At Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center in Jerusalem, doctors have long studied patients with a psychiatric disorder they call Jerusalem syndrome, a very rare condition in which tourists -- on average one or two a month -- become so overwhelmed with the power of the place that they dissociate from reality and believe themselves to be biblical figures.
"I fully understand the people who are skeptical about it," said psychiatrist Gregory Katz, who directs the emergency unit at Kfar Shaul. "If I hadn't seen it myself, I also would be very skeptical. But you can't deny what you really see."
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The late psychiatrist Yair Bar-El, whom Katz worked with, told Gershom Gorenberg, then writing for The Jerusalem Report, that Kfar Shaul once housed three Virgin Marys at the same time. And he told Judith Fein, in a radio interview for The Savvy Traveler, about an experiment in which he put two "Messiahs" in the same room.
After an hour, Bar-El told Fein, each said, "I am the real Messiah. He's an imposter."
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And though Jerusalem is certainly unique in terms of its religious weight and influence, Katz said it's not the only tourist destination that can give people a strange psychiatric bug: In Italy, art lovers who visit Florence can suffer Stendhal syndrome, a psychotic reaction to the details of masterpieces.
I don't have anything interesting to say about it. I just think it's an amusing piece.
