Within a month, 400 people were dancing — and some of them dropped dead. Nobody could make them stop. Strasbourg, France, 1518.
Where it turned dark. People danced until they collapsed — from exhaustion, strokes, heart attacks. At its peak, around fifteen people were dying every day. Authorities thought the cure was more dancing. They built a stage, hired musicians, encouraged it. It made everything worse.
The mystery. No one has ever fully explained it. Theories: mould on rye? Mass stress-induced hysteria? Starvation, plague, terror? The leading idea is that extreme collective fear hijacked the body. Panic became motion — and spread like a contagion.
The lesson. The mind can force the body beyond choice. Shared fear can become physically real. What a group believes and fears together doesn't stay in their heads.