Jewish mystical movements and the European ergot epidemics / Commentary

From: The Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences | Date: January 1, 1998| Author: | Copyright information

New School for Social Research, New York, USA

Abstract: Chronic intake of ergot, a chemical present in bread blighted by ergot-producing fungi, results in a wide variety of neuropsychiatric and vascular symptoms. The symptomatology and epidemiology of outbreaks of ergot poisoning are traced, and are shown to coincide with the emergence of Jewish mystical movements, such as the early Pietist movement in Germany, Sabbateanism and Chasidism, thus suggesting that environmental ergotism contributed to these mystical movements. The interaction between ergotism and other nutritional, ...

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