The fact that a person can be possessed by a demon is a rather ancient belief. Seizures can occur with such a person - then he convulses, screams in an unnatural voice, swears, blasphemes, makes animal sounds, speaks from himself, then the devil speaks through him. Such possessed people in Russia and Eastern Belarus were called hiccups, in some regions of Russia (especially in the Russian North) - hiccups. As a rule, women suffered / suffer from hysteria, although not always. They also say that Christian symbols are unbearable for them.
First mentions
The very term "klikusha" is associated with the verbs "click" (izn. Meaning - "predict") and "cure" (scream like birds of prey). The phenomenon of hiccups / hiccups is very archaic, it is a part of mythological consciousness and an element of traditional culture. In Russia it was celebrated and celebrated in large villages.
The first written records of klikusha go back to the ancient Russian monuments of the 11th century. This "disease" is so mythologized that human prejudices endow the "ventriloquism" of the clicky with the gift of foresight: you can find out something about a missing thing or a person, or even the future. When a demon speaks in a whoop, then speaking usually occurs not like in healthy people, on exhalation, but on inhalation.
From about the 16th century, hysteria began to be associated exclusively with the action of evil spirits. Thus, "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" tells about a demon who possessed the prince's young wife. About whoop is told in the autobiography of Archpriest Avvakum. Klikushi were persecuted by secular and spiritual authorities. The phenomenon of hysteria reached its climax in the 17th-18th centuries, which is probably due to the superstitious sentiments that developed as a result of Nikon's reforms and the ensuing church schism.
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Beliefs
The popular consciousness separates sorcerers and witches, close to evil spirits, from hysterics, who are quite ordinary living people who belong to the Christian world, but define themselves as a repository of an evil spirit. The essence of the difference is that a sorcerer or a witch inflict evil, and the hysterical is a victim of evil. Hence the condescending attitude towards whoops among the people.
According to popular beliefs, hiccups are planted by a sorcerer, sometimes called a hiccup. He can speak of an evil spirit to a specific name and send it down the wind. Can be planted in a fermentation drink (beer or kvass), thrown into an insect or small animal, under the guise of which evil dwells. It is worth swallowing it, as a person spoils. Moreover, after the hiccups are expelled or after the death of the possessed, it is worth catching the appeared mouse, frog or fly and throwing it into the oven, otherwise it will move into someone else.
Persecution
Even Peter I suspected whoops of pretense. The fact is that, according to the norms of the 17th century, the name that the hysterical shouted in a seizure was considered the name of the person who sent damage to her. And if only the rite of exorcism (exorcism) was performed over the klikusha, then the "magician" was tortured. In this situation, it was very convenient to pretend to be possessed and settle scores, for example, with your rival. Therefore, Peter the Great ordered to interrogate under torture and the hysterics themselves. Nevertheless, in 1820, in one of the villages of Siberia, an investigation was conducted on charges of two women of hysteria and damage to thirteen other women.
In 1845, a new Code of Punishments followed, in which hysteria was clearly defined as deception, and hysterics themselves were ordered to be imprisoned for a period of six months to a year. But the popular consciousness was inexorable. In 1887, in Torzhok, two peasants were accused of spoiling young women. There was a similar accusation against the miller in the Vologda province, only he sent damage to his own nephew. Hiccups, or hiccups, were noted by Soviet ethnographers in the second half of the 20th century in the Volga region; in some villages, you can still find old women hiccups. Probably, the human consciousness needs a feeling of something inexplicable, connecting a person with the universe.