Picture credit: The Straits TimesThings You Need To Know About Mass Hysteria, Following Outbreak In Kelantan Schools
Several schools in Kota Bharu, Kelantan have been overwhelmed by a series of mass hysteria or what is more commonly known as body possession cases that have affected mostly female school children since last week.
Following the first case of mass hysteria in SMK Pengkalan Chepa 2 that has affected as many as 100 students and school staffs to date, other schools surrounding the area started showing signs of the spreading hysteria.
Just this week alone, 3 more schools, SMK Pengkalan Chepa 1, SMK Kemumin and SMK Kubang Kerman 3 have reported cases of mass hysteria, forcing some of the schools to be temporarily shut down to allow bomohs, ustaz and religious traditional practitioners to cleanse the schools off supposedly bad spirits.
Some students have claimed to have seen supernatural beings terrorizing students around the school area. Sightings of infamous ‘local ghosts’ such as the pontianak, pochong and black spectres have been widely reported.
"They can consult either hospitals (modern medical experts) or traditional medical practitioners as well as take other actions which they deem relevant to overcome the problems at hand," Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid had said in a public statement today.
According to earlier media reports, both traditional Malay and Chinese traditional 'bomohs' have been called to SMK Pengkalan Chepa to no avail.
Events of such epidemic proportions relating to so-called ‘supernatural causes’ have contributed to most documented cases of mass hysteria.
The acts of perceiving actions of evil spirits tend to indirectly reproduce and ignite typical symptoms of hysteria, or otherwise known as intense anxiety.
Hysteria, by its basic definition describes uncontrollable emotional excess, usually accompanied by sudden seizures of unconsciousness with emotional outbursts.
Mass hysteria on the hand, describes mass public near-panic situations, which has often quoted to be contagious given the power of suggestion on the mind of people in close proximity or contact to one another, according to the author of a book on supernatural beliefs.
Men hold down a spectator in a trance, Indonesia, 2008. Photograph: Dwi Oblo/Reuters
John Waller had provided a gripping account of the 'wild dancing epidemic' that brought death and fear to 16th-century Strasbourg in his book 'A Time to Dance, A Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518'.
"Similar outbreaks have recently been reported in locations from Kuala Lumpur to Mexico City and rural Bangladesh...Schools in Europe and the US have also been struck by contagions of vomiting, itching, dizziness and seizures. In fact, mass hysteria seems to be part of the human condition. And it has a rich, bizarre, and often tragic history," Waller noted.
In relation to mass hysteria occurring in our local schools, other than claims of sightings of supernatural creatures, the strain of exams on students has also been credited to be the main trigger for hysteria.
It is considered contagious in the sense that it can be feed off by the power of suggestion that is inspired by fear, sadness and anxiety, which will all lead to sudden bouts of panic attacks, Waller had outlined in his book., The Guardian reports
The teaming up of supernatural beings terrorizing students and school faculty has no factual basis in relation to these cases of mass hysteria or ‘body possession’ phenomenon.
All it takes is the right kind of fear and false beliefs to fuel and trigger ‘mass delusions.'
Malaysian Digest
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