Top 10 Little Known Facts About Terror
For centuries, extremes of human terror have had two broad effects on human bodies. At one level fear has caused people to go temporarily blind, mute or deaf, or to suffer paralysis: a reaction known as Conversion Disorder, in the sense that mental terror is converted into physical effects on the body. At another, it has actually killed people – including grown men and hardened soldiers. The fatal form of this terror is usually magical or supernatural – although not quite always.
10 Magical Terror in the New Testament There were many cases of Conversion Disorder in and after World War One. Essentially, the body converted mental terror into bodily harm. Soldiers suffering from shell shock (PTSD) would become mute or deaf without any obvious medical cause. Further back, in Puritan New England, terror of supposed witches caused paralysis of limbs or even temporary stoppage of urine.