International Journal of Social Psychiatry http://isp.sagepub.com/

Suicide By Fire: a Contemporary Method of Political Protest Kevin Crosby, Joong-Oh Rhee and Jimmie Holland Int J Soc Psychiatry 1977 23: 60 DOI: 10.1177/002076407702300111 The online version of this article can be found at: http://isp.sagepub.com/content/23/1/60

Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for International Journal of Social Psychiatry can be found at: Email Alerts: http://isp.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://isp.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://isp.sagepub.com/content/23/1/60.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Apr 1, 1977 What is This?

Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

60

SUICIDE BY FIRE: A CONTEMPORARY METHOD OF POLITICAL PROTEST

CROSBY, B.A., JOONG-OH RHEE, M.D., JIMMIE HOLLAND, M.D.* Department ofPsychiatry, State University ofNew York at Buffalo School ofMedicine, E. J. Meyer Memorial Hospital, Buffalo, New York Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Holland KEVIN

method of self-destruction in the world. by fire is It also SSUICIDE virtually unknown method of political protest before 1963. Buddhist Thich Duc burned himself death 1963, an uncommon

was

western

In

a

in a to Quang square of Saigon to protest the policies of the Diem regime in South Vietnam. This act was followed by the appearance of self-burning as a means of political protest in several countries throughout the world. While some of these suicides occurred as isolated events, others appeared in clusters suggestive of &dquo;epidemics.&dquo; This article reviews the historical and cultural antecedents which might have led to the recent appearance of suicide by fire as a means of political protest and presents a summary of all cases of self-burning reported by the New York Times and London Times from 1790 through 1971. The suicides by fire reported since 1963 are examined for differences in political and non-political motivation. Also discussed is the &dquo;epidemic&dquo; nature of some clusters of suicides and the possible

June public

a

monk,

effect of news media on their occurrence. In recent years, the term &dquo;self-immolation&dquo; has become a popular term for the act of suicide by burning. Immolation, however, by definition means sacrificial suicide by any method (1), with long historical usage in this context. Thus, &dquo;selfimmolation,&dquo; correctly used, does not imply burning, nor does suicide by fire necessarily infer &dquo;self-immolation,&dquo; or sacrifice. To clarify the terminology, we suggest that the term &dquo;self-incineration&dquo; rather than &dquo;self-immolation&dquo; be used as a more accurate and useful label for the act of suicide by burning.

History of Sel f-incineration as Ritual and Protest The earliest available accounts of ritualistic self-incineration are found in the first century B.C. writings of the Greek Diodorus Siculus and Strabo (2). Describing an event which occurred in the fourth century B.C., Diodorus wrote : &dquo;Here the Indian

Caranus, who had advanced far in philosophy and highly regarded by Alexander, put a remarkable end to his life. He had been taken ill and each day becoming more exhausted he asked the king to erect for him a huge pyre, and after he had ascended it, to order attendants to ignite it (3).&dquo; was

The ancient rite of suttee, in which the widow was burned to death funeral pyre of her husband, was also described by Diodorus Siculus:

on

the.

&dquo;... the Indians established a law that wives, except such as were pregnant had children, should be cremated along with their deceased husbands, and that one who was not willing to obey this law should not only be a

or

*Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center Supported in Part by USPHS Grant 5 T21 MH12194-03 Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

61 widow for life but also be entirely debarred from sacrifices and other religious observances as unclean (4).&dquo; Although the practice of suttee is popularly believed to have evolved within the philosophical framework of the Hindu religion, the custom of widow-burning existed in several other cultures prior to, or concurrent with the rise of Hinduism. Suttee existed among the Teutons, the Wends, and the Heruli (5); it was also an ancient Slavic and Scandinavian custom (6). Yule and Burnell noted that suttee was an early custom among the &dquo;heathen Russians&dquo; (7). Luzbetak described the custom of the widow dying on the funeral pyre of the husband as a widespread custom in the Caucasus in &dquo;earlier ages&dquo; (8) Brooke stated there were traces of suttee in ancient Greece (9). Thus it appears that the rite of widow-burning was a corollary of the primitive multi-cultural custom of widow-sacrifice, whereby a widow either committed suicide or was ceremoniously killed following the death of her husband (10). There is evidence that the rite of ceremonial self-incineration was established in Buddhist sects in China and Southeast Asia in the early centuries of Christianity. A Buddhist text written in the first century A.D. &dquo;tells the story of Bhahayiaraja, who ate incense, drank oils, and bathed in essences for 12 years before setting fire to himself as an offering to Buddha (11).&dquo; This self-sacrifice established a precedent for the use of self-incineration as a means of religious sacrifice among Buddhist monks in the following centuries (12). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ritualistic self-incineration was reported in South Bali (13), Indonesia (14), and among the Mohave Indians of North America (15). Alexander and Binet reported that old people in the African culture of Fang sometimes voluntarily burned themselves to death (16). Landes noted that Southern Ojibwa Indians afflicted with &dquo;windigo insanity&dquo; would order themselves burned to death (17). Even at the present time, burning is a relatively common method of suicide in women of African and Asian extraction in Israel (18) and among women in India (19). The custom of committing suicide as a means of private or public protest was observed in Oriental cultures in ancient times (20, 21). It appears, however, that the suicide of Thich Quang Duc in 1963 was the first well-documented case of self-incineration for the purpose of demonstrating political protest. METHOD OF STUDY

All accounts of suicides by burning which appeared as reports in the London Times and New York Times from 1790 through 1971 were reviewed. For the London Times, the &dquo;unofficial&dquo; Palmer’s Index to the Times was used for the period 1790 through June 1941; the &dquo;official&dquo; Index to the Times was used for the years 1906 through 1971. The New York Times, first published in 1851, was reviewed by use of the &dquo;unofficial&dquo; index for the period, 1851-1907. No index for the New York Times exists for the period 1907 to 1913. For the years 1913-1971, the &dquo;official&dquo; Index to the New York Times was used. The subject headings &dquo;Suicide,&dquo; &dquo;Death,&dquo; &dquo;Fire,&dquo; &dquo;Burning,&dquo; &dquo;Immolation&dquo; and related topics were consulted to assure that all references to reports of self-incineration were obtained. Changes in the newspapers policies of reporting or indexing however, may have obscured some cases reported during this extensive time period. All newspaper accounts of suicide by burning were studied and those which clearly indicated political protest as motivation were classified as &dquo;political.&dquo; All others were regarded as non-political. A self-incineration was classified as political Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

62

protest if it met the following criteria : (1) the individual had made a prior statement to indicate that the suicide was a means of protest; (2) the self-incineration occurred in a public place; and (3) there was no apparent gross evidence of mental illness. This

separation of &dquo;political&dquo; and &dquo;non-political&dquo; motivation is only a crude approximation and it is recognised that actual psychodynamic etiology could not be reliably assessed from newspaper accounts. RESULTS

A total of 133 cases of self-incineration were reported in the London Times and New York Times from 1790 to 1971, a period of 181 years. Thirty-eight cases (29%) were reported from 1790 through 1962, a period of 172 years; 95 cases of self-incineration or 71% appeared in the nine-year period from 1963 to 1972.

TABLE I

1790-1962 Between 1970 and 1963, the cases of self-incineration reported in the London Times were sporatic and infrequent. There were no reports of selfincineration in the New York Times from 1851 to 1878; five cases were reported between 1878 and 1886. None of the self-incinerations reported during the period 1790-1962 was described as political protest. Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

63

TABLE II

963-1971 On June 12, 1963, the London Times and New York Times both reported the df-lnclneratlon of the Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc in South Vietnam. )n

a second Buddhist monk burned himself to death as a political followed by the self-incinerations of another monk and a Buddhist .un on August 16. At least five more Buddhists burned themselves to death in rotes of the Diem government in 1963. In 1964 and 1965 nine of the eleven cases of self-incineration reported were .irectly attributable to political protest. These nine political suicides included five ’uddhist monks in South Vietnam, one politician in Korea, and three Americans. ’he first reported American case of apparent political self-incineration was that f Alice Herz, an 82-year-old Quaker pacifist who set fire to herself on a street orner in Detroit on March 17, 1965, for the purpose of protesting &dquo;the arms race .11 over the world&dquo; (22). In November 1965, Norman Morrison, a 32-year-old )uaker official, died in flames on the steps of the Pentagon in Washington after that he was dying to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

August 5, 1963,

rotes.

This

was

zdicating

Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

64

Eight days later, Roger LaPorte, a 22-year-old member of the Catholic Workel movement, set fire to himself in front of the United Nations Headquarters in Neon York in a similar protest. It was noted in the reports of these three Americans tha the victims had not displayed any evidence of depression or overtly psychotic behaviour prior to their suicides. The tenth case of self-incineration reported ir 1965 involved a 24-year-old American woman who was &dquo;said to be despondent ovei casualty reports from Vietnam and the accidental death of her baby&dquo; (23). She hac

undergone psychiatric treatment prior to her self-incineration and thus was excludec from the political protest group although she may represent a person in whorr mental illness and political motivation interacted. In 1966, the newspapers reported 15 cases of political self-incineration : thirteer Buddhists in Vietnam, one American student, and one Soviet citizen. Four nonpolitical self-incinerations were reported in 1966 : one each in New Zealand, Finland, England, and the United States. Ten political self-incinerations were reported in 1967; five by Buddhists ir Southeast Asia; five in the United States. Three non-political cases occurred ir 1967 :

two

In

in the United

States,

and

one

in India.

sharp drop occurred in the number of reported self-incinerations, I Only two cases, both non-political, appeared in the both newspapers. In 1969, eight political and seven non-political self-incinerations occurred. 1968,

a

Th~

Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia led to a series of at least four protes suicides by burning, the first by Jan Palach in Prague. Palach’s suicide receive world-wide attention and was followed by a succession of self-incinerations b sympathizers in Czechoslovakia, Scotland and Hungary. The cases of non-politica self-incineration in 1969 occurred in England, the United States, India and Pakistan In January 1970, a cluster of ten self-incinerations occurred in France. Thi series was started by a 16-year-old boy in Lille, France, who burned himself t death on the playground of his school &dquo;to atone for the wrong committed in Biafra against war, violence, and the folly of men&dquo; (24). This protest by self-incineratio occurred exactly one year after Jan Palach’s, but it is not known whether this wa planned or coincidental. Within two weeks of the boy’s death, six more cases o self-incineration by youths under 21 were reported in France; three were clearly identified as political protests. A total of sixteen cases of suicide by fire wer reported in 1970, of which six were political protests. Five political self-incinerations and four non-political suicides were reporte in 1971 : four political protests in Vietnam, one in the U.S.; and four non-politica burnings, two in the U.S. and two in England. DISCUSSION

reporte

A historical review of suicides by burning for the past 181 years, as by two well-known newspapers reveals that approximately one-quarter (38 cases, 29%) occurred in the first 172 years; almost three-fourths (71 °~o) or 95 cases occurred in the past ten years from 1963 to 1972. No reported account of suicide by burning for political protest was found in the 181 years prior to the selfincineration of Thich Quang Duc in 1963. Of the 95 self-incinerations which have occurred since 163, 64 were indicated as political protests and 31 were without apparent political motivation. Thus the data suggest the appearance of a new form of political protest, within the last decade, suicide by fire. Although newspaper accounts cannot be expected to indicate the actuastatistical incidence of suicides by fire, nor to provide sufficient information for the Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

65

certain assessment of motivation, they can provide crude information which must uffice in the absence of more complete and reliable data. The fact that selfburning frequently occurred in countries at times of great conflict may have led .o the suppression of facts around some of these deaths. The psychological impact >f death by burning is great. When done to protest for a cause or a principle, the mpact is all the greater. Certainly, a combination of intense feelings are aroused, ~ummarised in a French newspaper article as &dquo;emotions of horror, grief, guilt, ndignation and annoyance&dquo; (24). Often the prevailing political power determines :he interpretation of such deaths. Those against whom the protest is directed may lescribe the protest-suicide as the act of a &dquo;crackpot,&dquo; since they wish to diminish ts emotional impact on those in sympathy with the cause promoted by the person cho died. It should also be mentioned that the increase in reported self-incinerations night be accounted for partially by a greater sensitivity on the part of the press .o this type of suicide, particularly when political protest appeared to be a dominant ’actor. Nevertheless, the actual increase of self-incinerations since 1963 was also ioted by a study of self-burnings reported by the French newspaper, Sud-Ouest fournal, between 1957 and 1969. Only five of 635 suicides reported in that newspaper between 1957 and 1963 were by burning; from June 1963 to May 1969, 105 cases of self-incineration among 232 suicides were reported (25). To explain the clusters of protest self-incinerations in South Vietnam, we uggest that the unstable political situation in the early 1960’s fostered a high evel of tension among the opposing factions and produced an intense emotional ttmosphere. The policies of the Diem regime produced strong antagonistic feelings imong the Vietnamese Buddhist monks who lacked effective political power despite .heir number. In an atmosphere which was conducive to a dramatic explosion of the mderlying tension, the cultural and religious milieu of southeast Asia provided both iistorical precedent and support for Thich Quang Duc’s use of self-incineration is a means of political protest. The Buddhist ritual of burning oneself for the purpose of achieving Nirvana and the Oriental tradition of suicide as a means of public protest may account for the relative &dquo;popularity&dquo; of political protest by neans of self-incineration. Equally important, however, was the fact that this action expressed an intense covert emotion shared among the Buddhist of South Vietnam. rhich Quang Duc and the other monks who later burned themselves to death in protest thus were the &dquo;bearers&dquo; or &dquo;expressors&dquo; of the group desire. Hankoff (26) uggested this paradigm as an explanation of an &dquo;epidemic&dquo; of suicide attempts in .961. Taylor and Hunter (27) suggest that epidemics of disturbed behaviour occur n the presence of unusual readiness for emotional explosion. We would add that -pidemics are likely to occur when times were unsettled, emotions inflamed and vhen no appropriate outlet exists for the expression of commonly shared emotions. Obviously, self-sacrifice by suicide brings secondary gains to the victim in .he personal attainment of a &dquo;divine&dquo; state (e.g., Nirvana for the Buddhists), posthumous glorification which often immortalizes a martyr, or winning honor or ;lory for the individual’s family or group. Religious or political figures, as ex~mplified by the Buddhists, may identify at times so completely with a cause that hey perceive their lives solely as instruments for attaining the goals of the group, tllowing total submission to control. Thus, a command or even a suggestion to :ommit a sacrificial suicide would provide sufficient motivation for a person with uch extreme zeal or devotion. The Buddhist self-incinerations may be thus characterised as an epidemic which ’esulted from the confluence of several conditions: (1) a conducive atmosphere of Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

66

open conflict and emotional tension; (2) a dramatic and powerful expression of a a passionate expression laden with complex symbolic widely shared emotion meaning which served to intensify and focus the ubiquitious emotional tension; and (3) a population of individuals whose religious devotion, personal commitment, and unquestioning obedience perhaps made them particularly susceptible to suggestion from their leaders who may have encouraged the sacrifices for political purposes. Certain parallels may be seen between the Vietnamese suicides and the early American cases of political self-incineration. The first Americans who committed self-incineration as political protest all had an intense involvement in religious antiwar groups. These protests likewise occurred in an emotionally charged environment in which efforts to influence governmental policy were ineffective. In 1965, the United States substantially increased its involvement in the Vietnam War, and as a result, the social atmosphere grew more tense with increased popular sentiment against the war - a development which had little apparent impact on the government’s escalation of the war. Anti-war groups became even more active at this time, and, as potentially explosive emotions spread, the model of the Buddhist protest-suicides was emulated. Alice Herz stated, &dquo;I wanted to burn myself like the monks of Vietnam did&dquo; (New York Times, 3/18/63, p. 3). In addition to considering the socio-psychologlcal dynamics of behavioural epidemics, one must speculate on the individual motivation for protest suicide. We postulate that individuals who attempted or committed suicide for political protest were of three basic types : the overtly-suicidal individual, the covertly suicidal person, and the &dquo;altruistic&dquo; individual. The overtly suicidal individual may have had the desire to die as the primary motivation, and the guise of &dquo;protest&dquo; simply provided the superficial justification for accomplishing the more essential goal of ending life. By identifying one’s suicide as an altruistic sacrifice, an otherwise stigmatised act became acceptable, even honorable. The process of adopting a superficial justification might be either a conscious attempt to gain posthumous respect, recognition or notoriety, or an attempt (conscious or unconscious) to make the act of suicide more acceptable to oneself. The news media, by giving dignity or significance to a particular method of suicide could have influenced the choice of method of the person already determined to commit suicide. The covertly suicidal person was an individual in whom protest appeared to be the primary motivation, but a careful psychological autopsy probably would have revealed a characterological or unconscious predisposition to suicide. The objective of &dquo;protest&dquo; or &dquo;sacrifice&dquo; might have been only the superficial motive which triggered the underlying drive for suicide relating to deep, but not apparent depression. The influence of the news media could have been to suggest the mode, but not the motivation for suicide in this type of individual. The &dquo;altruistic&dquo; type of suicide occurred in the absence of previous psychopathological symptoms, and was motivated by a sense of dedication or obhgation , to a particular cause. Durkheim’s description of the &dquo;altruistic&dquo; suicide, in which the rules or customs of a group require suicide under certain circumstances, seems appropriate to describe this type of protest suicide (28). Nearly all of the cases reported in the New York Times and the London Times prior to 1963, and approximately one-third of those reported after 1963, appear to be suicide by fire without political protest motivation. These deaths apparently occurred among individuals with significant depression or psychotic illness, who presumably made the decision to commit suicide prior to the selection of a method. -

I

Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

67 The fundamental question is not why these people committed suicide, but why they chose fire as the mode. However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to closely examine the reasons for the choice of fire as a method of suicide by overtly psychiatrically ill individuals. Briefly, fire might have had a special psychological meaning or attraction for some individuals which led to its choice as an acceptable or desirable means of self-destruction. Fire surely has important cultural significance as embodied in the symbolism of religion, mythology and art. Psychoanalytic interpretations of pyromania relate it to urethral eroticism, sexual excitement and aggressive (urethral) impulses (29). For some individuals, self-incineration may have been simply a quick and efficient method of suicide, with the materials readily available. Beyond a consideration of the psychological significance of fire, one must examine the possibility of an &dquo;imitative&dquo; component in the motivation of those I who have committed self-incineration since 1963. There has been an increase in the non-political suicides by fire along with the occurrence of political self-incinerations. It has been popular belief that news accounts of suicide, particularly sensational ones, encourage imitation of the suicide described (30, 31, 32). In 1967, Motto (33) tested the hypothesis that suppression of newspaper accounts of suicidal behaviour would significantly reduce suicide rate in the affected population. No significant change in suicide rates during newspaper strikes in seven major American cities was found. Motto concluded that no deleterious effects could be attributed to newspaper accounts of suicide except by the newspapers’ expressed or implied attitudes regarding particular suicides. The significance of suicide by fire as a method of protest must be looked at in a historical framework. Nonviolent protest methods such as self-imposed stravation, were promoted by the example of Ghandi. In the United States during the 1950’s and early 1960’s, &dquo;sit-ins&dquo; and marches were typical methods of non-violent protest employed in civil rights activism. The decade of the sixties saw the sporadic growth of more violent forms of political protest such as self-incineration. The recent reduction in the occurrence of self-incineration has been coincident with an apparent increase in the use of aggressive methods of protest dramatic acts of terrorism such as hijackings, bombings, hostage-taking, and political assasination. These methods of forcing political change have appeared on an international scale. Suicide as a &dquo;nonviolent&dquo; or self-sacrificial protest method and terrorism as a method of violent protest, deal with hostile, aggressive impulses which may be turned against the self in the first instance and against others in the second case. These extreme acts probably occur with greatest frequency when acceptable, rational means of changing a political condition appear absent or ineffective to the individual who places his cause as more important than his life. Participation in terrorist acts is often fatal to the terrorist as well as his victim, and a committment to this type of extreme political activity requires a willingness (conscious or unconscious) to sacrifice one’s life for a cause. Sociological factors which lead to choice of methods of political protest at a particular time and in a particular cultural context, should be studied further in relation to psychological factors in individuals who commit acts of violent political .

-

,

protest.

*

SUMMARY

Suicide by fire (self-incineration) for the purpose of political protest has appeared in several countries during the previous decade. In this paper, the history of this form of suicide has been explored. The authors examined all cases of suicide by fire Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

68

reported in the London Times and New York Times between 1790 and 1972. Seventy-one per cent of these reported suicides occured during the most recent decade, 1963 to 1972, with all cases of political self-incineration occurring during this period. The socio-cultural context in which this form of protest may occur, and the psychological factors in individuals who choose this method of suicide are both discussed. It is suggested that the occurrence of self-incineration as a means of political protest may be yielding to more aggressive acts of terrorism as popular methods of forcing

political change.

REFERENCES

1. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language. Springfield, Mass., G. & C. Merriam Company, 1965. 2. Yule, H., Burnell, A.: Hobson-Jobson Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1968, p. 879. 3. Diodrus of Sicily (trans.: C. Bradford Welles): Book XVII. 107.2 Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1963, p. 432-433. 4. Diodrus of Sicily (trans.: Russel M. Greer): Book XIX. 33.2 Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 1947, p. 321. 5. Rawlinson, G.: History of Herodutus, Vol. III, London, John Murray, 1880, p. 213. 6. Penzer N. quoted by Thompson, E.: Suttee. London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1928, p. 24. 7. Yule, H., Burnell, A. : Ibid., p. 879. 8. Luzbetak, L.: Marraige and the family in Caucasia : A Contribution to the Study of North Caucasian Ethnology and Customary Law. Vienna, St. Babriel’s Mission Press, 1951, p. 131. 9. Brooke, W.: The Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India. Westminster, Archibald Constable, 1806, p. 185. 10. Thompson, E.: Suttee. London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1928, p. 26. 11. Before Jan Palach, London Times, January 29, 1969, p. 8. 12. Before Jan Palach, Ibid., p. 8. 13. Covarrubias, M.: Island of Bali. New York, Knopf, 1939, p. 382. 14. Alkema, B., Bezemer, T.: Beknopt Hanboek der Wolkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie (Concise Handbook of the Ethnology of the Netherlands East Indies). Haahlem, Tjeenk Willink en Zoon, 1927, p. 197. 15. Devereux, G.: Funeral Suicide and the Mohave social structure. Bull. Hist. Med., 8: 11941213, 1940, p. 525. 16. Alexander, P., Benet, J.: Legroupe dit Pahouin (Fang-Boulou-Beti) (The group called Pahouin (Fang-Bulu, Beti). Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1958, p. 129. 17. Landes, R.: Ojibwa Sociology, New York. Columbia University Press, 1937, p. 101. 18. Modan, B. Nissenkorn,I., Lewkowski, S.: Comparative epidemiologic aspects of suicide and attempted suicide in Israel, Amer. J. of Epidem., 91:373-399, 1970. 19. Bagadia, V. N.: personal communication. 20. Purcell, V.: The Chinese in Southeast Asia. London, Oxford University Press, 1951, p. 345. 21. Levy, M.: The Family Revolution in Modern China. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1949, p. 117. 22. Woman, 82, Sets Herself Afire in Street as Protest on Vietnam. The New York Times, March 18, 1965, p. 3. 23. Mother Attempts Suicide by Burning. The New York Times, November 12, 1965, p. 3. 24. France Stirred by Immolations. The New York Times, January 25, 1970, p. 6. 25. Bourgeois, M.: Suicides par le feu a la manière des bonzes (Suicide by Fire in the Manner of the Bonzes), Sociète Medico-Psychologique, May 19, 1969. 26. Hankoff, L.: An Epidemic of Attempted Suicide, Comprehensive Psychiatry, 2:294-298, 1961. 27. Taylor, F., Hunter, R.: Observation of a Hysterical Epidemic in a Hospital Ward, Psychiat. Quart., 32:821-838, 1958. 28. Durkheim, E.: Suicide-A Study in Sociology. (Translated by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson), New York, The Free Press, 1951. Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

69

Lewis, N., Yarnell, H.: Pathological Firesetting. New York, Nervous and Mental Disease Monographs, 1951. 30. Hemenway, H.: To What Extent Are Suicide and Crimes Against the Person Due to Suggestion from the Press?, Bull. Amer. Acad. Med., 12 : 253-263, 1911. 31. Phelps, E.: Neurotic Books and Newspapers as Factors in the Mortality of Suicide and Crime, Bull. Amer. Acad. Med., 12 : 264-306, 1911. 32. Fenton, F.: The Press and Crimes Against the Person, Bull. Amer. Acad. Med., 12 : 307-315, 29.

1911. 33. Motto,

J.: Suicide 124:156-160, 1967.

and

Suggestibility



The Role of the Press, Amer.

Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at St Petersburg State University on February 9, 2014

J. Psychiatry

Suicide by fire: a contemporary method of political protest.

International Journal of Social Psychiatry http://isp.sagepub.com/ Suicide By Fire: a Contemporary Method of Political Protest Kevin Crosby, Joong-Oh...
619KB Sizes 0 Downloads 0 Views