www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48850490
Very interesting article on mass hysteria in Malaysia. Also interesting to see how the problem persists and worsens when the professed cause for the outbreak (like seeing an evil spirit) is affirmed and treated as fact (by performing cleansing rituals), rather than the people involved being encouraged to understand their experiences in the context of reality. Not surprisingly the article points out that this is a phenomenon almost exclusively affecting young girls, that it produces real physical symptoms, that it spreads quickly in places like schools, and that it is most noticeable in countries that have rigid gender roles which limit and oppress women.
What's also fascinating is that the author describes this phenomenon in places like Malaysia with a tone of pity, as if they are a backwards country and nothing like this could possibly happen in our enlightened Western society where science is everything. The TRAs always make out that a belief in biological sex is a form of colonial white supremacy and that anyone questioning gender must be a racist, but honestly could anything be more racist than looking at a country like Malaysia and saying "wow, look at those superstitious people believing that 100s of school girls are really possessed by Jinn, it's obviously mass hysteria caused by a stifling sexist conservative society" while simultaneously believing that the 1000s of school girls suddenly identifying as boys in peer clusters over here are really literally boys (even though that's impossible) and it's definitely not mass hysteria in response to our stifling sexist culture. Obviously only them forriners are susceptible to such delusions, while us Westeners are so progressive and enlightened that anything obviously bonkers happening here must in fact be based solidly in reality.
In addition to all that, the fact that these girls are being subjected to "cures" by faith healers and witch doctors also merits discussion. I've met several women during my time in places like Africa and South America who were taken to witch doctors to be "cured" of various things and it almost always included some form of sexual abuse. One woman said that when she had malaria a group of male faith healers were invited over to tie her up, strip her naked, blindfold her, and take it in turns to spit on her. Even if that isn't the case here the description of the girl being "treated" as "thrashing about wildly on the floor and screaming before being restrained by two men" is really upsetting.