Married to Psychosis: What the Dancing Plagues Tell Us About the Stronghold Of Religion Over India's Mental Health.

 

Ashruth Marla

As one examines the manner in which a variety of mental health stigmas manifest in individuals and how they interfere with their ability to seek the required help, it becomes important to look at how one personal, yet social factor—belief in religion plays a role in this process. This is exceptionally pertinent when studying extremely misrepresented disorders such as those that present symptoms of psychosis. Therefore, it becomes important to observe how belief in one’s religion can potentially supersede concerns of help-seeking and treatment. In doing so, this blogpost aims to firstly contextualise one historical manifestation of psychogenic-illness, namely “The Dancing Plague” to understand the relationship between psychosis and religion. It will then arrive at how India’s disproportionate reliance on faith can be detrimental to help-seeking in individuals exhibiting psychotic symptoms. 

Psychosis is defined as a break in reality, where a person develops a severe impairment in being able to judge what is real and what is not (Hooley et al., 2021). Hooley et al. (2021), elucidates that psychosis is a hallmark of schizophrenia. A noteworthy symptom of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders is experiencing delusions, which are false beliefs that persist despite clear contrary evidence (Hooley et al., 2021). Most forms of psychotic disorders exhibit some form of delusions (NHS, 2022). Delusions of grandeur, wherein an individual thinks of themself as being famous or having supernatural powers (Kiran & Chaudhary, 2009) and paranoid delusions, are the two kinds of psychotic delusions (NHS, n.d.).

In investigating the effect of religious beliefs on mental-health outcomes in the case of psychotic disorders, religious delusions emerge as a pertinent link between the two. Religious delusions are a phenomenon where a person experiences delusions that involve religious ideations, themes and people (Sims, 2012). Notions of grandeur or paranoia can be witnessed over the perceived presence of demonic entities during such delusions (Sims, 2012).  

India’s sordid fascination with replacing medical care with religion and faith healers is not unfamiliar, yet is unfortunately, very prevalent even with an increase in dialogue surrounding mental-health. Kate et al., (2012) note that 66-70% of patients suffering from schizophrenia incorporate at least one non-biomedical explanatory model of supernatural type. Surprisingly, it has also been found that 11.8% of medical professionals in Delhi believed that fasting or consulting a faith healer can cure people from mental illnesses (Kishore et al., 2011). These patients reported that they would rather confide in someone they know or a religious figure when facing mental health problems. Only 15.6% of urban and 34.4% rural patients mentioned that they would go to a psychiatrist (Kishore et al., 2011). 

The tendencies illustrated in these statistics have stayed consistent throughout history and across borders with similar devastating consequences. One particular set of events that come to mind, is the dancing plagues that took over Western-Europe with cases ranging from the 13th century to the 17th century (Waller, 2009). The incidence of the plagues started out with one person dancing against their will until their feet bruised to the point of bleeding (Bauer, 2017). The person would dance uncontrollably until they passed out from exhaustion, this continued once the person woke up for days or in some cases, months. Strangers would join in on the frenzy leading to an epidemic. Once, 200 people in the case of 1374 Western-Germany danced on a bridge until it broke-down, drowning all of them (Waller, 2009). In most instances however, similar to the one in Alsace, year 1518 which took the life of reportedly 400 people and lasted for 6-months, people would die due to exhaustion after dancing in agony for weeks, only for new members to join in. 

Although observed across multiple temporal and geographical contexts, these dancing-plagues were closely linked to religion in some capacity. It disproportionately affected nuns and other people associated with religion for over 200 years, where they would insist that they had sexual-intercourse with demonic entities or Jesus-Christ.

Eye-witnesses reported that the victims were in an altered state of consciousness, erratic and seeing visions (Waller, 2009). When people reached out to churches for help, the priests condemned the patients. They propagated a myth that St. Vitus, a martyr saint, would curse sinners with uncontrollable dance mania. According to the churches at that time, the only way to break the curse was to dance to music. People were also forced to stand up and resume dancing if they collapsed. They were also made to wear red-soled-shoes if their legs bled (Bauer, 2017).

 Unsurprisingly none of these interventions worked, rather made things worse. People reported experiencing disturbingly vivid visual and auditory hallucinations containing religious imagery along with their supposed ‘sins’. Not being able to endure the suffering these people would implore monks and priests to “save their souls” (Waller, 2009). 

During the time that this occurred, there existed no resources or explanations for this, which allowed for any chance at an explanation to appear attractive. However, the reason people resort to the same practices is due to their unwillingness to seek professional-psychiatric intervention for various reasons. This approach is particularly damaging keeping in mind that this can influence their paranoid or grandiose delusions if they pretend to be God, or have amorous relations with Gods. These religious delusions make it harder for them to seek help due to the reinforcement of this belief, trapping them into a cycle that inevitably ends up fueling itself. 

Religious delusions, especially those containing demonic ones, socially isolates these people due to the stigma attached to the belief that psychosis has paranormal origins which deter help-seeking behaviour (Odoula, 2021). People might also refuse to seek help as they may believe that they are sinners and therefore deserve to suffer. Since disorders with psychosis, like schizophrenia or bipolar, are comorbid with social anxiety (Aikawa et al., 2018) this validation of their delusions makes it harder for them to reach out. Socially isolated due to this, an individual’s recovery after a psychotic episode can be significantly impacted, as social support is imperative for recovery (Norman, 2014). Not just this, religious delusions also influence help-seeking behaviours—individuals with religious delusions take longer to create service contact, receive magico-religious healing, be unsatisfied with psychiatric treatment and not adhere to it (Malla & Bhat, 2015).

Henceforth, we have examined how mental-health stigma is fuelled by a preference for, and beliefs in faith healers and religious figures. In taking a bird’s eye view to understand such stigmas embedded within a fervent religiosity present globally, we understood how the lack of intervention during the dancing plague added to its disturbing consequences. From this, we also understood how the literature on beliefs in faith and psychosis illustrates the manner in which this overreliance on religiosity can exacerbate symptoms of psychosis. This can help inform further mental-health interventions which are set in contexts such as India where people are demonstrably hesitant to approach formal forms of mental healthcare. 

   

 

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