Religious Manias.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 73, 25 October 1884, Page 5

Religious Manias.

The strange frenzy known as the Dancing Mania differs from that of the Flagellants in several important particulars, The outbreaks of the Dancing Mania burst forth —in the first instance, that is— in isolated localities, affecting only a few individuals. Thus, early in the thirteenth century a number of children are said to have been seized with the malady at Erfurt in Prussian Saxony, and to have danced the whole way along the road to Armstadt, on arriving at which place they fell exhausted to the grouud. Many of them are reported to have died in consequeuce of this seizure, and many more to have retained the traces of it to the end of their lives. A large assemblage of persons, pilgrims apparently from different parts of Germany, madetheir appearance in the neighbourhood of Aix-Ia-Chapelle, and there commenced their extraordinary performances. Joining hand in hand, they formed large circles, and began simultaneously to dance, losing more and more the control of reason as they went on, until their enthusiasm merged in delirium, and they fell to the ground completely exhausted. They then complained of acute tympanites, which could only be relieved by tight bandages round the chest. After the application of these, they remained free from pain or irritation, unless they provoked a return of the malady by again en- j gaging in the dance. Those who for any reason failed! to find persons able or willing to swathe them in the manner above described, found some mitigation of their pains by the ruder process of having the parts affected violently thumped or stamped upon. During the paroxysm of their excitement they were insensible to all that was passing around them. They fancied themselves surrounded by presences, and frequently shrieked out^ the names of spirits with whom they imagined themselves to be "en rapport." Some of them declared that they were plunged into a sea of blood, from which they could only escape by high leaps and bounds. Others professed to have seen the heavens opened, and the Virgin v ith the Child Jesus in her arms enthroned in the midst. The insanity spread with incredible rapidity through the neighbourhood, reaching the great Dutcli and Belgium capitals on the- one side, and Cologne and the Rhenish cities on the other. In Li^ge they excited so much terror that the magistrates forbade the manufacture of any but square-toed shoes, the fanatics having conceived a great horror of such as had sharp points to them, which were the general wear at the time. For the same reason it became necessary to interdict the wearing of red coloured garments, which inflamed the fury of the dancers, as they are known to do that of mad bulls. At Cologne and Metz the mania ran to a greater height than in any of the cities previously attacked. The streets of these towns were filled with hundreds of these dancers, the inhabitants everywhere hastening to join them, unable, as it seemed, to resist the infatuation. As in the instance of the Flagellant frenzy, the labourer left his plough, the artisan his work-room, the tradesman his shop, to swell the band of devotees, and these great centres of industry and commerce became for the time scenes of the wildest and most lawless disorder. The young and unmarried of both sexes quitted their homes to take part in the revelry, and scenes of shameless license were speedily the re c ult. The cases of the American Shakers, and the Cornish and Welsh Jumpers, ought not to be omitted. In these, as Hecker remarks, more than in any others, it is difficult to draw the line between religious ecstacy and disorder of the nerves. The sect of the Shakers was founded a.d. 1747, by one James Wardley— a certain Anna Lee (identified by her followers with the woman as mentioned in Rev. xii. 1) being its prophetess. The Shakers accounted dancing to be a sign of favour with heaven, because the younger brother (St. Lukexv., 25) was received by his father with " music and dancing." The Shakers were wont to kneel in prayer awhile, and then leap up, dancing furiously, springing up to the very ceiling. The exertion would bring on cold shuddering, whence the name "Shakers." The Jumpers, a sect of Calvinistic Methodists, were initiated by a Cornishman, Harris Rowland, in 1700. At their meetings they excite themselves by the use of certain phrases, such as "David danced before the Lord with all his might," to dance more and more furiously, until they frequently fall exhausted, and are carried in a stato of syncope to their houses. — " Sunday at Home."