Over shabbos, I read a book about a woman who slowly realizes her husband is serial killer. What I found interesting was that in the book, all of the news reporters thought that the man was killing women every full moon, and only on the full moon. I wondered why they thought that the moon somehow triggered this mans madness, and I looked into it. Apparently, people used to think that the moon could trigger madness in a person which isn't true. Our book discusses the full moon madness theory as well, and says the following:
James Rotton and I.W. Kelly tested the question of a full moon triggering madness in some people. They examined data from 37 studies that related lunar phase to crime, homicides, crisis calls, and mental hospital admissions. They concluded that there is virtually no evidence of "moon madness." Nor does lunar phase correlate with suicides, assaults, emergency room visits, or traffic disasters.
I think that it is obvious to us that the moon does not cause any of these problems, but I thought it was interesting that at one point people really thought that psychological disorders could be caused by the moon and its phases.
James Rotton and I.W. Kelly tested the question of a full moon triggering madness in some people. They examined data from 37 studies that related lunar phase to crime, homicides, crisis calls, and mental hospital admissions. They concluded that there is virtually no evidence of "moon madness." Nor does lunar phase correlate with suicides, assaults, emergency room visits, or traffic disasters.
I think that it is obvious to us that the moon does not cause any of these problems, but I thought it was interesting that at one point people really thought that psychological disorders could be caused by the moon and its phases.
Zahava, haven't you ever heard that on the nights of the full moon people supposedly go crazy?! It sounds like a crazy myth that people believed. Similar to Carmit's blog post, I would say that this just seems sad. People believed in the weirdest things...maybe we also believe in weird things today too! I wonder if people who are already crazy would go look at the moon and act out in crazy ways because they know/ knew of this myth.
ReplyDeleteGreetings my friends!
DeleteOh im so pleased you read my post aviva!!
I would just like to agree with Aviva that in the past when people didnt really have all the information they simply assumed so many things that were not real. That always causes me to wonder if many years from now people will basically call us and our methods and way of thinking stupid. They will think that we basically had no idea what we were thinking.So in conclusion, i dont really believe that the moon myth is really true but its rather just something that people in the past always clung to.