South African students attacked by evil spirits?

Just to expand on my remark about entheogens, here is a paper discussing the possibility that ergot (a fungus that grows on Rye and wheat) might be responsible for the Salem witch panic!

https://digitalhistorysalem.weebly.com/e...oning.html

Ergot (Claviceps purpura) is a fungus that grows on a variety of grains, especially rye. It grows in a slightly curved, fusiform shape with sclerotia replacing individual grains on the host plant. The sclerotia contains a large number of potent pharmacological agents, known as ergot alkaloids. This alkaloid (with ten percent of the activity of D-LSD) is also found in morning glory seeds. It was used as a ritual hallucinogenic drug by the Aztecs (Caporael, 23).

Of course, the entheogens are themselves very mysterious and may indeed act by opening the mind to non-physical reality.

These incidents could be the result of deliberate or accidental exposure to a variety of such compounds.