Crowds... not such a good thing

In class on Friday, we talked about the cult of Attis and their strange ritual festival. For those of you that weren't in class, here's a short recap.

1. They go out into the forest and find a tree and decorate it with small carvings of Attis.
2. They take the tree into the city and set it up for the festival.
3. They cut themselves and spatter the blood all over the tree as a sacrifice
4. The males in the group cut off their manhood and beat a statue of Cybele with it.
5. Finally, they run through the streets, throwing the severed manhoods in random doors.

Weird huh? The strange thing about this phenomenon is that effects like this are still present today. What effect? This effect can be called the crowd effect, mob effect, or herd behavior. Basically what happens is people get into a large group and jump around (usually to some sort of high energy music or beat) and psychologically lose themselves in the process. These people may come into a mental state in which they may do things they don't want to do.

A good example of this is Woodstock 1999. In my high school government class, we looked at a video of this (which I can't find). I believe when Korn was singing, this effect took place. Suddenly, everyone started jumping at the same time, in the same rhythm. This doesn't seem like a bad thing, does it? Well, as the effect wore on, many people were raped and some injured and killed. Kinda makes you rethink a mosh pit huh?