"The Hands Resist Him"

"The Hands Resist Him" ​​is an oil painting by contemporary painter William Stoneham. Stoneham himself said he was inspired to paint the painting by Carl Gustav Jung's concept of the collective unconscious. According to the artist, artists, in a sense, perceive the signals contained within it, then articulate them in their work—they are connections to reality. Four elements in the painting have symbolic meaning: a boy, a doll, hands, and a window. The child personifies the artist, while the hands represent other lives, other people connected by a "shared, suprapersonal psyche." In this painting, the window serves as a veil between waking and dreaming, while the doll symbolizes a companion, a guide between these states.

Many strange stories surround "The Hands Resist Him." The founder of the gallery where the painting was first exhibited died under mysterious circumstances, and the same fate later befell the man who first described it in a catalog. People who encountered the painting experienced dizziness, sometimes fainting, many saw the figures from the painting appear in their homes, and children who looked at it immediately began to cry. What is causing this mass hysteria? Is it truly caused by supernatural forces, or perhaps by unnecessary propaganda and autosuggestion?