The word hysteria comes from the greek Hystera, meaning womb. Originally an exclusively female malady, different societies have labeled women as hysterical for nearly 4000 years with the first written use of the term appearing in ancient Egypt followed by ancient Greece. It was only in the 18th century with the beginning of Western psychiatry that it became a formal diagnosis, again almost exclusively for women, to describe a wide array of “neurosis’’. Symptoms might include anxiety, shortness of breath, fainting, nervousness, insomnia, irritability, loss of libido – but also sexually impulsive behavior – and a "tendency to cause trouble for others”. Unsurprisingly, it was considered, among the men of the era, a common and chronic issue for women.

The diagnosis of Hysteria is also closely tied to mystical states of spiritual ecstasy. In his book The Art of Losing Control, Jules Evans writes about the French psychiatrist Jean-Martin Charcot who “claimed ecstasy was one of the stages of ‘hysteria’…He insisted that the ecstatics of yesteryear, from St. Teresa of Ávila to Joan of Arc, were actually suffering from hysteria.” 

Following the European Enlightenment, Western society shifted from a magical and spiritual world view to one that favored order and rationality. Ecstasy, hysteria, the ‘irrational’ were considered primitive and uncivilized, and we had to guard ourselves from their dangerous influences. Barbara Ehrenreich wrote, “The essence of the Western mind, and particularly the Western male upper-class mind, was its ability to resist the contagious rhythms of the drums, to wall itself up in a fortress of ego and rationality…” 

If hysteria is understood as uncontrollable and inappropriate emotions, this begs a question: uncontrollable by and inappropriate to whom?

Primordial femininity invokes the mysterious and intuitive, the wild and irrational. I don't mean the nonsensical, foolish, or absurd, I mean that which is sublime and beyond our ability to encapsulate within the confines of quantifiable rationality. The archetypes of this primordial womanhood are found in the Maenads, the frenzied supplicants to Dionysus, and secret covens of witches hiding in the woods. These are the Sirens, who sing a song so full of mystery, the rationality of men is lost completely.

The call of the feminine is a siren’s song, luring us back to a life that reconciles our inherent wildness, our deep desire for freedom, connection, and wonder. The intuitive, mysterious, and unknown lies on the other side of femininity’s call. That’s not just for women, that’s for all of us; this dark power is an integral part of who we are. There is an ungovernable aspect to our nature that can’t be easily categorized or contained. It isn’t polite or demure, and that threatens the structures of “civilized” society. 

But the consequences of trying to control and suppress that passionate wildness are also dangerous and evident all around us: the violent lashing out, the subjugation of the natural world and our fellow human being, and a hard-edged banality that threatens to cover the world in a soulless, technocratic web.

So, how can we start to reclaim this aspect of our lives and reintegrate feminine mystery into who we are?

Jean-Martin Charcot, the 18th Century researcher of hysteria, may have inadvertently shown us one way. For over 30 years he worked, researched, and taught at a hospital trying to cure both men and women of hysteria with a minimal success rate. One patient, however, claims to have cured herself – through dancing.

Art, music, and dancing are all vehicles for us to connect with mystery, a practice of letting go into a powerful force beyond our control, a vast ocean with waves we can only ride. Letting that in can be scary, the waters there are at times dark and turbulent, but that’s also where we find the visceral beauty of creation and the gift of creativity. As Mary Oliver wrote, “The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame.”

Today, let’s let go of our shame and embrace the hysterical.