Leroy NY incident: diagnosis is in, it's 'mass hysteria'

On January of this year, I posted an essay which reported that students at a western NY high school in LeRoy NY had come down with...something. At that time, doctors, school officials, and parents were not sure what they were dealing with. A bunch of girls who attend the school suddenly started showing symptoms of Tourette's Syndrome. They began twitching, having tics, involuntary movements, and for some, their schooling was impacted. They had to drop out of sports teams or drop out of school entirely.

Then a teacher at the school came down with it, and several other people, including a couple of boys. At that point it made national news. The school had conducted tests to determine if their location was a cause. The famed environmental lawyer Eron Brokovich came on the scene to determine if there was an environmental cause. Doctors were consulted. Everyone came up with empty hands.

One doctor dared to state that it was probably a condition known as "mass hysteria" but that diagnosis was resisted. They decided to simply call it Tourette's. At that point I got interested. Mass Hysteria is a real diagnosis, and is one that is at root of another famed incident: the Salem Witch Trials.

Here are the two previous essays I posted on the Leroy NY mass hysteria incident.

January 20, 2012: "Outbreak of mass hysteria (or demon infestation) in Leroy NY"
January 28, 2012: "Update on LeRoy NY Tourette's outbreak"

There is new news of the incident. They found no toxins anywhere, the girls were not on drugs, vaccines were ruled out, Tourette's doesn't have sudden onset (they finally admitted) and eventually a diagnosis of mass hysteria was declared unequivocally this week:

"Mass Hysteria Confirmed in NY School"
"A bizarre illness affecting nearly 20 students at a Western New York Junior-Senior High school now has an official diagnosis: mass hysteria.The students, almost all of them girls, and mostly friends, began experiencing involuntary jerks and tics. Sometimes their limbs, neck or face would suddenly spasm; other times they would twitch, grunt, or shout. It was strange and troubling behavior, made all the more scary because it had no clear cause."

"Mass psychogenic disorder is a rare -- but not unheard of -- phenomenon. The disorder is usually characterized by the mysterious spread of a variety of symptoms without a discernible cause. It frequently occurs in isolated communities. Teenagers and girls are also frequent victims. Collective hysteria can spread when a fear exists of exposure to a disease, combined with a contained, stressful environment."

This is very interesting to me because as I mentioned in the two essays I linked to above, the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600s began in exactly this same way. Several teenage girls began manifesting symptoms remarkably like the girls in NY, and like wildfire, the 'disease' spread from house to house. The reasons for the hangings that resulted has multiple and complex reasons- cultural, religious, demonic, and societal. There was a feud going on between the merchants and the farmers. A growing town always fights over its direction (to develop or not to develop?) when they hit an important crossroads in its identity. The girls admitted to experimenting with voodoo with Tituba, their South American Indian maid who had been a slave in Barbados. Tituba had also made a witchcake containing dog urine and rye, which is fed to a dog in hopes of determining the person afflicting the sick. 

Boredom, pride, and covetousness, and gossip can equally be said to blame for the Salem incident's catalyst. And satan is behind all of those, not to mention the localized practices of voodoo, casting bones, and fortune telling some of the girls and Tituba admitted to!

As the year of the Witch Trials crescendoed and then  ended with a whimper, the aftermath included church-wide repentance, and in particular, "On August 25, 1706, Ann Putnam Jr., one of the most active accusers, joined the Salem Village church, she publicly asked forgiveness. She claimed that she had not acted out of malice, but was being deluded by Satan into denouncing innocent people..." (source)

Any time there is unexplained mass illness it needs to be looked at carefully by the officials whose duty it is to serve and protect the vulnerable in our society. However in this day and age, demonic influence is rarely discussed as a possible root cause of the problem. It was all right for the "backward Puritcanical bible thumpers" to blame satan, but not today.

As I mentioned, the reasons that the Salem Witch Hysteria took off were complex, coming to the fore from a variety of factors. However, the Salem incident is listed today among the medical texts as a case of mass psychogenic illness. (source)

The same could well be true of the Leroy Mass Hysteria incident. There is one question I am sure was not asked amid the tests and diagnoses and reports that resulted in 6000 pages which concluded "We don't know why this is happening". Were the girls experimenting with tarot, palm reading, fortune telling or occult in any way? The answer would be very revealing.

Traci Leubner, one of the girls afflicted, said of the Leroy NY testing results, “It's freaky, because they didn't find anything. There wasn't like a, 'this is what happened'. It was kind of mysterious.” (source)

Please be in continued prayer for the Leroy NY girls and also for the vulnerable of our society everywhere. I long for the day when our children will be safe.

Follow up to some previously published stories

FOLLOW UP

Let's check in on some older stories. I can't believe it has been 4 years since the Norway Seed Vault opened. I remember it vividly because of the event that happened a few days before opening ceremony. I'd done some research on the location, Svalbard, a rocky outcrop far north of Norway. It is a small island, and the furthest place north that is inhabited in the whole world. They specifically chose that place because of the lack of seismicity in that area. So of course a few days before all the dignitaries flew in for the opening, there was a huge earthquake, lol. It was the largest that Norway ever experienced and the largest ever for that area.

Norway's biggest quake hits Svalbard archipelago
"An earthquake of 6.2 magnitude -- the biggest in Norwegian history -- jolted the thinly populated Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic on Wednesday night, the Norsar seismic research institute said on Thursday. No one was hurt by the quake and no damage has been reported in the islands, about 600 miles from the North Pole, reports said. "This is the biggest earthquake on Norwegian territory in history," the institute said in a statement, adding that the quake occurred at sea, about 6 miles below the surface. ... Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and other leaders will be in Svalbard next week for the official opening of a seed vault which will store frozen crop seeds from around the world in case crops are wiped out by a future disaster."

I got such a charge out of that. God showing who is boss of the earth, couldn't have been clearer to the people who had the hubris to build their own ark. Here is a follow-up article on the seed vault that I thought was pretty interesting. I liked the photos and the artistic renderings in the article. Apparently they have been putting seeds in there all along and it is getting full.

SEED VAULT

After 4 Years, Checking Up on The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
"The other surprise is that we've had no bad surprises. When you plan something this complicated you figure something is going to go wrong. During these past four years we've had seeds come from all over the world and it's been a gigantic coordination process to try to get seed boxes from all of these locations, a lot of which are in developing countries---Africa, Asia and Latin America---and to try to get them up to Oslo and then up to Svalbard on roughly the same day, so you don't have them sitting out on some tarmac in the hot sun. It's also surprising that we haven't lost a single box of seeds in transit. It's a miracle."

Read more at link.

LeROY NY TOURETTE'S-LIKE OUTBREAK

Checking up on the Tourette's outbreak in NY: A few months ago a strange Tourette's-like illness complete with tics, seizures, and outbursts, began affecting students at a high school in LeRoy NY. By now two dozen people including a 36-year-old, are affected. Not finding a physical cause, doctors deemed it "mass hysteria" which didn't sit well with the parents of the affected students. Environmental lawyer Erin Brokovich got involved and tried to find of there was an environmental cause. None were found. Doctors say it is not Tourette's, but is stress induced. Parents are fed-up.

ABC covered the story in a follow up last month but no new information was given, just a notation that though more girls are affected than they were in December, no cause has been found.

Some say that it could be Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections (PANDAS). Others say it could be from drugs like Gardasil. This article in the German magazine Spiegel noted that every time camera crews showed up more girls would come down with tics and when the crews left the girls would be better. I had noted in my original article that the other famous American case of mass hysteria, Salem Mass. had the same presentation: teenage girls, tics, seizures, more getting sick as attention grew and as attention faded less girls getting sick. Spiegel ended the article thus: (google translated)

"Last week, almost all of its declared McVige patients for symptoms. "They just needed a little encouragement," she reported in the local newspaper "TheBatavian." "Most go back to school." Why the improvement? "You are no longer on TV," she said. "I think it really helped."

Not saying the girls are faking but that attention fueled whatever was behind it, and I'd conjectured that it was not environment, stress, Gardasil or PANDAS but demons.

ANIMAL DIE-OFFS

Remember the spate of bird-die offs in January 2011 and January 2012, and the dolphin strandings etc? Here is an update.

March 7, 2012: 9 more dolphin strandings off Cape Cod this month
"Animal rescuers on Cape Cod say nine more common dolphins have stranded this month, bringing the total to 189 in 2012. The International Fund for Animal Welfare said Wednesday the March strandings are not considered part of a mass stranding in Cape Cod waters between Jan. 12 and Feb. 16. But the group says the total this calendar year is far more than the annual average of 38 on Cape Cod."

March 8, 2012: But another mass dolphin stranding happened in Brazil, however, beachgoers rescued them. A die-off of 60 endangered gulls in New Zealand has scientists perplexed. "They also could not find any traces of toxins or diseases in the birds' systems and therefore, "the cause of the mass die-off remains to be established."

So the strandings and die-offs are still happening, but are not being covered as intensively. Though one die-off, pigeons in Rapid City, was traced to poison. Someone had hired a company to place commercially applied poison to a rooftop.

FALSE BOOKS

I'd written about The Shack four years ago, "Is The Shack' a doctrine of demons?' the 'runaway bestseller' published five years ago. It still sees brisk sales. This week, Black Christian news reports that Colton Burpo's vision of heaven surpassed The Shack in sales. I'd written about Colton Burpo's "Heaven is for Real" last August in a discernment lesson, and a few days ago posted a link to a Justin Peters discussion of these kinds of books, here. I'm sad that these books are still getting the brisk sales that they are. The Shack spent 52 weeks at #1, Heaven is for Real just spent 53 at #1.  We all need heavy discernment in these perilous times, but some are lacking in that department. The Spirit will give wisdom to you if you ask! (James 1:5)

 That's about it for now. Any other stories you'd like me to follow up on?

Update on LeRoy NY Tourette's outbreak: more victims, including an adult, new town involved too

On January 20, 2012 I reported that a strange thing was occurring in upstate NY at the town of LeRoy. A dozen girls had suddenly taken sick with Tourette's-like symptoms. The girls began twitching, having seizures, and manifesting other strange tics and body movements. Medical causes have been hard to find. The school and town tested public buildings for environmental reasons and came up empty. The girls say that though "severe stress" has been touted as a possible cause, that they are not stressed, and doctors, stumped, proclaimed that it is likely a conversion disorder, otherwise known as mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness.

In that blog entry I said that a spiritual reason didn't seem to have been explored, and while not knowing the state of their belief in Jesus, that it could be a demon infestation.

The news says: "The mystery illness surfaced several months ago when 12 girls who had been attending the Le Roy high school began to display tics and involuntary verbal outbursts. Both the state and the local school district did extensive testing of the school grounds to see if there might be any signs of an infectious disease or some toxin the girls might have come in contact with. All those tests came back negative." (source)

The diagnosis of mass hysteria is so unusual (these days, but remember Salem Witch mass hysteria in 1682?), that NINDS organization is now involved in the case.

"The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NINDS, is currently conducting research on conversion disorders and is running a clinical trial to investigate uncontrollable shaking in people who have no known underlying brain or medical disorder." (source)

Well, here is an update:

The first update is that the famous environmental lawyer Erin Brokovich (yes, that Julia Roberts movie Erin Brokovich) has gotten involved and is attempting to see if there is an underlying environmental cause, So far she has found that thirty years ago a chemical accident from a train derailment spilled some toxic chemicals into the ground. However, that was thirty years ago and the train accident was near but not so near the school and the neighborhood where the girls live. Unfortunately, of the original girls who have come down with this, their symptoms are worsening.

Secondly and more ominous is now it seems that more teens have come down sick. Other kids, including one boy, have now began manifesting the same symptoms. Worse news is that they are not all in LeRoy but are from other towns in NY. New outbreaks are occurring in places like Corinth NY, 250 miles to the west of LeRoy.

"Mystery illness gaining national attention"
"The number is now more than two dozen girls, all with Tourettes like symptoms, including twitching, jerking and vocal ticks. As our health reporter Marcie Fraser reports, the case spans New York State and is gaining national attention."

The article above notes that the girl in Corinth who came down with symptoms stopped to eat dinner in LeRoy after an away game, but the same article notes that she began manifesting symptoms in May 2011 and didn't stop to eat dinner in LeRoy until July, eight weeks later. "The NYS Department of Health has released this statement, saying in part, “DOH reviewed both the epidemiology and the clinical evaluations and found no evidence of environmental or infection as the cause of the girls’ illness.."

Number of students with Tourette's symptoms grows
"The number of students across New York State -- from Genesee County to Saratoga County -- who have now come down with Tourette syndrome symptoms continues to grow. The figure now stands at 17. In addition, for the first time, it's not just girls who have been affected. A boy from western New York has become the latest victim. The number of students from Le Roy High School in Genesee County who have now been confirmed with conversion disorder is 15 -- 14 of them girls and now one boy. It is not clear at this time if there's a connection to the two teenage girls from Corinth in Saratoga County who have displayed similar tics and involuntary movements."

Lori Brownwell is one of the LeRoy girls who first came down with the mystery illness. She has been making videos to chronicle the changes in her life. Her YouTube channel is here.

On that channel in her latest video, Miss Brownwell makes note that a new person in LeRoy is starting to show symptoms, a "very reputable adult female and it is quite a shocker..."

I want to say something and I am eager for it not to be misunderstood. I have no idea of the spiritual condition of the girls. But here is what the bible says:

If a person is not in Christ, they are in satan. (Matthew 12:30). Satan is god of this world, blinding the minds of those who are not in Jesus (2 Cor 4:4) and he and his minions attack, delude, harass, scheme, and fight against all who are on it and even struggle against the obedient angels, too.

"Satan and his demons now look to destroy and deceive all those who follow and worship God (1 Peter 5:8; 2 Corinthians 11:14-15). The demons are described as evil spirits (Matthew 10:1), unclean spirits (Mark 1:27), and angels of Satan (Revelation 12:9). Satan and his demons deceive the world (2 Corinthians 4:4), attack Christians (2 Corinthians 12:7; 1 Peter 5:8), and combat the holy angels (Revelation 12:4-9). Demons are spiritual beings, but they can appear in physical forms (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). The demons/fallen angels are enemies of God, but they are defeated enemies. Greater is He who is in us, than those who are in the world (1 John 4:4)." (source, GotQuestions).

Remember this set of verses in Matthew?

“When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” (Mt 12:43-45)

That explanation, given by Jesus, tells us a lot about how demons operate. First, demons are active. Second, they go in and out of people. They seek dry places (waste places, fitting for them.) Also if we remember Jesus is the Living Water then it stands to reason that demons would always thirst and be dry, restlessly seeking that which they thirst for but never will acknowledge. Third, the verses tell us that if a person is only outwardly clean and after vain attempts to remain clean in his own strength that the demon will soon come back in force to re-occupy the person. Only that which is of Jesus can truly repel a demon, because it only Jesus who has the victory.

I applaud the LeRoy officials for looking into most of the possible causes of the unfortunate distress affecting so many families in this area. They've looked into medical, neurological, psychological and environmental causes. I have not found one article that has considered spiritual causes. Believers in Jesus know that satan is active and strong, restless and endlessly seeking that whom he may devour. A spiritual cause is worth looking into!

In Mexico they have been having problems with demons for a while, so much so that in 2010 a new chapel dedicated to performing exorcisms opened up in the district of Queretaro! The Catholic Church there said at that time they had about ten cases per month and that the phenomenon was on the rise.

In this recent news article, Huffington Post obtained photos from modern day exorcisms in Mexico City.

From a spiritual standpoint it needs to be said that though ninety percent of Mexicans are Roman Catholic, it is not a true religion. It teaches things contrary to the bible and any person who adheres to those precepts is not saved, including the priests performing the exorcisms. However from a cultural standpoint it is useful to note that where there is not true faith, demonic occurrences are on the rise.

Please pray for the girls, families, and new victims of this outbreak in NY, whatever it is. Pray that the local pastors would have discernment and have courage to propose that there may be a spiritual source for this. At the very least, if the issue is raised it may be that it can be excluded from the list of possible catalysts. And if not then it may lead to a blessed event of salvation of afflicted souls.
Tweet

Outbreak of mass hysteria (or demon infestation) in Leroy NY

Mass hysteria outbreak reported in N.Y. town: What does it mean?
"Why did 12 teens from the same town in upstate N.Y. all begin to experience odd symptoms at once? Doctors say it's an outbreak of mass hysteria. Last fall, 12 teenage girls from LeRoy Junior-Senior High School - located in a town about an hour outside of Buffalo, N.Y. - began to show symptoms similar to those of Tourette's syndrome, including painful shaking and jerking their necks, Gothamist reported. Doctors were initially baffled. The condition was so bad for at least one of the girls that she has yet to return to school. School and state officials investigated the outbreak and school building for several months, and concluded no known environmental substances or infectious agents were found that could have caused the symptoms in the teens. "We have conclusively ruled out any form of infection or communicable disease and there's no evidence of any environmental factor,'' Dr. Gregory Young of the New York Department of Health told MSNBC."

"Sanchez, a cheerleader at the high school, took a nap one day last October then woke up with uncontrollable tics and stutters. Sanchez and another girl on the show with symptoms, 16-year-old Katie Krautwurst, said doctors told them their condition was stress-induced. "They told us it was traumatic, but I really don't think any of us had that traumatic of a life before,' Krautwurst said on Today.

Tourette's is genetic so it's unlikely to be that since the symptoms don't emerge all at once. Also, Tourette's symptoms are 4X more prevalent in boys, so it is highly improbable to be Tourette's because all the symptoms are in only girls.

"A day after the girls' interview, Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, a neurologist at the DENT Neurologic Institute in Amherst, N.Y. who has treated several of the girls, decided to come forward to offer an explanation to quell the curious masses. Mechtler's diagnosis? The girls may have a conversion disorder - also known as mass hysteria."

Conversion disorder is a condition in which the person experiences blindness, paralysis, or other neurologic symptoms that can't be explained by another disease. In other words, a catch-all diagnosis by doctors effectively shrugging their shoulders. The article continues, "the disorder often occurs because of a "psychological conflict. Mechtler told USA Today that when a conversion disorder occurs in a large group, its known as a "mass psychogenic illness," because it affects groups of people in the same environment, such as in a classroom or office. "This is a unique situation, and it is unusual," Mechtler told USA Today."

Other Tourette's symptoms include motor and vocal "tics", twitches, blinks or vocal exclamations that the sufferer cannot control. Tourette's is also characterized by behavioral symptoms like excessive-complusive disorder and attention-deficit disorder. Tourette's sufferers may also be overly aggressive towards others.

Conversion disorder is marked by numbness, blindness, paralysis or fits. Also, outbursts, shaking and tics.

Now, the medical establishment said that what is happening in Leroy is unusual. The people in the town said it was unusual, so much so, that the school department held a meeting for the area's concerned parents. It is unusual.

The Leroy NY made me think of our nations' most famous case of mass hysteria with demonic influences underlying it, also incited by teenaged girls, was Salem Massachusetts. It happened in 1692 and it is known as the Salem Witch Trials.

"The traditional story about the beginning of the Salem Witch trials tells of a "circle of young girls" practicing voodoo and fortune telling under the direction of Samuel Parris' Indian slave, Tituba. It is commonly suggested that the girls were interested in fortune telling because they wanted to know the occupation of their future husbands."

"According Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum's account in Salem Possessed, the outbreak at Salem began in the winter of 1691 when the girls of the village, aided by Tituba and John Indian, a West Indian slave couple, attempted to tell their futures by using a makeshift crystal ball."

We know that this is occult activity, better known as a neon advertisement for satan to enter. (2 Kings 17:17; Lev 19:31; Is 8:19...)

Research indicates the Salem girls' symptoms emerged quickly, similar to the Leroy NY girls'.

In this research it states, "Mary Beth Norton's work, In the Devil's Snare. According to historical fact, both Abigail and her 9-year-old cousin Betty began showing signs of illness in mid-January 1692. When their behavior turned erratic, Samuel Parris called neighboring Reverend John Hale of Beverly to observe the two girls and their afflictions. Reverend Hale writes that the girls, "were bitten and pinched by invisible agents; their arms, necks and backs turned this way and that way and returned back again so as it was impossible for them to do of themselves and beyond the power of any Epileptic Fits or natural Disease to effects." Parris and other local ministers turned to prayer and fasting in hopes that Abigail and Betty would return to health. When the girls' strange behavior continued, Parris summoned Dr. William Griggs to examine them. Dr. Griggs determined that the girls were under the influence of an "Evil Hand."

The emergence of strange behavior related to demonic possession in Salem in 1692 as now in NY 2012 are similar. We look to the bible to see what demons can do. The Gadarene demoniac described in Mark shows how they can change the physiology of the one they possess:

Mark 5:1-20 is one of the most specific passages in the bible on demon possession and its effects. Some of the details about demons the Bible reveals in this passage are: (source)
--Devils enjoy or need to be near dead human bodies or tombs (vs. 2, 3, 5).
--They can cause unusual strength in the one they inhabit (vs. 3-4).
--They can make a person unreasonable or immune to sensible persuasion (vs. 4).
--They cause excessive crying (vs. 5).
--They cause sadistic and masochistic behavior (vs. 5).
--They have an affinity for heights (vs. 5).
--They recognize Christ as "the Son of God" and appeal to Him (vs. 6-7).
--They know they deserve torment and dread it (vs. 6-7).
--They have names (vs. 9).
--More than one can possess the same body (vs. 9).
--They desire to remain in the same geographical region or "country" they inhabit (vs. 10).
--They would rather indwell an animal body than none at all (vs. 12).
--They can cause animals to kill themselves (vs. 13).
--They desire to be in a body (vs. 13).

Mark 9:17-29 gives us even more details about devils:
--They can cause dumbness and deafness (vs. 17, 25).
--They cause rabid animal like behavior (vs. 18).
--They can indwell from childhood (vs. 21).
--They cause suicidal behavior (vs. 22).
--They resist leaving a body and violently "rent" it while leaving (vs. 26).
--There are different kinds of devils. Some have more power than others (vs. 29).
--Some can only be removed by prayer and fasting of believer (vs. 29).

Lessons from this incident: Demonic possession happens. It happened then, it happens no. Secondly, Ron Graham wrote an excellent article this week about the fallen angels, the Nephilim, and their human offspring, the human hybrids. In the article, he said, "But the dimension of the malevolent supernatural is invading our world and they are becoming more and more brazen with their antics, allowing many people to see things they don’t want to see, or hear things no human can explain."

That is well said. Whatever is going in in NY, and medical science has ruled out disease and drugs, then perhaps we can remember that the days before Jesus returns will be like the Days of Noah, which in addition to being totally evil and cultural, moral, and spiritual decay were days that were permeated with demonic activity (Gen 6:1-2; 4,6).
Tweet