In Opening Our Minds, Jon wrote about an outburst of mass sociogenic illness or mass hysteria in Chechnyan schools. Almost a hundred pupils thought they'd been poisoned by the Russians. It took two years for them all to be released from hospital as a cognitive therapist helped them to understand the condition.History has seen many examples of the madness of crowds - the Salem Witch Trials or those described by Huxley in The Devils of Loudon (filmed as The Devils), but are all human groups to some extent carriers of crazy ideas?Dr Moffic brings his lifetime as a therapist and his experience as a social psychiatrist to bear on the question.buy Jon's book, Opening Our Minds: Avoiding Abusive Relationships and Authoritarian GroupsMore on gender in JudaismSee Jon on Ladbible Jon is deeply indebted to Khapta Akhmedova for her painstaking help with this chapter. For a detailed account of mass hysteria, see Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudon, which was the basis for Ken Russell’s stylish film, The Devils. Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, deals with the Salem witch trials and is also available in two film versions.