Can multiple people hallucinate the same thing at the same time ?

[Jehanne]

I'll give a fun example from my own experience, and that of my family. My kids are convinced. Absolutely convinced, that they saw Santa Claus. Now, we might think that the older ones know better, right? In a sense, they do, they think they saw -me- tricking them.

Here's the kicker. They didn't. I created this belief in them years ago..by reversing an insistence from them that they saw santa onto themselves, and reinforcing it at every opportunity when they expressed doubt. "But you all saw it, you told me you saw it, and I believed you!". It was my then 3/4 year old son who made the initial claim, and only him, and it was that he heard the hooves on the roof. The event they now all remember, though with varying recollections of the event, simply never happened.

I don't think we need to describe any new psychological conditions to explain this. It's called being human (and, also, a bit of a dick, for my part).

The experience you describe, I believe, led to Mormonism.