People often create symbols for that emotions are fleeting, abstract, and hard to describe. Sometimes the specifics vanish almost as quickly as they arose, but the addiction to sensation, to fear and fantasy, persists, like a low-grade fever. Now, with the rise of social media, fears and fads and fancies race instantly through entire populations. In the past, rumor and a rudimentary press coverage could fan the fires. The title page of Cotton Mather’s ‘Wonders of the Invisible World,’ which describes the execution of witches in Salem, Massachusetts.
