Good story. The power of the crowd is amazing.
that's exactly what it was - a crowd mentality. Now, just imagine how it can affect the easily-impressionable?
I've worked with teens who have gone through this. They go on weekend retreats and come back all filled with luv and goodness, and then are right back to debauchery a week later. Nothing changed, and they were sold into thinking that it had. they end up being more jaded and bitter towards Christianity than before they went.