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Mass Hysteria Research Paper

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"Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven" (1156 Crucible). Mass hysteria has been an issue all throughout history. The root cause of this is usually just misinformation or straight up lies. Although sometimes you cannot blame the people who regard the hysteria as truth. Threatening someone's livelihood, family, and well being causes them to think irrationally. Mass hysteria in a time or crisis can result in an overreaction and loss of critical thinking. Examples of this throughout history are the Salem Witch Trials, The Red Scare, and the 2012 Mayan Calendar scare.
Within the Salem Witch Trials, was a vast amount of hysteria that cost the lives of many people. Religion and “the devil” played a key role in the cause of the trials and even does today “The Christian belief in the existence of the Devil is widely accepted in modern-America” (Kenneth). The use of unknown evils as well as spectral evidence to instill fear into the commoners propelled the hysteria “witchcraft is... an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it?” (Miller). Leaders of the court realize that witchcraft is something with no real evidence to it other than he said she said. Evidence during this time was allowed to be completely circumstantial, which in turn made claims by people get too much traction too quickly. Even the more level headed characters in the crucible could succumb to the nonsense. One of …show more content…
This idea spread throughout the 2000s to the point where a vast amount of people believed it “Nearly 15 percent of people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime and 10 percent think the Mayan calendar could signify it will happen in 2012” (Michuad). People were getting easily caught up with this notion of the world ending around the world. Fear became the propulsion for the craze while knowledge was put on the back

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