// about

About Hysteria

Hysteria is a catalog of moral panics and mass hysterias — witch hunts, the Satanic-abuse scare, phantom gassers and slashers, contagions of fear — each autopsied from the first alarm to the spread to the day the panic broke, with the real people it harmed kept in view.

What you'll find here

The scale, the believers, and how it ended — stated up front, never buried
A documented timeline, a three-act account, and exactly five contributing factors
The mechanism of the delusion: what made ordinary people believe and act
Transferable lessons, and real references from historians, investigators, and named press

Hysteria is part of The Delusion Index — a reference network of collective delusions, told as clinical dossiers: cults, manias, panics, and failed prophecies. The real people harmed are treated with gravity, never as spectacle.

The rest of The Delusion Index

The Flock Documented groups, from the first belief to the end. Mania Documented bubbles, from the first belief to the end. Doomsday Documented prophecies, from the first belief to the end.