Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 67.150.127.188 (talk) at 03:57, 1 September 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Reasons for the hysteria

There are various theories as to why the community of Salem Village exploded into delusions of witchcraft and demonic interference. The most common one is that the Puritans, who governed Massachusetts Bay Colony with little royal intervention from its settlement in 1630 until the new Charter was installed in 1692, went through mass religion-induced hysterical delusion. Most modern experts view that as too simplistic an explanation. Other theories include child abuse, fortune-telling experiments gone amok, ergot-related paranoid fantasies (ergot is a fungus that grows on damp barley, producing a substance very similar to D-lysergic acid; in a pre-industrial society, it is easy to accidentally ingest it), conspiracy by the Putnam family to destroy the rival Porter family, and societal victimization of women.

There was also great stress within the Puritan community. They had lost their charter in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and in the spring of 1692 still did not know what their future would be. They were under constant Indian attack and could not depend on England at all for support; their militia came from the ranks of their young men, and in 1675's King Philip's War their entire population had been decimated: one of ten European settlers in New England was killed by Indian attacks. Though that war was over, Indian raids and skirmishes were a constant hazard. More and more, New England was becoming a mercantile colony, and Puritans and non-Puritans alike were making a lot of money, which the Puritans saw as both necessary and sinful. And as the merchant class rose in status, the ministerial class declined.

Perhaps the most compelling new theory is that of Mary Beth Norton, who argued in her book In The Devil's Snare that any or all of the above explanations likely played an important role, but Salem and the rest of New England, and particularly the north and northwest areas, were besieged by frequent Indian attacks, which created an atmosphere of fear that contributed greatly to the hysteria. Her evidence: Most of the accused witches and most of the afflicted girls had strong societal or personal ties to Indian attacks over the preceding 15 years. The accusers frequently referenced a "black man," discussed joint meetings between the alleged witches and Indians in sabbats, and described images of torture taken directly from tales of Indian captivity. In addition, Puritan clergy had, since King Philip's War in 1675, frequently referred to Indians as being of the devil, had associated them with witchcraft and, in pulpit-pounding sermons that lasted as long as five hours, expounded repeatedly about Satan and his devils besieging the Puritans, who were seen as the army of God. In short, to the New England Puritan mind, concerted Indian attacks were the Devil trying to bring down the Puritan society, and attacks should be expected from within as well as without. By 1691, Puritans were primed for witchcraft hysteria.

Salem Village itself was a microcosm of Puritan stress. Half of those in the Village were farmers and supported the minister, Samuel Parris, in breaking away from Salem Town to form their own distinct township; the other half wanted to remain part of Salem Town, retaining the merchant ties, and refused to contribute to the maintenance of Parris and his family. In addition, a number of refugees from recent Indian attacks in the Maine and New Hampshire regions had taken shelter with relatives in Salem, bringing tales of horror with them. As a result, by 1691 Salem Village was a powder keg, and the spreading possession of young girls was the spark that set it off.

One major factor that contributed to the witchcraft hysteria in 1692 that cannot be overlooked was the fear generated by strongly held Puritan beliefs that Satan and his demons were in the physical world, causing a multitude of problems while enticing ordinary human beings to assist the unholy armies of darkness by becoming witches and warlocks. Everything from Indian attacks to spoiled milk was thought to be the work of Satan and his malevolent allies, both supernatural and human. These beliefs were as real to the Puritans of Salem Village as the rocky soil of New England beneath their feet.

Vestiges of the Puritan fear of the unseen world can still be seen in New England. In many public libraries, serious historical works on the Salem Witchcraft Trials, like In The Devil's Snare by Mary Beth Norton, are generally found next to books on ghosts, alien abduction, and books on the occult.