Friday, February fourteenth, the UN says at least 22 people have been killed in a village in the Northwest region of Cameroon. Over half of those killed were children. No one has claimed responsibility for Friday’s incident but the opposition parties blame the killing on the government.
Madness grips foreigners on the streets of Jerusalem
- Get link
- Other Apps
Israel is
used to foreign visitors suffering psychotic delusions that they are figures
from the Bible or harbingers of the End of Times
An Irish schoolteacher who came to a Jerusalem hospital
convinced she was about to give birth to the Baby Jesus when in fact she was
not even pregnant.
A Canadian tourist who believed he was the Biblical
strongman Samson and tried to tear stone blocks out of the Wailing Wall.
An Austrian man who flew into a rage in his hotel kitchen
when staff refused to prepare the Last Supper for him.
These are just a few examples of what has come to be known
as the Jerusalem Syndrome: a well-documented phenomenon where foreign visitors
suffer psychotic delusions that they are figures from the Bible or harbingers
of the End of Days.
Israel’s health ministry records around 50 cases a year
where a tourist’s delusions are so strong that police or mental health
professionals are forced to intervene. Many more incidents go undocumented on
the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City.
The city’s hospitals are expecting fresh cases as tourist
flock to Jerusalem for the Easter weekend and doctors are preparing
now-familiar routines of alerting foreign embassies that one their citizens
believes he is John the Baptist or King Solomon.
Evidence of the Jerusalem Syndrome dates back to
Medieval times and observers throughout the centuries have noted the
air of madness that seems to hang over the city.
As J.E. Hanauer, a British traveller and Anglican vicar, wrote
in around 1870: “It is an odd fact that many Americans who arrive at Jerusalem
are either lunatics or lose their mind thereafter.”
Modern psychiatrists describe the sufferer’s delusions as
highly theatrical and very public. They will often rip hotel bed sheets into
makeshift togas, deliver impromptu sermons in front of holy sites and go
wailing through the streets.
“Their appearance is very dramatic and they use Jerusalem as
a stage and deliberately go there to play out their act - an act that they entirely
believe to be true,” said Dr Moshe Kalian, the former district psychiatrist of
Jerusalem and a leading authority on the syndrome.
Interestingly, the affliction has been recorded among Jews
and Christians but not Muslims. A study from 1999 found that “Although
Jerusalem is sacred to all three major monotheistic religions….no documentation
regarding the syndrome among Muslims was found.”
The majority of those who are hospitalised suffered mental
health problems in their own countries and came to Jerusalem deliberately on
what they saw as a mission from God.
They are mostly harmless but occasionally sufferers become
violent.
Dr Kalian describe a British man who interpreted the ash
cloud thrown over Europe by the 2010 eruption of an Icelandic volcano as a sign
that world was coming to an end.
Once the ash cloud cleared and air travel resumed he flew to
Jerusalem and headed to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Christians
believe Jesus was crucified and buried.
In his own mind the plan was clear. He would enter the
Church and be killed by Satan, triggering the beginning of the Armageddon.
There was just one problem: by the time he arrived the Church’s heavy wooden
doors were closed for the night.
The man, whose name was not released under medical
confidentiality rules, then took a knife and charged at Israeli police. They
shot him in the side and sent him to a psychiatric hospital and he was
eventually returned to Britain without charges.
The most contentious point of debate among scholars of
Jerusalem Syndrome is what one group of doctors has called Type III cases:
people with no history of mental illness who become overwhelmed by the city’s
religiosity and temporarily lose their minds.
Neither condition, however, is as severe or as frequently
observed as Jerusalem Syndrome.
There is something about ancient Jerusalem, a disputed city
that is so important to people of three faiths, that attracts - or perhaps even
causes - a special kind of madness.
- Get link
- Other Apps
Popular posts from this blog
Entrance design of "Church Of Luminants" in USA
UN says at least 22 people including children killed in Cameroon's English-speaking region
Cameroonian scammer arrested in Montreal (canada
The Sûreté du Québec announced Wednesday the arrest of an alleged fraudster specialist of a scenario called "Black money scam", in which victims are invited to participate in the cleaning of soiled banknotes, then are robbed during the operation. Cyrille Ngogang, 49 years old, was caught red-handed in downtown Montreal Tuesday afternoon. He appeared in court this morning to be charged with fraud and breach of commitment. The man is not in his first trouble with the law: he was previously arrested by the SQ on 19 January for charges related to the same scheme, and had been able to resume its freedom under strict conditions pending his trial. There are several variants of the 'Black money' scenario, but all involve a so-called batch of cash that has been stained with a dye or colouring substance. Scammers ask their victim to provide money to clean the hoard.
Comments
Post a Comment