# The Dancing Plagues · The Cult Dossier · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

Source: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/atlas/library/cults/164-the-dancing-plagues/ · The Congregation of Tomorrow · the Atlas · language: en
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The Cult Dossier · No. 164 · Moral Panic / Mass Hysteria
The Dancing Plagues
Choreomania; the dancing mania; St Vitus dance; the Dancing Plague of 1518
1374 – 1518 · The Rhine and Moselle valleys; Aachen, Cologne, Liège; Strasbourg
XVI. CONTAGION — SYMPTOMS THAT SPREAD WITHOUT A PATHOGEN
Deeply religious in content, and that is the mechanism. The afflicted and those watching believed SAINT VITUS could inflict compulsive dancing as a curse, and the outbreaks took the shape the belief supplied.
### Who led it
### What it worshipped and taught
### Who was in it
### How it ended, or where it stands
### The dead
### Of note
### Its timeline
- 1374 Outbreaks across WESTERN GERMANY, THE LOW COUNTRIES AND NORTH-EASTERN FRANCE, including the Rhine and Moselle towns. Thousands dance for days or weeks. Earlier reported episodes, such as Kölbigk in 1021, may be legend; 1374 and 1518 are not in doubt.
- 14 JULY 1518 In STRASBOURG a woman steps into the street outside her house and dances. Within weeks others join. ESTIMATES OF THE NUMBER INVOLVED RANGE FROM ABOUT 50 TO ABOUT 400, and the range is in the sources, not in the retelling.
- 1518 THE CIVIC RESPONSE MADE IT WORSE, AND IT IS DOCUMENTED. Physicians prescribed MORE DANCING, so that the afflicted could dance themselves free of it. Guild halls were made over for the purpose, and MUSICIANS and strong men were brought in to keep the dancers upright. The approach backfired.
- 1518 The dancers are sent to the shrine of SAINT VITUS, wearing RED SHOES SPRINKLED WITH HOLY WATER, with crosses painted on them.
- SEPTEMBER 1518 The outbreak ends, the remaining dancers having been taken to a mountaintop chapel.
### Its people
### John Waller
—
Historian of the dancing plagues · — · active 2008–present
Before the law. None.
Where things stand. No death record was found at the time of writing, and this file makes no claim about his current post. HIS FINDING THAT THE DEATH TOLL IS ABSENT FROM THE CONTEMPORARY RECORD is the load-bearing fact in entry 164.
- 2008 A TIME TO DANCE, A TIME TO DIE published.
- 2008–present Publishes further work on choreomania and the history of mass psychogenic illness.
Checked 2026-09-05
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