Saint Vitus' Dance Party

Ever heard of “St. Vitus’ Dance”?

Maybe you have heard of tarantism (no relationship to James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal) or the “dancing mania”.

It was a thing.

Occurring mostly between the 14th and 17th centuries, unexplained outbreaks of spontaneous dancing (and sometimes singing as well) would randomly occur.

One famous outbreak occurred in July of 1518 in Strasbourg, France. It seems that Frau Troffea, all alone in the middle of a silent street, began to dance for no apparent reason. Not long after, bewildered neighbors came to watch the Frau movin’ to the silent groovin’. Even stranger, Troffea’s silent dancing was joined by first one neighbor, and then another. Their dancing was bizarre, their faces were expressionless, and by the end of the week, more than 30 people had joined the Frau’s weird Dance Party. They boogied night and day, but what began with a single person was just the beginning - within a month, more than 400 citizens of Strasbourg were swept away by the dancing mania.

Strasbourg turned into Soul Train with no music and no explanation for what was happening.

Nobody knew why they were following Gwen Stefani’s edict to “Keep on dancing”.

It was just 24/7 “Party on, Medieval Garth! Party on, Medieval Wayne!”

Of course, it was not long before many of the dancers began to experience serious health problems from the marathon of non-stop movement. The dancing was so extreme that some people literally danced themselves to death. They died from heart attacks, strokes, dehydration, and severe exhaustion.

Strangely enough, my mind went to this obscure event due to the mass hysteria running rampant through Democrat Washington over the January 6th riot at the Capitol. Normally, I would just go for the ever-present hypocrisy as the reason for it because, obviously, the BLM riots or the takeovers of federal buildings in Washington during the Kavanaugh hearing did not bother the Democrats at all, they rather liked those. The hypocrisy of Democrats has become a baseline, something that is just expected, but this is something else.

The claims by people, like Sandy Cortez, that they feared for their lives and the riot (and compared to ANTIFA/BLM riots, the January 6th “riot” was mild – except for the reaction of the Capitol Police) somehow merits mass banning of conservatives and businesses from social media and the Internet, that mass “deprogramming” programs are necessary and that an expanded surveillance state is necessary to fight “white supremacist’ driven domestic terrorism are more than a little over the top.

After the bouts of Medieval Dance Fever continued, doctors were consulted. The medical community ruled out supernatural causes, something generally ascribed to weird conduct at the time. Instead, they said the mania was natural and caused by “hot blood” – rumors are that this is where Foreigner got started when one dancer named Lou Gramm sang “I’m hot blooded, check it and see!”.

When no cure for the dancing was found, the brain trust of Strasbourg decided to build stages and invite musicians to play for the dancers. City officials figured the cure might just be to groove to the beat and encourage the dancers to dance until they got it out of their systems. Perhaps they were right because we still do not know why, but after a month of Medieval Dance Fever, it stopped as mysteriously as it began.

I am getting the feeling that contemporary Democrat politicians are getting their grove on to the Medieval Dance Fever now. There is evidence of some sort of mass hysteria raging in Washington and within the Democrat Party. There are symptoms of paranoia and delusional disorders being exhibited as the Democrats continue to propose increasingly overwrought autocratic solutions to problems that there is little evidence the “problems” even exist. Maybe the Democrats fancy themselves as Ghostbusters (from the good movie, not the craptastic female empowerment remake).

Mental Health America (MHA) defines paranoia and associated delusional disorders this way:

“Paranoia involves intense anxious or fearful feelings and thoughts often related to persecution, threat, or conspiracy. Paranoia occurs in many mental disorders but is most often present in psychotic disorders. Paranoia can become delusions, when irrational thoughts and beliefs become so fixed that nothing (including contrary evidence) can convince a person that what they think, or feel is not true. When a person has paranoia or delusions, but no other symptoms (like hearing or seeing things that aren't there), they might have what is called a delusional disorder. Because only thoughts are impacted, a person with delusional disorder can usually work and function in everyday life, however, their lives may be limited and isolated.

Delusional disorder is characterized by irrational or intense belief(s) or suspicion(s) which a person believes to be true. These beliefs may seem outlandish and impossible (bizarre) or fit within the realm of what is possible (non-bizarre). Symptoms must last for 1 month or longer in order for someone to be diagnosed with delusional disorder.”

Look – I am no doctor or Brandi X. Lee level mental health professional, but I do possess a modicum of common sense. When someone screams that they saw a spider, then proceeds to grab a ten-pound sledgehammer and wreck the house trying to kill the spider they claim to have seen, something just ain’t right.

What I do know is that getting Foreigner back on stage and cranking up the volume until the dancing stops is not the answer.