especially was
distinguished by all kinds of leaping, and almost inconceivable
contortions of body. Some spun round on their feet with incredible
rapidity, as is related of the dervishes. Others ran with their heads
against walls, or curved their bodies like rope dancers, so that their
heels touched their shoulders."

Women figured very prominently among the Convulsionnaires, particularly
when the epidemic passed from convulsive dancing to prophecy, and thence
to various forms of self-torture. Women stretched themselves on the
floor, while other women, and even men, jumped upon their bodies. Others
were beaten with clubs and bars of iron. Some actually underwent
crucifixion on repeated occasions. They were stretched on wooden
crosses, and nails three inches long driven through hands and feet. Some
of the occurrences remind one of what is now seen to take place under
hypnotic influence. People labouring under strong excitement, it is
known, become insensible to pain.

Outbreaks of jumping and dancing followed the introduction of Methodist
preachers into country districts in the eighteenth century. In Wales, a
sect of 'Jumpers' originated from this cause, and many of the American
'Jumpers' and 'Dancers' seem to have had their origin from this Welsh
outbreak. In all such cases the spread of the mania was helped, if not
made possible, by the preachers. They themselves looked upon these
exhibitions as manifestations of the power of God, and so encouraged
their hearers in their behaviour. Not every minister has the common
sense of the Shetland preacher cited by Hecker. An epileptic woman had a
fit in church, which a number of others hailed as a manifestation of
the power of God. Sunday after Sunday the same thing occurred with other
women, the number of the sufferers steadily increasing. The thing
threatened to assume such proportions, and to become so great a
nuisance, he announced that attendants would be at hand who would dip
women in the lake who happened to be seized. This threat proved a most
powerful form of exorcism. Not one woman was affected. Similar conduct
might have been quite as efficacious in preventing many religious
manifestations that have assumed epidemic proportions.

Unfortunately, the influence of preachers and religious teachers was
most usually cast in the other direction. Very often, of course, they
were no better informed than their congregations; at other times they
undoubtedly encouraged the del