I need to add something, though: your statement: “…an affliction known as “dancing mania” which struck Europe from the 14th to the 17th century may have been caused by the troublesome fungus.”

I must assert: This happened again in the 1970’s, when a disturbing mass lunacy – and I would daresay disease – called “Disco” happened. It was caused by The Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band, Gloria Gaynor and (oh…my…God…) Donna Summer, to name but a few. This cultural devastation was almost as terrifying as the worst plagues the world has even known, and especially insidious were the side effects, such as the hairstyles, bell bottom jeans, and the rise of “Shaggyism”, or calling everyone “man”, as in the following example:

PERSON 1 – “Hey, man, I’m leaving, like, already gone, man. Be back, like, soon, man.”
PERSON 2 – “Where are you going?”
PERSON 1 – “Out, man! I said it, dig? Like, I’m going out, man!”
PERSON 2 – “ Well OK, just don’t be late. And stop calling me “man” – I’m your mother for cripes’ sake.”

While Disco was not caused by toxins, there are similarities to the theory of ergotism and Salem’s unrest – the cultural torpor of the time, Richard Nixon, mass media’s emergence from the murky depths were all contributors to a society ripe for mass insanity, and all it took was go##amn Barry Gibb and John Travolta hashing through “Saturday Night Fever” to set off the entire reeking chain of idiocy.

In the end, no one was ever punished for causing Disco, which I feel was a profound miscarriage of justice. Fortunately, attrition has it’s say in all things: the evil miscreants who caused it are slowing dying of natural causes, never to pollute this Earth again with their horrible musical/dancing diseases. And good riddance.

Now I’m off to find something by Linnda Caporael to throw myself deeper into this rabbit hole…”[/quote]

This was super cut up! Thanks I got a kick out of it.

Stalin. Mao. Do the two biggest mass murderers (by total #s killed) in human history suffice?”[/quote]

Ka-ching!

Actually, ergot is what LSD is extracted from.

Well Alan, you’ve done it again. Who would have thought that the entire “witching” affair would have been unraveled by an innocent little bread seed.

But now you’ve left us hanging…you said, “Some have suggested that Salem residents may have suffered from a form of encephalitis spread by birds, or possibly Huntington’s disease.” Okay…so how might these afflictions have caused the erratic behavior?

And then, what precautions are taken today to insure that the food chain is not affected by “bad rye”?

Great article again…and as some of us readers and followers would say…Damn Interesting! Thanx.”[/quote]

Abviously this guy has no idea WHAT THE FUCK he is talking about. Ok, well first off the wheat got infected with some sort of lsd, called ERGOT dumbass, and then people were eating the bread and going insane (its called tripping out!) if u ever did Acid / lsd maybe u would no what the fuck u were talking about. If u ever did acid then u know what happens when u take a hit of it, lol.. so yeah people were eating this shit and they claimed it to bed witch craft.. thats just retarded, because witch cracy is really totally fake! it was the infection of ergot on the wheat and people ate the shit! inocent people lost there fuckin lives over poeple who were trippping out on this shit man! lol peace