Alfred Dawes | Well, it must be duppy or psychosomatic man

What happened at Oberlin High? Was it obeah or hysteria? More importantly, why is the conversation switching to whether devotions should be held in schools? The latter is more confusing as it reeks of opportunism and subterfuge without any logical progression of thought. A larger plot to cancel God seizing upon the public’s noise, to present a solution to a problem we don’t have. Whereas the limits of our knowledge can explain to some extent the pertinent question of what exactly happened at the school, common sense frowns on the devotion in schools straw man being offered up.

People falling into trance-like states with involuntary movements is not uncommon, especially in a society with a strong spiritual component. I say spiritual rather than religious because Jamaica is far from a religious country. It has been thrown around that Jamaica has the most churches per square mile. The “fact” is, however, repeated mostly on Jamaican sites with no mention whatsoever on the alleged source site, The Guinness Book Of World Records. Where did this world record come from? Are we really that ungodly that we have fabricated an entire story about being a religious country by virtue of having the most churches? If this is truly a fact I welcome the evidence in order to retract my statement that we are not the country with the most churches per square mile. However, like those who want to ban or regulate devotions in order to stymie demon possessions or mass hysteria, I digress.

Jamaica is spiritual because we believe strongly in spirits, both good, evil and non-binary. We are afraid of duppies, speak in tongues, practise obeah and other religious activities rooted in African animism. Christianity has been infused with revivalism and poco mania. Kumina, brought by African indentured servants post-emancipation, is still vibrant, with spiritual possessions aided by imbibing sugar cane spirits. Although dead yards are now more akin to street dances and round robins, we still observe the rituals handed down from our foreparents. White fowls are endangered during the construction of new buildings and babies are still passed over coffins. We pay homage to the belief that there are spirits among us in many ways outside of organised religion. It is not far-fetched then to believe that this subconscious connection with the spirit world allows us to tune in to that frequency, or if neuroscientists are to be believed, we are primed for mass hysteria because we believe in an unidentifiable external threat, the precondition for group convulsions.

MASS HYSTERIA

In Europe during the middle ages, there were reports of mass hysteria in the form of spontaneous dancing to the point of exhaustion and collapse. Nobody knows what caused them but they spread like wildfire through several towns. Then there was the famous Salem witch trials where the symptoms of spells were felt and very real. More recently, there was a mass hysteria episode involving children who supposedly had adverse reactions to a vaccine. Believing that something bad is happening to others increases the likelihood that it will happen to us. For some strange reason, this tends to occur more often in women. Thinking that one has been exposed to a chemical will result in symptoms of exposure to a chemical, including rashes and respiratory issues.

During the Cornwall Regional Hospital noxious fumes incident, there were concerns from some insiders that some staff were exaggerating their symptoms. They were so vague, nonspecific and with an unpredictable natural history, that they did not fit into any textbook diagnosis. Whereas some staff members were genuinely sick, the mysterious nature of many of the complaints begs the question as to whether there was some degree of mass hysteria triggered by the expectation of getting sick because of the exposure to noxious fumes, and seeing others getting sick.

If demons are around possessing other kids, the anxiety and fear felt by the unpossessed can cause a conversion disorder, where a psychological insult leads to physical symptoms exhibited by the body. This almost always is a trance-like state with shaking. Again, this mostly affects females. Judging from the videos of the incident, we are dealing with sexist duppies or mass hysteria.

HARM PEOPLE

But obeah is real, you will say, that’s why it is illegal? They use evil spirits to harm people. First of all, obeah is illegal because a bunch of obeahmen and a Guinean chief called Tacky decided they would overthrow their white masters and create an Akan state based on the continued enslavement of those who didn’t join their rebellion. The pivotal role played by obeahmen in Tacky’s and later Apongo’s revolts made them targets for those bent on restoring order. After the Akan slave revolts were put down, obeah became punishable by death The control of the slaves through the suppression of their spiritual leaders continues through the obeah act that persists to this day on our law books as a legacy of colonialism and white supremacy.

Obeah, guard rings, and informal rituals such as drinking blood out of goat heads are now a part of the scammer lifestyle. A further testament to the intimacy we crave with the spirit world. If Jamaica is full of demons, we can expect the evil that manifests in our criminal activities to get worse. If what happened at Oberlin was a manifestation of spirituality, then it will happen elsewhere. Similarly, if it was mass hysteria that gripped the students, then other students have been primed to the fact that spirits are out there causing their peers to fall to the ground in trances and flail about. Either way we can expect similar episodes in the near future.

- Dr Alfred Dawes is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and CEO of Windsor Wellness Centre. Follow him on Twitter @dr_aldawes. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and adawes@ilapmedical.com.