Mass Hysteria in The Crucible

Understanding the psychology behind the Salem witch trials

Last week, St Andrews saw a production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, a play chronicling the Salem Witch Trials, when a series of villagers were tried and hanged for witchcraft. The play begins with the mysterious illness that has possessed the Reverend Parris’ daughter after a night of “dancing” in the forest. Parris calls for a doctor, declaring: “Let him look to medicine and put out all thought of unnatural causes.”

Our confidence in Parris’ conviction is short-lived; he’s already summoned another minister, Reverend Hale, and within minutes, he has whipped himself into a “frantic terror,” shrieking that his daughter’s friends have been “conjuring spirits.” There is a thread of humour running through this play, and it shines in Sofia David’s production. The people of Salem become convinced that the devil is among them and come up with a plan that is backed by the law: a person suspected of witchery can easily be acquitted if they name several other “witches” that they’ve seen with the devil. Soon, half the village has been legally declared a witch — the real trials even sentenced a couple of dogs.

It is reasonable to wonder what The Crucible is doing in the Science and Technology section of The Saint. The play’s melodrama obscures the reality of the events it describes; Miller even intended it as an analogy for McCarthyism, a series of trials conducted to weed out communism in America. Parris’ call for medical hypotheses has been answered, and the terror that gripped Salem is now commonly attributed to mass hysteria. The reasons for this condition, more properly termed mass psychogenic illness (MPI), is unclear but is generally thought to begin in restrictive societies under extreme socioeconomic strain. Evidence suggests that under the right social conditions, anyone is susceptible to MPI.

Some argue that most cases of MPI can be attributed to physiological causes. For example, Linnda Caporael’s ‘ergot theory’ is a well-known example in the context of the Salem Witch Trials. Caporael hypothesises that ergot fungus growing on rye caused hallucinogenic symptoms in villagers. This theory remains controversial, however, as it fails to explain why some members of the same family remained unaffected by the sickness. Moreover, as the Salem Witch Museum describes on its website, the hysteria’s characteristics do not match typical ergotism epidemics.

MPI isn’t just the quirk of a village filled with religious fervour and small-town gossip. It still happens today. Common instances of MPI in the twentieth and 21st centuries involve outbreaks spurred by responses to terrorism or environmental concerns about the quality of food and water. In 2015, The Guardian reported a case in a school in Ripon where 40 children became nauseous and had fainting spells. With no underlying cause found, the episode is considered a recent case of MPI, though some argue that the spraying of a banned pesticide in a nearby field may have led to the affliction.

Today, we are still trying to heed the words of Parris and “look to medicine” to solve the mystery of MPI. The jury is still out when it comes to figuring out what causes it, but the historical evidence clearly shows that the symptoms presented in The Crucible are not unique to the events that happened in Salem. Understanding what drives this mysterious condition requires a forensic examination of each individual instance. Miller’s examination of Salem in The Crucible can help show us how this is done.

Image by Wikipedia Commons