesn’t support it.
At best, this social focus is a gospel distraction; at worst, it is a gospel distortion. I’m starting to believe that it is anti-gospel and anti-Christian.
Does it affect our churches? Absolutely, it does! The ministries, leaders, and resources being distributed are finding their way into the local church. Even small-town, senior citizen churchgoers have Facebook, and watch videos from online ministries.
We lament Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar videos, pushing prosperity gospel to our people. We ought to lament this as well. Because what is the net effect? Gospel confusion and gospel misrepresentation.
Anybody who does any level of biblical counseling knows that victimhood is the number one enemy of true repentance and spiritual growth. If I can blame someone else for my problems, then I can avoid responsibility.
I fear the social justice movement is creating an environment where Christians are seeing themselves as victims, and not as beneficiaries of divine grace.
Further, where are the exhortations toward forgiveness, forbearance, endurance, humility, and grace? When was the last time you heard a social justice leader expound on Jesus’ teaching to “turn the other cheek”?
I’m not saying that there aren’t problems. Yes, racism exists, injustice exists, hatred exists; because sin exists! But how do we deal with these sins? The same way we deal with any other sin.
Now, believers who have repented of sins may feel led to impact those they’ve wronged in a positive, social way. But is it the church’s job to mandate it? Or is it up to personal conviction? Shaming the Bride into action is not of Christ.
What is the way forward? To be honest, I’m not 100% certain of every single step. But I know that our mandate is to continue to preach the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, to call sinners to repentance, to preach God’s wrath & grace, and to love the Body.
And for what it’s worth, I reject all pejorative labels, classes, and categorizations. I’m not a “white Evangelical.” My name is Nate, and I’m a bondslave of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Addendum: This isn’t my “hot take”—I’ve been watching things for several months, reading articles & books, talking with dozens of pastors. While I’ve repented of unkind or hurtful engagement, I want to be faithful to stand for the things I’m convinced are biblically true.
———————end Nate Pickowitz———————
Back to me now.
Decades of biblical illiteracy, personal prophecies, heaven tourism, the New Apostolic Reformation, IHOP/Bethel and the Charismaniacs, false professions of faith/false converts, tolerance of sin have deeply damaged the evangelical stance on the sufficiency of scripture and many other doctrines. It has tarnished the Gospel witness of the church. But that is to be expected.
Though other churches existed at the time Jesus wrote to the 7 mentioned in Revelation, of the 7, only 2 received no condemnation. That means of this particular microcosm, 72% of the churches had a significant enough problem within it to cause Jesus to write and threaten their dissolution. This kind of percentage is normal. It is even magnanimous, I believe. Most of the global church is bloated with non-believers or with people who are so apathetic for Christ or so distorted in their thinking their witness is practically nil.
However, the good news is that Jesus always leaves a remnant. His people are true and beautiful and working for His glory. They are sprinkled all around the world like salt, seasoning their spheres with truth and the Good News of His name. People newly converted are growing. Missions are working. Good books are being written. Solid sermons are being broadcast. Lives are being changed. Minds are being transformed. It IS happening.
None of this is a surprise to Jesus. While it may unsettle us to see such devastating controversy, and while it may dismay us to see its tendrils creep into our churches, and while it may upset us to see those tendrils go ignored or concerns about them discarded, Jesus is brightly shining and His glory is being manifested in every heart who truly knows Him. The Savior is victorious and the Church is triumphant.
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Pastor Nate Pickowicz (B.A., Muhlenberg College, M.A., Trinity Theological Seminary) was raised in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire, where he now lives with his wife, Jessica, and two children, Jack and Elizabeth. Before planting Harvest Bible Church, Nate worked in financial services until being called into ministry in 2009. He is the author of Reviving New England: The Key to Revitalizing Post-Christian America, and Why We’re Protestant: An Introduction to the Five Solas of the Reformation. He is also the general editor of The American Puritans Series.
Word of the Week: Propitiation
3. Immanence
2. Transcendence
1. Justification
A definition would be:
The satisfaction of the righteous demands of God in relation to human sin and its punishment through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ upon the cross, by which the penalty of sin is cancelled and the anger of God averted. [The NIV is distinctive at this point, in that it generally translates this term by “atonement” and related words.]. Source: Dictionary of Bible Themes, Martin Manser.
An explanation would be:
“Propitiate” and “propitiation” are not commonly used in the English language. We must look to an age long gone in order to discern their meaning. In ancient times, many polytheists thought of their gods as unpredictable beings, liable to become angry with their worshipers for any trifle. When any misfortune occurred, it was believed that a god was angry and was therefore punishing his worshipers. The remedy was to offer the god a sacrifice to appease his anger. This process was called “propitiation.”
A few of the New Testament writers used exactly the same word, but the meaning was slightly different. Instead of seeing God as one whose mood needs to be appeased, “propitiation” focuses on the sacrifice of Jesus by death on the cross which brought the resultant peace between God and sinful humanity.
The Greek term for “propitiation,” hilasmos, occurs in some important passages: Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10. The message we get from these passages is that propitiation (also called “expiation”) pertains to Christ’s sacrifice for sins in order to bring about a peaceful relationship between God and humanity. Source: Holman treasury of key Bible words, by Carpenter, E. E., & Comfort, P.
The key verses for our word propitiation are in Romans 3:25–26, where Christ Jesus,
whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
and in 1 John 2:1-2,
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
The effects of propitiation: God’s justice is satisfied, His wrath has been exhausted, His mercy is available to those who repent.
3. Immanence
2. Transcendence
1. Justification
Prata’s Place / Graceful Garlands: Gradual Growth
My title comes from,
Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. Proverbs 1:8-9.
Kay Cude poetry: The Tunnel
Kay Cude Poetry. Used with permission.
About that face…
But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? (2 Corinthians 3:7)
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)
There is another kind of face:
Therefore the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come; yet you have the forehead of a whore; you refuse to be ashamed. (Jeremiah 3:3).
and thou hadst a whore’s forehead; was impudent and unconcerned, repented not of sin, or blushed for it, though such judgments were upon them; ~Gill’s Exposition
We gain a bit of context here about the Jeremiah verse, from Ligonier devotional-
This analogy lies behind today’s passage wherein Jeremiah accuses the old covenant community of having “the forehead of a whore” and refusing “to be ashamed” (3:1–3). A harlot can only “work” consistently if she suppresses the shameful feelings that attend her deeds. She must lose all sense of embarrassment and be unable to blush. Israel has a harlot’s forehead, she no longer turns red with shame over her wickedness (6:15). ~Ligonier
So there’s two kinds of faces. The one that glows as it basks in the light and glory of Jesus, and the face that turns away to seek sin, and is so taken by it that it refuses to blush.
John Owen wrote about Indwelling Sin in the Believer, and here in chapter 8 in modernized language he discusses the deceitfulness of sin,
It is always carried on by degrees, little by little, so that the whole design and aim is not revealed at once. … Now, this effect of the deceit of sin is worked upon the mind. The mind or understanding, as we have shown, is the guiding, the conducting faculty of the soul. It goes before — in discerning, judging, and determining — to make the way of moral actions fair and smooth to the will and the affections.
For our faces to glow, as it were, our face must be looking at Jesus, our mind consumed with Him, stirring our affections, convicting us of sin, transforming it to His mind.
When we look away, the deceitfulness of sin will draw us away as James 1:14 KJV says
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
You see the order of things. The temptation comes after he is drawn away. We are drawn away when we look away.
The solution: don’t look away.
Be vigorous in prayer life, stay reading the Word, assemble with the saints regularly, fellowship with believers to whom one can be transparent and accountable, and frequently enough so they will know you.
You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.” (Psalm 27:8)
the-end-time.org 