This story happened in the middle of the last century. The frigate "Belle Paulo" and the corvette "Berchian", having gone out to sea, were overtaken by a terrible hurricane. Soon the captain of the frigate lost sight of his companion and was faced with a dilemma: either to look for a ship in the stormy sea, or to head towards a pre-agreed meeting point. The captain chose the latter. When they approached the agreed place, it turned out that no one was meeting them. All that remained was to wait. After all, there were 300 people on the corvette
An agonizing wait stretched out. Suddenly, the signalman, who had been looking tensely at the raging sea for more than an hour, saw near the shore a ship devoid of masts. All crew members gathered at his call and saw the same thing! A raft with people in distress and asking for help separated from the ship. Their screams and groans reached the frigate crew despite the storm and strong winds. On occasion, the cruiser Archimedes was in the same area, and shouts were also heard. "Archimedes" hurried to the rescue, as it seemed, was very close to those in distress …
When the ship came closer, the sailors were shocked: the raft with the people was just a mass of huge trees pulled out by the storm from the coastline, which was brought by the current. The corvette was never found …
The famous psychiatrist V. M. Bekhterev recalls this case as the clearest example of the suggested idea. Thought, moreover, born in an extreme situation, formed images. Man took these images for reality! "Into our" psychic sphere, "Bekhterev wrote," heterogeneous impressions and influences no longer penetrate from the front door, but, so to speak, from the back porch. " This is what science calls suggestion, and someone calls "the grafting of ideas."
There is a well-known anecdote: a single spectator silenced the whole orchestra, sitting in the first row, eating a lemon and mimicry conveying his feelings. Life shows us examples of mental management of people that are much more dangerous. The famous psychic epidemic of 1212 is the so-called children's crusade. Led by someone's will, the children were obsessed with the idea of reaching the Holy Land and freeing the Holy Sepulcher. This crazy thought suppressed fear and reason. Boys and girls jumped out of windows, threw houses and joined the insane crowd …
It is almost impossible to calculate the "psychic wave". However, the only condition for its emergence is necessary: it is necessary that the suggesting person does not experience mental resistance from which the suggestion is directed, or from a group of people, from a crowd.
An example of blind faith is the story of Schlatter, a German emigrant to the United States. An ordinary shoemaker in Denver, he settled there at the beginning of the century, at some point imagined himself as a preacher of the evangelical doctrine, a messiah, began to heal with the laying on of hands - and they believed him! Crowds of people came to him for bodily and spiritual healing. Schlatter won particular fame in Colorado.
He had numerous imitators, false schlaters, who, oddly enough, also "healed" and to whom the crowd also bowed. 1885 in the village of Korano near Naples, cholera was raging. She literally mowed people down. It was at this time in the village near the chapel that the inhabitants began to appear … the Madonna in black clothing.
Everyone saw her! It was a kind of mystical sign that evokes horror. The Italian government, fearing a mass psychosis, took action: the chapel was moved to another place, and the hill on which it stood was occupied by a detachment of carabinieri. The visions ceased, and in 1898 a story happened in Tiraspol that shocked everyone. There were walled up alive 25 people. They went into the dungeon of their own accord, drawn by the idea of purification and resettlement in the bosom of the righteous. The ceremony was performed by a certain Kovalev. Among those buried in Ternovskie khutors were his mother, young daughter and wife. All the action was commanded by his inspirer - the hermitage Vitaly. She inspired Kovalev how to act without a doubt in the correctness of the case, while she herself was with other voluntary hunters in an underground niche. From there came her commands, all deafeningly making their way through the thickness of the earth …
Here is another fact that confirms that the imagination, tuned in a certain way, can work wonders. Bekhterev recalled that as a psychiatrist he dealt with one family, all members of which believed in the omen: if a lady in black appeared in the house as a ghost, it was a fatal omen. The spirit of the black visitor became a harbinger of death. The news of her appearance was passed on in the family by word of mouth - and indeed, every time after the appearance of a ghost in the house, someone from the family clan died. The fact that the elderly, sick people left for another world was not taken into account: the black lady turned out to be stronger than the arguments of reason …
"Psychic wave" explains V. M. Bekhterev taking the Bastille and repelling European troops on the French border. The power of suggestion can explain the heroic deeds performed by people under the influence of only one exciting word of a military leader. And the scientist was inclined to regard modern hysteria among the people as a reflection of medieval demonopathic forms of the psyche … A cook died on one ship. The funeral was performed according to the laws of the sea. The passengers and the crew were shocked by the sudden death, on the ship they only talked about this incident. However, in the evening of the same day, going out on deck, everyone saw … a living cook who limped behind the ship. Walked … on the water!
Mass hallucination under stress did its job: for a person whose image was fresh in everyone's mind, they took … a stump of a tree tied to the stern. In the morning the riddle was solved in the most natural way.