es said that the charges were invented
to make sects unpopular, but it is more probable that they arose from
the secrecy of the meetings only. Christians are so charged now in
China.[463] The story of the discovery of such misbehavior always
contains the same explanation--a husband followed his wife to the
meeting and saw the proceedings.[464]

+221. Manias need suggestion.+ Manias and delusions are like fashions
and fads in that they always seem to need a suggestion from some outside
source, and often it is impossible to find such a source. A strong
popular belief, like the belief in Satan and demons, furnishes a ground
for a general disposition to hold some other people responsible for all
the ills which befall one's self. Then the disposition to act cruelly
against the suspected person arises to a mental disease, and by
cooperation of others under the same aberration makes a mania.[465] The
explanation lies in autosuggestion or fixed ideas with the development
loosely ranged under hysteria, which is the contagious form of nervous
affection. The term "epidemic" can be applied only figuratively. "Mental
disease occurs only on the ground of a specific constitutional and
generally hereditary predisposition. It cannot therefore be spread
epidemically, any more than diabetes or gout."[466] The epidemic element
is due to hysterical imitation. In like manner, epidemics or manias of
suicide occur by imitation, e.g. amongst the Circumcellions, a
subdivision of the Donatists, in Africa, in the middle of the fourth
century A.D.[467] Cognate with this was the mania for martyrdom which it
required all the authority of the church to restrain.[468] Josephus[469]
says of the Galileans, followers of Judas of Galilee, that they were
famous for their indifference to death. Convents were often seats of
frightful epidemics of hysteria. The accepted religious notions
furnished a fruitful soil for it. To be possessed by devils was a
distinction, and vanity was drawn into play.[470] Autosuggestion was
shown by actions which were, or were supposed to be, the actions proper
for "possessed" people. Ascetic practices prepared the person to fall a
victim to the contagion of hysteria. The predisposition was also
cultivated by the religious ecstasies, the miracle and wonder faiths,
and the current superstitions. Then there was the fact which nearly any
one may have experienced, that an old and familiar story becomes mixed
with memory, so that he th