Was 'Safety Dance' Inspired by the Dance Plague of 1518?

September 21, 2016

Lori Hanes

Writer

A previously unknown connection between the 1500s and the 1900s may have been discovered today on The Glenn Beck Program. Rather than focus on the news of the day, Glenn brought up random moments from history like Cat Nuns and the Dance Plague of 1518.

"It killed 15 people a day. Historical documents, including physician notes, cathedral sermons, local regional chronicles, even the notes issued by the Strasbourg City Council are clear that the victims danced. It is not known why the people danced, even though they danced, some of them, to their death," Glenn read.

Ever the comparative historian, co-host Stu-Burguiere made a curious observation.

"If I'm understanding the story right, historically, this is what created the Safety Dance, which was, We can dance, We can dance, Everybody look at their hands. Why do you have to look at your hands? Because people were falling over," Stu said.

Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these curious questions:

• Did meowing nuns have anything to do with the dance plague?

• Was it well water or LSD-like fungi that caused the deadly dancing?

• Is it safe to look at your hands while dancing?

• If your friends don't dance, are they still friends of yours?

• Is the Safety Dance video a documentary about the Dance Plague of 1518?

Listen to this segment, beginning at mark 1:26:16, from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: But this story is good. How about this one? How about the Dancing Plague? Have you ever heard of the Dancing Plague?

JEFFY: Yes.

GLENN: Now, this is the dancing plague I believe of Prague.

PAT: Is this about disco in the '70s?

GLENN: No, it is not.

JEFFY: No, it is not.

GLENN: Sorry, this is Strasbourg, and this is the Dancing Plague of 1518. You know this?

PAT: Okay.

JEFFY: Horrible. I do. I'm familiar with this Dancing Plague.

GLENN: How many think he's lying?

The outbreak in July 1518 when a woman began to dance in the streets of Strasbourg. That lasted somewhere between four and six days. But by the end of the week --

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: -- 34 other people had joined in.

PAT: Like non-stop she danced?

GLENN: Non-stop dancing. Yes.

Thirty-four others had joined in by the end of the week. And within a month, there were 400 dancers. Most of them were female, dancing non-stop in the streets of Strasbourg.

Here's where it gets weird --

PAT: Oh, it's not yet?

JEFFY: It's not.

STU: Oh, okay.

GLENN: Suddenly, they heard meowing from -- no. People actually died from heart attacks, strokes, and dropped dead from exhaustion.

JEFFY: But the surrounding dancers kept going.

GLENN: Yes. It killed 15 people a day. Historical documents, including physician notes, cathedral sermons, local regional chronicles, even the notes issued by the Strasbourg City Council are clear that the victims danced. It is not known why the people danced, even though they danced some of them to their death.

JEFFY: Right. Yeah, they think they know what caused it now though.

PAT: Prozac? Was it Prozac in the water?

JEFFY: It was during the plague day, and actually they believed it was in the well water surrounding the town.

PAT: Yeah. And they were eating the fish.

JEFFY: Surrounding the town.

GLENN: As the Dancing Plague worsened, concerned nobles sought the advice from physicians who ruled out astrological and supernatural causes. They said this plague was of natural disease caused by hot blood. They decided not to bleed the people who were dancing.

PAT: Foreigner sang about that.

GLENN: Instead, they encouraged more dancing.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: And they built a wooden stage for the dancers. They believed that if they would dance all day and all night, they would eventually wear themselves out and stop dancing.

JEFFY: And in which they did, they died.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: If I'm understanding the story right too, historically, this is what created The Safety Dance, which was --

GLENN: Wow, we're --

PAT: If you have any lyrics to that, I will be impressed, without looking it up.

STU: We can dance, we can dance, everybody look at their hands. Why do you have to look at your hands? Because people were falling over.

PAT: Right.

STU: You wanted to make sure your hands were always in front of you to brace an impact that would lead to death.

PAT: Okay.

STU: We can dance, we can dance.

PAT: It wasn't everybody look at your pants?

STU: See, so it was okay for people to take chances on dancing once the safety dance was there, and that's what they were trying to encourage people: We can dance.

PAT: Okay. Yeah.

STU: Everybody is taking a chance. And that is -- directly relates --

GLENN: It might have been that or ergotamine, which I guess is a product of the ergot fungi, which grows in grain.

PAT: I think it's an actual disease that caused --

GLENN: No, they think that it was some sort of fungus that was in the grain that is a relation of LSD.

PAT: Oh.

GLENN: And so they were eating the grain, and they --

PAT: Well, that would make some sense, right? That they're all hallucinating. But everybody in the village?

GLENN: Well, 400 people are doing it.

PAT: Did they all eventually die, or did some of them --

GLENN: No, some of them just stopped. Some of them just stopped. Some of them just stopped.

JEFFY: And two are still living today.

GLENN: Right.

PAT: Are they?

JEFFY: It was 1518. Yes, they all eventually died.

(laughter)

STU: Is it possible that The Safety Dance is actually about this?

GLENN: What?

JEFFY: I don't --

STU: I mean, the video was set in old-time like 1500s days.

JEFFY: Yes, it is. It is possible.

STU: And the lyrics actually seem to really fit with the story.

JEFFY: It is possible.

PAT: We can dance. We can dance.

STU: Is it possible?

GLENN: Give me the lyrics.

STU: Okay. Hold on. Let me give you this.

GLENN: That would be the greatest discovery of the day. That's an episode of The Vault right now.

By the way, The Vault premieres -- we're getting such tremendous feedback on His Story. Last night was episode two. If you haven't watched them, go binge on them at GlennBeck.com. There's two episodes out. Tesla and Edison, that are just fantastic. Huge great reviews for the people that are watching it, even people that are just so mad at me, they can't take it.

And tonight, The Vault premieres at 5 o'clock. You don't want to miss that. Another history show. Go ahead. Give me the --

STU: Okay. So we can dance if we want to. We can leave your friends behind. Again, there's people dying all over the place.

JEFFY: Yeah. Yeah.

STU: Because if your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, well, they're no friends of mine.

So people are saying specifically to the people --

GLENN: I don't.

STU: -- people are dying, don't dance. And they're saying, you know what, you're not a friend of mine.

PAT: Right.

GLENN: I don't --

STU: I say, we could go where we want to, a place that they will never find. Again, they're having to hide this activity because of all the death.

GLENN: They're in the middle of the street.

STU: Well, I mean, but it's in a place they will never --

GLENN: They're in the middle of the street. How can they not find --

STU: Right. But it's a street other people aren't around.

JEFFY: Look, the Guys Without Hats may have taken some liberties.

GLENN: Right. Okay. Go ahead. Where does it start fitting --

STU: So far, it's pretty much identical. It's like a freaking documentary.

(laughter)

PAT: We need the greatest mind of all time.

GLENN: I will tell you, you had me excited there for a second because you were so sincere. You were like, "I think this is it."

STU: Wait. Where did this happen again?

GLENN: Strasbourg. That's -- what is that -- Austria?

PAT: Austria.

STU: I mean, this happened in Europe too.

(laughter)

STU: This is pretty clear, guys.

PAT: Is it clear?

STU: I think it's pretty clear.

GLENN: Give me some other --

STU: We can dance if --

GLENN: We got that.

STU: A lot of it is that. Let's see.

GLENN: Have anything about fungi?

STU: It does go into -- that's in --

GLENN: It goes into -- and we just had a big glass of wheat --

STU: How about this? We can dance if we want to, we've got all your life and mine. As long as we abuse it, never going to lose it.

Again, they're talking trash to these doctors that are coming out and saying that the dancing is killing people. Everything will work out right. He's advocating for this policy, which is against the common --

GLENN: When did you stop believing you had found the link? Because now -- because there was a second where you really did think, this might be it.

PAT: It's when he read past the first line. That's when he stopped.

STU: Well, the video is from that era, right?

GLENN: Right. I don't know that.

STU: You don't know the video?

GLENN: I don't know the video.

STU: The video never made sense. Look at the -- we're showing the video here on the other side of the room.

GLENN: So is that like 1600s? Fifteen hundreds?

STU: Fifteen hundreds. 1600s. I would say almost definitely. It's in the same region of the world.

GLENN: What else could it be?

STU: Well, I just -- I thought maybe you brought up a story that other people knew. But I should have known, no.

GLENN: This from the guy who just brought up the cat meow nuns.

STU: This is clearly the same story. People are clearly -- they're dancing in a safe manner in the 1500s in Europe. I mean, this is obviously the same story, guys.

(sighing).

STU: You know, deny all you want. Deny this. Deny the gay frogs. Deny the fish people. Deny the shrimp walking up to birds --

GLENN: I am the one who told you about the cat nuns.

STU: You did -- you did bring up the cat nuns, but that was to divert from the shrimpicide.

GLENN: And now, this.

STU: There's a sentence that you didn't think you would hear on radio today.

(laughter)

Featured Image: Screenshot of the music video for the Men Without Hats hit song Safety Dance.

'Scheduled for EXECUTION': Unvaxxed COVID patient flown to Texas after being denied life-saving care in Minnesota

Image source: Video screenshot

Scott Quiner was transferred over the weekend to a hospital in Texas after doctors in Minnesota threated to terminate life support measures as he battled severe complications from COVID-19. Scott's wife, Anne Quiner, appealed to the courts for a restraining order to prevent the hospital from pulling the plug as she sought a new facility to provide medical care for her husband. Scott was unvaccinated when he tested positive for COVID-19 in late October, 2021.

Anne and her attorney Marjorie Holsten joined "The Glenn Beck Program" Thursday to describe their frantic efforts to halt the hospital's decision to turn off Scott's life support — allegedly because he was unvaccinated — and just how difficult it was to get him the medical treatment he needed.

"It was absolutely stunning," Holsten told Glenn. "[Anne] came in and she has this order, I saw the screenshot from the [online medical] chart that said [Scott] is basically scheduled for execution at noon the following day."

According to Holsten, the Minnesota hospital responded to her appeal for a restraining order by claiming that the "position" to keep Scott alive "is not supported by medical science or Minnesota law. As a result, Mercy will ask the court to issue an order that Mercy has the authority to discontinue Mr. Quiner's ventilator and proceed with his medical care plan."

"The 'medical care plan' was the plan to discontinue the ventilator at noon, which leads to death very shortly. So that was at 10 o'clock, but then at 11 o'clock, before the 12 o'clock execution, the judge did, in fact, sign an order saying the hospital is restrained from pulling the plug," she added.

Anne told Glenn that doctors in Texas were shocked by Scott's condition after he arrived from the Minnesota hospital. Not only had he been given dangerous drugs, including fentanyl, but he was also found to be “severely malnourished."

"The doctor [in Texas] spent two hours with Scott and when he came back out, he said, 'I don't know how he even made it, how he even survived that other hospital ... but I will do everything I can to try to save his life,'" she said.

"And the doctor [in Texas] said Scott was the most undernourished patient he has ever seen," Holsten added.

"Glenn, we are first bringing this battle to the court of public opinion," Holsten continued. "What we are showing the world is that Scott was near death because of the protocols used in that [Minnesota] hospital, but now he is recovering. He is getting better.... Now, we're not planning a funeral, we're planning for his release."

Watch the video clip below for more details.

If you'd like to help support the Quiner family, please consider making a donation to GiveSendGo.com/Anne.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

WATCH: The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of 21st-Century Fascism

The Great Reset is not just an elitist idea — it’s not even a socialist utopian concept. It’s a real-world fascist threat to every American from Wall Street to Main Street. It’s happening now in policies and cultural shifts big and small, obvious and subtle, from environmental promises to corporations going woke. But the mainstream media, global elites, and politicians brushed off the Great Reset as “nothing to see here.” Another myth they push: “The World Economic Forum is just a conference for elites who have no REAL power.”

Glenn Beck first exposed the Great Reset almost two years ago, and the globalist cries of "conspiracy theorist" soon followed. They said he believed the WEF was a “master cabal calling the shots from some evil underground lair.” But Glenn Beck never said that. Instead, he uncovered the true intentions of global leaders in finance and politics by simply highlighting their own words.

This week, the same global elites are doubling down on their agenda at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda virtual event. But still, the global elites — like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey — are trying to downplay the WEF’s influence to stop people like us from interfering with their plans. The oligarchy will prosper in the new world order they’ve designed. You will not.

So Glenn unveils a master chalkboard based on his best-selling new book to outline the threats from globalists and why we must stop their agenda if we hope to keep the precious freedoms we still have.

Watch the full episode of "GlennTV' Below:

Want more from Glenn Beck?

'This isn't such a crazy conspiracy theory after all': Journalist concedes 'loony' Glenn Beck is RIGHT about the Great Reset

Kim Iversen, journalist, YouTuber, and host of "The Kim Iversen Show," reacted to Glenn Beck's appearance last week on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" by conceding that, while the subject of Beck's new book, "The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism" might at first sound "a little bit loony," closer analysis confirms "this isn't such a crazy conspiracy theory after all."

"Glenn Beck was on Tucker Carlson's show last week touting what has been called a right-wing conspiracy theory and discussing his new book, 'The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism'," began Iverson on The Hill's "Rising."

"Well, maybe that all sounds a little bit loony — and believe me, I do think Glenn Beck tends to be a loon," she quipped. "But, maybe this isn't such a crazy conspiracy theory after all. And after seeing everything we've seen with the governments enacting all sorts of authoritarian controls and many other conspiracy theories coming true, maybe there's something to be concerned about. So, what is the Great Reset? The name even sounds conspiratorial, but believe it or not, it's a real thing."

Iverson went on to explain exactly who is behind the Great Reset, what their agenda entails, how they are using the COVID-19 pandemic to "to rebuild society in a way the global elites see best fit."

"You'll own nothing and you will be happy: That's what they're saying," Iverson explained. "And with inflation sky high and no signs of it slowing down, they might be right. We are on our way to becoming a nation of renters, but don't worry it's nothing to fear ... don't worry, everything is being done under the premise that this is all ... being done for our own good, the benefit of a collective society, and we will be happy," she added sarcastically.

Iverson concluded by asking, "Who thinks it's a good idea that a bunch of corporate millionaire and billionaires and world leaders are getting together and coming up with what's best for we the little people? I mean, who thinks that that's a really good idea? And who thinks that they are going to be doing it for our benefit? But, of course they're going to frame it like 'Oh, this is good for you. You're going to rent. You'll own nothing and you'll be happy. Don't worry about it' ... When you look at the actual list of partners with the World Economic Forum, they control everything. They control media. They control health. They control business. They control everything, and so then it does become, how do we people fight against that?"

Watch the video clip below to hear Kim Iverson break it down and don' t miss tonight's special episode of "GlennTV" at 9:30ET on BlazeTV’s YouTube channel.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

Bill O’Reilly: PROOF Biden may be the worst president in HISTORY

President Joe Biden just had the worst-rated week in the entire first year of his presidency, but his latest poll numbers are the icing on the cake, Bill O'Reilly told Glenn Beck on the radio program.

Given that polls aren’t always correct, O’Reilly explained another way to prove that Biden's first year may be worse than any other president's before him: It’s impossible to name one single contribution Biden has made to move America forward.

"Biden: There isn't anything you can point to. Not one thing ... that he's done to improve the nation. That's the test. You just step back, take emotion out of it, politics out of it, and say, give me one thing that Joe Biden has done to improve the country. Just one. And you can't do it," O'Reilly said. "And if there is, I want your listeners to contact me at BillO'Reilly.com."

Watch the video clip below to catch more of the conversation:

Glenn's Show Prep

Was 'Safety Dance' Inspired by the Dance Plague of 1518?

'Scheduled for EXECUTION': Unvaxxed COVID patient flown to Texas after being denied life-saving care in Minnesota

Want more from Glenn Beck?

WATCH: The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of 21st-Century Fascism

Want more from Glenn Beck?

'This isn't such a crazy conspiracy theory after all': Journalist concedes 'loony' Glenn Beck is RIGHT about the Great Reset

Want more from Glenn Beck?

Bill O’Reilly: PROOF Biden may be the worst president in HISTORY

Want more from Glenn Beck?