"India Syndrome" joins the geographical Syndromes - Powerful energies or a media construction?

Recently the global documentary channels have focused much on Westerners who travel abroad and become victims of everything from criminals, involvement in crime for easy cash, to fake gurus.
The depiction and construction of global travel can change astoundingly between various films and documentaries, and how such programs that focus on perils in nature and "exotic countries" influence conceptual responses is unknown.
What is less discussed is that some places actually bring out temporary forms of insanity in vulnerable people.
One such form is "India Syndrome".

The issue of "India Syndrome" was raised again recently in the media when a 28-year-old Irishman called Jonathan Spollen went mysteriously missing.
www.details.com...
See also this link, which includes a documentary: www.huffingtonpost.com...

In India it seems that some Westerners have starved themselves to death in a yearning for enlightenment.

"India Syndrome" has now been coined as a psychiatric condition along with other geographically distinct mental disorders.

Some of these disorders are clearly misnomers that were named after the places in which they were first identified (Stockholm or Lima Syndrome), while the evidence for the rest is rather debatable, and they seem to be linked to religion, rather than places.

"Jerusalem syndrome", for example, is linked to the overwhelming significance of the city in some religions, which turns people with no history of mental illness temporarily psychotic.

The city of Florence has few religious connotations, but has a similar effect on some Japanese tourists.

I wonder whether some of these places don't project a certain energy that can make people temporarily insane?

I have nightmares about New York and tall buildings, although I've never been there.

Is it just TV and media?

Do you have a phobia for a certain place on earth?

How should we interpret such "syndromes?"

"Doctor, I got the Indian Syndrome ..."

Don’t you dare touch me! Don’t come near or I’ll open my third eye and kill you!” The 22-year-old Swiss man’s non-stop screaming doesn’t distract the team of doctors and nurses treating him at the Privat Hospital in Gurgaon, on the outskirts of Delhi. Dr Kalyan S. Sachdev, who runs the hospital, deals with around 100 such cases a year. The patients, usually Westerners in their mid-20s and 30s, come in with the same afflictions: paranoia, schizophrenia or acute delirium.

Each year, European embassies typically repatriate 10 to 20 nationals suffering from psychological disorders. The numbers are hardly significant, given that around four million tourists visit India annually. How-ever, the phenomenon is extreme enough for psychiatrists to pay it attention.

Typified by depression, paranoia and hallucinations, the symptoms of the Indian Syndrome usually disappear once the tourist is home;
Dr Régis Airault, formerly a psychiatrist with the French consulate in Mumbai, calls it the “Indian Syndrome”, perhaps echoing the Paris Syndrome that afflicts Japanese tourists in the French capital. It is also typified by depression, paranoia and hallucination — some, for instance, have claimed to hear the voice of the Virgin Mary on visiting the Notre-Dame cathedral. Culture shock obviously works both ways and is not a phenomenon restricted to travellers to India alone. Anyone visiting foreign lands can be so acutely overwhelmed by their new environment that it impairs their mental balance. Doctors report similar psychiatric manifestations in Jerusalem, where the encounter with a city that is the religious centre of three faiths — Islam, Judaism and Christianity — can sometimes bring on a sense of spiritual shock. While doctors in the Holy City are used to patients who suffer from delusions of persecution or fancy themselves messiahs, mystical themes predominate in ‘Indian syndrome’ delusions as well. Impressionable youngsters embarking on a ‘spirituality quest’ are often overwhelmed by India’s wealth and variety of religious practice, and being inexperienced lack the understanding to absorb the culture they find themselves in. A year ago, the Pondicherry police found the body of a Westerner who had starved to death in a cave. The French consulate identified him as a French citizen who had been in India for six years; he destroyed all his identity papers within his first week in the country and later started believing he was Lord Shiva.

www.tehelka.com...

However, the article closes by cautioning against over-zealous diagnoses and coining new conditions, since many tourists do resolve their issues through travel without much ado.

If the said religion or the teaching or enlightenment have to do with money, its automatically thrown in the garbage by my standards.

Spirituality does not need money, even tho there are ancient places and practices from yoga meditation to other various techniques in South Asia/India, but some people take advantage of these gullible foreigners and make money.

If someone asks for money for enlightenment, an alarm should automatically go off in your head.

But these fakes gurus get punished bad if they ever get fond out.

Enlightenment can be found anywhere, do not follow a human as a link to you and your spirituality. There are teachers that do not take money but teaches you wisdom in India but these people are not famous... often foreigners would go to "famous" or most advertised ones who are fakes.

Paris syndrome for the japanese - BBC on Paris Syndrome

Paris Syndrome:

Strangely it is variously associated with Stendhal Syndrome (reaction to art and beauty), while others say it could be triggered by the rude awakening, or "culture shock" between an idealized Paris and the not always welcoming reality.

Paris syndrome (French: Syndrome de Paris, Japanese: パリ症候群, Pari shōkōgun) is a transient psychological disorder encountered by some individuals visiting or vacationing in Paris, France. It is characterized by a number of psychiatric symptoms such as acute delusional states, hallucinations, feelings of persecution (perceptions of being a victim of prejudice, aggression, or hostility from others), derealization, depersonalization, anxiety, and also psychosomatic manifestations such as dizziness, tachycardia, sweating, and others.[1] Similar syndromes include Jerusalem syndrome and Stendhal syndrome.

en.wikipedia.org...

What's the name of my condition, it is a need to violently hurl every time there is a new condition created by scientific knuckleheads?

In fact, what's' the name of my other condition, it is one in which I suffer from no condition?

On the other hand, what's the name for my other condition, it's one in which I need to be defined by a condition?

What's the condition associated with a person who cannot interact with another person unless they know their condition?

What's the condition of a person who's condition is no longer recognized as a viable condition by others?

Perhaps some of these conditions are just a variation of culture shock?

However, while culture shock is quite common, a few individuals seem to go into full psychosis.

Is it a form of hysteria, perhaps?