Hey this is Cristy D.
I just thought of one story which I think relates to the witchhunt hysteria. I apologize to anyone who I have already told this story. It happened several years ago, but the memory of it still frustrates me. It also reminds me that although we are living in the 20th century with modern technology and science we are not safe from being controlled by unreasonable hysteria.
I was at a birthday sleep-over. There were a lot of girls and no one was going to sleep. During the middle of the night, I came up from the basement to find a group of girls surrounding one girl who seemed to be muttering in her sleep. As I came over and asked what was up they all shhhhhhed me and told me the girl "Molly" was in a "trance". Apparantly, she thought she was the "real" Princess Anastasia and she was about to be kidnapped. The surrounding girls were whispering instructions to her to try and save her. They asked her questions like "what do you see?". When Molly replied that she saw a man in a black coat coming towards her. The girls would say "okay, now turn around and walk quickly away and then start running" Molly would reply "I'm running away but now he is chasing me!" By this point I was rolling my eyes, obviously Molly was just pretending. As I attempted to laugh over it all, the group of girls started to get angry with me, even scolding me "Stop laughing! You'll wake her up!" "No, this is real!" "She's really in a trance!" I realized that unlike myself, no one thought that Molly was pretending. It took me a while to accept this. Although it wasn't full-out hysteria, it was just as consuming and devoid of reason. It was a very unique experience that now allows me to better understand how the village people got caught up in the witchhunts. I dont believe it is simply a matter of greed, or of mercury poisoning. I think that supernatural topics are irresistable to many people. We all enjoy watching magic tricks and some of us believe in ghosts.
One of the reasons I believe this continued so long was because the girls thought it was exciting. Molly obviously was enjoying her power over her audience and kept the game going. (we are still accusing classmates of being "witches" for its entertainment value)
I was later exiled to the basement when I ended up waking up Molly who probably heard me. Because I refused to play "the game" I was left out. Molly would wake up "confused" and asking "what happened?". The girls would rush to explain the story Molly had JUST created and then work to put her back into a "trance". I left the game frustrated and annoyed but realized I could not convince anyone that Molly was pretending. This scared me then and still scares me today. The will of the majority is hard to change and is usually not open to discussion.
When I look back at it, I again begin to doubt if all those girls really believed that Molly was experiencing a parallel universe experience. If they did not, then why did they keep playing the game? Girls were saying how they were "getting freaked out" and "wouldn't be able to sleep" which shows how the "game" got out of control.
So I just thought I'd put my story out there, and see if anyone had any similar experiences, or had any ideas why this "game" kept going the entire night? ( I doubt everyone had mercury poisoning)
some other modern examples I can think of are the War of the Worlds broadcast and how scared people get after watching ghost movies. Its like Mr. Lazarow said, unless someone is undecided, if they are on the fence, we can never really change their mind. It is a scary thought. Why do we all have to be so stubborn? (then are we all already decided on our beliefs on superstitious topics?)
ps. the next morning "Molly" declared she had just been "kidding"
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3 comments:
Hey Cristy. It's Ashley
I actually had a similar experience when I was in elementary school, although mine did not involved entranced girls at a slumber party. Rather, I was convinced that "orbs" existed and was determined to prove they were real. My friend had taken a picture with her new camera, and showed me an odd-looking tiny ball of light burning brightly in the center of the picture. I immediately identified it as an "orb." I spent hours on the internet, researching orbs and similar netherworld creatures. Eventually, my friend told me that she had simply taken a picture in a mirror - that ball of brightly burning light was simply the reflection of the camera's flash.
I felt so unbelievably foolish! How had I let myself get so carried away with this nonsense? And how was my friend able to watch me waste my time getting so upset over something that didn't even exist? I mostly attribute it to the fact that we were very young and incredibly gullible, but people still play these "mind games" even today. I don't think they ever stop playing them.
Why do we let ourselves be duped? I think it's because we like conformity. To all you rebels out there who want to argue against me - I realize that originality is also very important, but you can't deny that you want to feel like you belong, too. You want to feel a part of the group just as much as anyone else does. It's incredibly easy to cave to the desires of the majority, especially at a young age when you are just starting to make new friends. You want to feel accepted, so you go along with what everyone else is doing.
(Please understand that I am not advocating conformity. I am just explaining that at a young age, you are likely to go along with what your friends are doing. At a young age, you don't know any better)
Hey, it's Erin.
I think that people have within them a love for some kind of thrill and the paranormal is one way of satisfying that. I understand what you're talking about. One time I was sleeping over my friend's house and we were looking out the window. We could see her neighbor's roof and someone mentioned something like, what if someone was up there looking down at us. And so we kept going on. It was weird, but after a while I truly expected to see someone up there. It caused sucha strong reaction in me; I wasn't really afraid but I felt that the fear should be real. It's odd, but first you start as a game and make things up, but sooner or later they become so tangible and real and I think that's what gives the thrill. You understand you're just playing a game but you end up freaking yourself out. That's the excitement and maybe that's how it worked out in the witch trials. Mary said she fainted because she thought she saw spirits coming after her. In the end she ended up believing her own tale and I think that people are easily capable of doing that.
I completely agree with Erin. For humanity, fear is paradoxical- we all claim to detest fear but we always seek out a way to find it. To introduce another personal example to this discussion, let me start off by saying that scary movies usually scare me "to bejesus." That being said, a few years ago they were playing "The Shining" on tv and though I KNEW that it had a reputation for being one of the most frightening movies in existence and I KNEW I wouldn't get very much sleep if I watched it, I sneakily changed back to it every few minutes to watch what was going on. I couldn't sleep that night!
Fear is a very powerful motivator and tool. As we have seen, witch-hunts are a perfect (yet sinister) utilization of fear- they have proven to be able to "get the job done." I'm just confounded as to why we shrink away from fear yet surreptitiously follow behind wanting some 'thrill.'
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