Lee Kuhnle

And I think that's sort of how we're being created, right?

It's just like, take the scary option.

Or something is happening.

Like, I'm sure they would have had a certain kind of worldview and ideology that made sense of this.

Maybe it was demonic possession or maybe it was some kind of spiritual ecstasy.

And so this could be a means of transmission.

You know, if you get close to somebody who is possessed by a demon, maybe the evil forces are kind of latching on to you.

Now, how we describe it to ourselves is maybe less relevant than the fact that we do note throughout history that there are these moments where there is a kind of a weird group dynamic that starts to take over, specifically around this kind of

a illness in a sense, this kind of sense where something is happening to me and I can transmit it to you.

It's almost like a social placebo, if that makes any sense.

Maybe it's not the best metaphor.

I should have worked on that before.

Yeah.

So, of course, the consequences are really tragic.

And I'm sure your audience all knows about it.

But what I found really interesting is that the very origin of the Salem witch trials begins with precisely this kind of psychogenic illness or mass psychogenic illness.

So it's 1692, Salem, Massachusetts.

Yeah, you're right.

The language around it is not great.

And the language is also quite off-putting if you're on the receiving end of being told, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is, you're, quote, unquote, making it up, which is often how this is interpreted.