Ceci N’est Pas Une Lune
When you say “Lunatic,” most people are going to picture any number of bad guys from classic Slasher films. From Jason Voorhees to Norman Bates and Jigsaw, the character is generally evil and always unhinged. The colloquial lunatic has no sense of right and wrong, and is simply driven by their own lack of awareness and animalistic nature. Paired with Asylum, it conjures up Halloween Attractions, or Gotham’s Arkham for the criminally insane. But the origins are a bit different.
The word Lunatic comes from the French and goes back to the 13th century, and, contrary to seemingly popular belief, has nothing to do with violence. It was a diagnosis, and translates most directly to “moon sick.” They described the afflicted as "affected with periodic insanity dependent on the changes of the moon.” Lunatics were said to go in and out of sanity, depending on the moon’s phases. The word shares roots across Latin, French, German, Greek, and English. All of these cultures had different sicknesses that they ascribed to the moon, conditions that we now recognize as a myriad of separate disorders, such as epilepsy or psychosis. Almost anything that seemed out of the normal would be attributed to lack of contact with reality, and quickly stamped as lunacy. Of course, in our modern world, we have a better understanding of what causes these conditions, and have managed to differentiate between them. And because of that, it can be tempting to look back on our more primitive medical teams and scoff, knowing full well that the moon doesn’t throw people into fits of madness. We are modern, and we have science now, and don’t need to think silly things.
Unless, of course you’re a night shift nurse. Or a teacher. Or a public servant. Or a person who works with people in literally any context. Because, despite our best efforts to outgrow it, lunacy seems to have come with us.
And, if you’re ready, I invite you to come too. But remember; Here, there be monsters.
People have always taken note of the full moon. From the Garden of Gethsemane to the Roman goddess Luna, it shows up again and again in religious context. Even in medical history, Hippocrates, also known as the founding father of modern medicine, described the condition of lunacy, explaining it as, "One who is seized with terror, fright and madness during the night is being visited by the goddess of the moon." Both the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Roman historian Pliny the Elder suggested that people are affected by full moons, and even made an effort to understand why. They posited that because the human brain is made largely of water, the moon affects the water in our brains just as it does the ocean’s tides, making us do different and strange things. In Shakespeare’s Othello, the title character laments “It is the very error of the moon: She comes more nearer earth than she was wont, And makes men mad.” In the Middle Ages, stories of werewolves and vampires became more prevalent, many early versions of the stories tying their transformation to the moon, and later, the full moon. Even without supernatural creatures in the mix, many people, most usually medical staff, still swear by their convictions that the full moon affects behavior. Others say it brings about strange events, and the strange behavior is simply a reaction to that. This host can tell you that last full moon, they got put on hold with BestBuy for three hours, on top of their car breaking and paycheck being un-depositable due to circumstances that were not their fault. It also stormed that night, and all the water that collected in the puddles around their apartment was a bad shade of yellow ochre. So take that for what you will.
In addition to terrorizing podcast hosts, the full moon can also apparently impact a whole lot of things, including birth rates. Not just for humans, although researchers in Kyoto, Japan found that higher birth rates correlated with supermoons, which are full moons that occur at the moon’s closest point of orbit in regards to the Earth. Sea Turtles and coral also show a higher rate of reproduction, with Sea Turtles laying more eggs and hundreds of coral species within The Great Barrier Reef spawning all together. And it’s not just animals- seeds planted at or before the full moon apparently fare much better than their counterparts. And this belief isn’t new- Greek and Roman goddesses of birth and fertility such as Artemis and Selene were also associated with the moon. Fertility might be the least surprising connection, actually, as the moon phases align very neatly with the average menstrual cycle. Which, speaking of, one study showed the full moon correlated with 30% of the study population’s cycle, which was more than double the next largest group’s. So if that’s a valid finding, any given full moon, a sixth of the population could be dealing with that, which might explain why statisticians have also reported an upswing in crime at the full moon. That was a joke. Though there is a generally higher expectation for violent crimes. This one could also be because there’s more light, so people are more likely to be out and about. In any case, most officers or security guards will admit to having more difficult full moons, anticipating a need and having extra manpower out.
More inexplicable is the fact that the full moon apparently can impact your ability to fall asleep. This was studied retroactively, with researchers looking back on a sleep study they had previously conducted wherein study participants were in conditions that removed their exposure to outside light, and thus, were unable to see the moon. They found that participants in the study had slept less, experienced a 30% drop in deep sleep, and took longer to fall asleep, as compared to their normal.
Of course, in looking at the general mythos surrounding the weirdness of the full moon, scientists also suggest that there may be a stronger force at play- Apophenia. If you’ve never listened to the horror podcast The Black Tapes, apophenia is the phenomenon wherein the brain will generate connections that, well, don’t exist. Maybe there are more violent crimes committed during the full moon, or maybe knowing the lore, people are primed to see any crimes they witness that night as more violent than they would have otherwise. For every worker swearing by their own community’s stories, there’s probably a dozen skeptics ready to prove them wrong. So why do the legends persist? Well, for starters you’re way more likely to believe your own experience above a stranger’s opinion. Secondly, it’s easy to poke holes in any study looking at human behavior. It’s impossible to do airtight research because people are… not. Even setting aside the differences in culture, no two humans are going to respond in identical ways, making base samples just that much more difficult. And like I said- people are WAY more predisposed towards their own experiences. It’s the sort of the connection that lets urban legends persist- stories become so much more believable when it’s a friend’s cousin’s brother-in-law, because you want to assume that you can trust your friend’s taste in friends, and they wouldn’t lie to you.
Ask almost any second or third shift worker, and they’ll swear by the Lunar Effect. Most will even admit they don’t know why it happens, or say something akin to Pliny’s theory on the tides, but almost everyone will agree that it does. Scouring reddit gives you pages of one or two sentence confirmation stories, where people more often than not begin by saying “I didn’t believe in this, until…”
The idea of Lunacy is not new. As long as there has been religion and medicine, in whatever forms they may take, there has been a concept of the moon affecting people in strange and often inexplicable ways. Unfortunately, as with most things inexplicable, that also made it easy to co-opt into something more insidious. Looking back on what records we have, there is a clear and definitive pattern of the type of people who received the diagnosis. Almost all of them clearly disenfranchised, and for one reason or another, unhappy. In the 1876 Cyclopaedia a Mr. Blackstone is quoted as describing a lunacy sufferer as “one that hath had understanding, but by disease, grief, or other accident hath lost the use of his reason; he is indeed properly one that hath lucid intervals, sometimes enjoying his senses and sometimes not, and that frequently depending upon the change of the moon.” They then go on to note that such notions have been, quote, “exploded,” and continue into clarifying lunacy as it relates to legal matters. And that’s the catch. Say what you will about biased studies and potential skewing of statistics, looking back at people who were diagnosed with lunacy and people who were legally in the way of someone else’s gain, the overlap is more than coincidental. White colonists in the 19th and 20th century have a written record of diagnosing the Indiginous people of Western Australia with lunacy, citing symptoms that their home communities argued against as being based upon a European standard. Of course, not embracing the European standard also quickly became a symptom of lunacy, its conveniently vague definition allowing colonists to wipe aside any naysayers as simply mad. Similarly, British powers in India overtook the in-place asylums, originally community based centers of care, and transformed them into austere temples to western medicine, where people were punished and deemed mad for seeking out and following cultural treatments. Even in Europe, the title “lunatic” was most often bestowed upon women. A study of compiled records lists seven primary symptomologies, including “mania (excitement), melancholia (deep sadness), monomania (enthusiasm), paresis (paralysis), dementia, dipsomania (alcoholism), and epilepsy.” But just because these were the primary diagnosis didn’t mean they were the only criteria. One of the more common sub-diagnosis was overexertion, which coincidentally showed up most often in women with seven to eight children, and was often comorbid with the sub-diagnosis of childbirth, which could be anything from postpartum depression to anxiety about a child’s welfare. On the other end, another commonly cited diagnosis leading to internment was “abortion,” and accounted for a large percentage of the lunacy suffers. Less popular was “nymphomania.” Nymphomanics, of course, being classified as “overly interested in sex with males.” And speaking of children, another common diagnosis was simply “Heredity,” which meant you had an insane family member, and regardless of falling into any of the other creative categories, this was the spot for you. If not, you might find a home with the epileptics, or those “suppressing menses,” which was given indiscriminately to teenagers and senior women alike. Or you might be interned due to religious radical beliefs, such as classic delusion or differing in any way from your family’s religious community of choice. Grief was also a valid reason for admission, as well as “domestic troubles.” And this one, I’m inclined to think they just threw in the towel, and literally made a diagnosis for “your husband dropped you off, usually to punish you for experiencing emotions again, or because he wants to screw the neighbor.” And if that’s not enough, don’t worry, there’s still the all-encompassing diagnosis of “unknown reasons,” which is, of course, very helpful. Your unexplained bouts of mysterious behavior may be due to vague yet certain causes which are, of course, chronic.
So, just to summarize what we have so far, in order to avoid being labeled a lunatic, don’t have too many kids or else you might get tired, but still make sure you have some, but also don’t enjoy making them, and don’t make them with anyone you’re not married to, and if you do, don’t have it, but also don’t not have it, also, don’t have kids if you have a family member who was diagnosed with anything at any point, but also make sure you’re able to have kids, malnutrition and menopause are not an excuses for not being pregnant, but again, make sure you don’t get pregnant too often, or in the process of caring for your dozen you might look tired or resentful, so while you’re at it, you gotta be pious, but not too pious- that’s suspicious--The lord is your savior, but only on Sundays--and of course if, in the process of cultivating this large pious family, any member of it dies, be sure to keep your sadness to an approved level, or else your husband, who you are not supposed to enjoy these copious amounts of sex with, might get irritated by your womanly fragility and literally kick you to the curb on grounds of “cries too much.”
Honestly, the most surprising thing about lunacy is that there were enough women left to keep Europe from going belly-up. And while some symptoms might show genuine signs of modern psychosis, there is no way that a) all of them did, or b) that the process was helpful for those who did need support. And, when compared to dismantling centuries of systematic oppression, it’s so easier to turn away and blame it all on the moon.
Language has a funny way of circling around. From slang to medical terms, there seems to be an expiration date on what words we as society can and cannot say. Many parents enjoy tormenting their kids with phrases like “tubular,” or “radical.” Once I got called out in front of a college class for saying “Neat-o,” which I had, apparently, picked up from my Pop-pop, not realizing that wasn’t a thing other people said. Another time I told my friend her pants slapped, and was quickly reminded that I was the youngest person in the group when conversation immediately halted. Language changes, quickly, both globally and within communities. And while it usually creates nothing more than a funny story, sometimes the effects can be much more insidious.
In 2008, “Think B4 You Speak” launched a campaign to raise awareness of how words can be hurtful. I particularly remember this commercial with Hillary Duff, where she tells two girls who are out shopping that using gay as a synonym for bad is hurtful and they shouldn’t do it. Honestly, for my own part, I know I learned “gay” as a synonym for bad way before learning about the LGBT community, and I think that’s the case with a lot of our words. And because of the nature of how we look at things, these words are almost always associated with disability. Think of “lame,” which originally meant “unable to walk,” or how we still describe things as “crippling” or “blinding” even though we know, or at least ought to know, that doing so is offensive at best and dangerous at worst. Some words we don’t even realize have hurtful histories, like “moron,” which was initially a term for a person with a mental age of 8 to 12. It’s not so long ago that the R-word was officially banned from medical context because it had become hate speech. When you look into the history of a word, it’s so often not what you expected. Of course, that tells you a lot about people; that rather than learn our lesson, we keep recycling into new medical terms, because it seems that no matter what, people will always want to make an identifier an insult. It’s a phenomenon called the Euphemistic Treadmill- the seemingly endless mission to update the terminology before it becomes ubiquitous with the slur it was meant to replace. It only takes a glance at an out-dated medical journal to show how thoroughly this pervades our culture. And it may not be a mystery, why the words people choose to hurt others are the names doctors call their most vulnerable patients, but I’d like to argue that, in the spirit of the adaptability of language, here, there be monsters.
Map’s End is written and recorded by Nicole Chevalier with music by Scare the Raven.
More about Scare the Raven can be found on our website.
Transcripts and sources for today’s story can be found on our website, MapsEndPodcast.com by accessing the episode page.
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And thanks for listening.
Sources used in today’s story include
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lunacy-and-the-full-moon/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0l2z-K5OzA
https://dangerousintersection.org/2011/05/21/retard-and-other-disability-insults/
https://www.etymonline.com/word/lunatic
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/deep-dive-the-mythology-of-full-moons
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0964704X.2010.481101?scroll=top&needAccess=true
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_American_Cyclop%C3%A6dia_%281879%29/Lunacy
https://academic.oup.com/shm/article/24/2/316/1682587
