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my question is ...what is your take on the whole Salem Witch Trial action 1692 people were killed during this time...do you thing it was just the fact of a male based society wanting to rid the world of mid wives or the fact that something actually happened...I have recently found an artical based on what happened to John Poctor one of the victims which can be viewed here.....

If I recall right who he was, he's the man with the biggest nuts I've ever read a historical account about, seriously.

The people in Salem at that time, were puritans. They didn't believe in playing with dolls or playing at all. They viewed children as minature adults. So when a bunch of girls got caught trying to communicate with the dead with their slave, Tituba, they panicked. The girls could have very well been banned from society or accused as being witches for doing such activities. So they pointed the finger elsewhere and cried witch. The girls were believed because they were minature adults so why would they lie. Once the girls started, they couldn't stop because the judges wanted more. It didn't have anything to do with men wanting to get rid of midwifes. This post is a culmination of knowledge that I learned in my class "Witchcraft in the Middle ages up to the 1800's."

I had just recently learned about the salem witch trials because my class had to read The Crucible. It also relates to the McCarthy era and how people were manipulated into believing certain things. John Proctor didnt want to sign his name because he had wanted to keep a good name. The reason why he was killed is because he had a brain and used it, while others were just sheep and were told how to live and what to think. I dont beilve that they just wanted to get rid of the mid wives, they just thought that women were more susceptible to witchcraft than men are.

this one I can answer easily the trials were based on the fact that people were getting what is known as ergotism from the rye they were making there bread from . it was not untill hoffman the inventor of LSD found that the horned fungus that grew on these rye that it was found out why the people were getting part of there body turning black and droping off. he found it because the ingreadient in the fungus it self is the base for LSD. today we have very strict rules on how to treat wheat and rye and only in third world countries is this problem known.
as ive said before in time science will explain every thing. this was just a miss understanding and a heap of ignorant and vengfull idiots.

I suggest you look at this link

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/history/ergot.htm

i think it was a sexiest gaining power scaring people into doing stuff and thats all they were

I like all of your views..but I am not taking this from a movie the crucible or other wise...there is currently a memorial to all 1692 victims in Danvers Mass. Which is why I wanted to pose the question to all here on the Rave.

when you have a group of people screaming witchcraft did it any one who stands against them must be a witch.

Hysteria and manipulations played a very large part in the witch trials...ignorance and panic as well.

We had a whole unit on the Salem Witch Trials, so I know who John Proctor is. We also had to read The Crucible.

I think it happened because many people were getting sick of something, and the townspeople were looking for people to blame.

Varied issues were in play in the 1690's. First, there was a slave Tituba who was from the caribbean and actually practiced a form of the Craft. Second, the society as a whole was extremely oppressed and anyone who diviated from the religious norm was suspect. Tituba was actually teaching some of the young girls of the settlement some divination (Who will I marry and such) and fortune telling. The overwelming guilt these girls manifested caused the hysteria that insued. Once the hysreria was in full momentium, anyone who was suspect was fair game.

It was a case of a very hard case male, at least one troubled teen and some very bad bread. That's one package that should not be put together again.

People are afraid of change and what they do not understand. I believe it was this that led to the Salem Witch trials and the Witch hunts in general. Individuals that founded our country were what we would today consider religious zealots and as such shunned anyone worshiping wiccan or anything that would have fell into the accult.

This fear, ignorance, and the superstition possessed during that period led to these acts of audacity.

The Salem Witch hunt and trials did start with two young girls and that they were experiencing some kind of hallucination or possible seizure of some kind, though never fully disclosed of what was the cause. You can read more about it at these sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials

http://www.salemweb.com/memorial/index.shtml

Witch was a buzz word for all the settlers feared and did not understand. I think that there was a lot of self serving done by those in charge of the massacre.

I think that it all comes back to people fear what they don't understand and instead of dealing with it the right way they killed a bunch of innocent people.

i think it was more than the men wanting to control all the power and rid the world of women and "put women in a subservient role" not that they werent already at that time.

i think alot of it was also the fact that people tend to destroy what they dont know and what they fear. i think alot of it was they feared to let women gain a foothold in any society. they wanted to keep women "barefoot and pregnant and serving them".

sad to say there are still cultures like that.

people fear the unknown.... whatever the case may be...

I think that it did start out with bored teens wanting to do something "taboo" with Tituba and got caught and then were afraid to confess and take the punishment that most certainly would have occurred. However, I think once started there was a greed for land and power that came into play within the community. Anyone opposed to those in charge were open to charges of witchcraft, esp the women of the families.

I agree the young girls blamed the slave woman to avoid punishment themselves. But once they saw how much power their accusations gave them it became much more that avoiding punishment. Anyone that had ever crossed them or they didn't like became targets for their claims. From their example others who wanted to get someone out of their way for property gain or whatever saw how easy it was to remove people by charges that they didn't even have to work at to prove.
So in a way everyone is correct as to why it happened.

I know I'm repeating a little of what some people have already said, but whatever. The people of the time were dumb as hell. Along with being puritans, (a retarded religion which is now gone, because it was too stupid to survive :P) we're talking about people from the 1600's here. Anthing back then that we would now see the logical explanation behind, they might have considered witchcraft.

What is believed by historians is the main preacher in Salem, Cotton Mather had two young girls. One day these two girls started violently shaking and screaming. Historians believed that the two girls were having seizures or convulsions. When it was over, the cause was blamed immediatly on witch craft. It was never taken into consideration that it was an illness of some kind. After that, people would fake things to see their enemies prosecuted and hung.

That's what I know. And I do know this, the first blame was started by women. I think it had something to do with a woman's want of some power and control in that time era that was taken advantage of when something traumatic happened.

Everyone's views on this are great but here's another take on it...there were Witch Trials in Europe before hand and during, with travelers comes word to others of what's going on in the Old Country....so word spreads of this outbreak of witchcraft which carried over to the New World...with all of that on top of what the girls deemed to be a witch, no wonder it happened here as well!!

The reason women were seen as witches was that women during that time were seen as naturally vulnerable to evil. Men were pious but women always had to be on the look out for their souls.

There were many families involved. Don't forget the Parris's, The Reverand, was lacking in his funds for his church. In that day and age they were trying to secure the people to have one true god, and because there were so many Pagans, and even when the Inquistion started, the Pagan still practice secretly.


http://www.coryfamsoc.com/resources/articles/witch.htm

Yes and it's funny how those same Puritans in the New World started out as being outcasts, Pagans, if you will. Meeting in secret, The King of England was furious and had them shipped off to The Dutch where they continued their practices and beliefs before eventually coming to America....

The Salem instances, are in no way unique. Though they have become famous it had been happening previous to Salem for years. Only a handful of people were killed there as opposed to other times and places where it happened far more frequently. It is a tourist attraction. I myself have been there.

I agree with Blacksnowflake. i have seen a documentary about salem, and the evidence that their bread was contaminated by ergot is quite compelling. teenagers always have, and always will be somewhat rebellious, and these were very repressed teenagers. these people were extremist in their religious views, and naturally quite paranoid. coupled with ergot induced hallucinations, the reaction was not really surprising.

before we condemn them as stupid , ignorant, and superstitious, we should look a bit closely at our own "witch hunts" of the 20th century

we also have to remember that due to all th witch trials in the old country, pagan families had to hide themselves. it is not unreasinable to speculate that elizabeth, john's wife, was indead a pagan practitioner.

I had to do a debate on this (from the side of the government, actually) so I've done a lot of research on the topic on my own time. First off, it had nothing to do with oppression of women. That's the Inquisition you're thinking of. There were completely different reasons for that event.

Second, it had absolutely nothing to do with real witchcraft. They were Puritans. Where exactly would they have learned it? And don't tell me Tituba. One slave with a bit of rudimentary voodoo couldn't possibly have gotten around to that many people. She probably knew about as much 'magic' as my 8th grade english teacher, anyway. Also, keep in mind that reading anything but religious works, dancing, and science were all considered the work of the devil, and therefore possible witchcraft.

The rye bread thing is interesting, but ineffectual. The evidence used was entirely spectral. That means that there was no proof whatsoever. There was no sickness, and there were no random people having fits all over the place. Just one set of girls that eventually admitted to faking it.

The reason it spread so fast was that people who were accused could get off the hook by accusing other people instead. That, and the girls were enjoying their power-trip and all the fame of being possessed. They were having fun, so they kept on accusing people. It wasn't them getting killed, so why should they worry?

I know the history records of what transpired to start the trials, but I think the kindling was laid for the fire before these events happened.

It's an example of what can happen when power with in organized religion is abused, and how dangerous an ignorant society really is.

Werewolves were also burned with witches both believed to be servants of the devil. I think it was people accusing others for different reasons. With the torture devices they used in interigation, I'm surprized if any denied they were pagean. It was a bad time full of uneducated and holier than thou people, for witches real or not and werewolves too, truly dark days.

Werewolves? that is comical.

Alot of what happend was also about wives getting pissed that their husbands were looking at other women...The wives had a lot to do with how was burned..

funny how salem is always brought up as the pinnacle of horror for witches, in total 20 people were kiled over this, in some slavic areas, many thousands were killed as witches, entire towns literally wiped off the map, and yet so many still focus on the really rather miniscule happenings at salem...

True, very few people were killed at Salem. Also, no one was actually burned. That was the Inquisition. So was the torture. The only torture used at Salem was placing rocks on a board on a person's chest. Only one person died of that.

I'm sure many died in a lot of areas..but Salem has the most documentation and there for remember quite more then the rest.

i think that the witch trials were based on fear. fear of the unknown, and the unexplaineable. so burn or hang one who does not fit into the society that they knew at that time. if you ever get the cahnce to visit salem, visit the house of the seven gables.

i think it was a scare tactic to keep the villagers on the "strait and narrow" so to be speaking. a leader diddnt like someone and at the same time there was discontent among patrons of the church so they accused the unliked person as a witch, or sorceress, or watever , and it worked a little, then it progressed into a "fad" to keep people in line and on their toes, that or they were "scape goating people for one reason or another. feel free to critisize my bad english or my theory, it isnt based on anything more than my opinion and english is my second language.

an article i read in high school sugested that the wheat that the villagers were using to make there bread may have somehow been molded and/or cantaminated causing the convoltions that the girl had. But faced with the "sickness" they believed it had something to do with there involvement in"witchcraft" with the slave... and they thought it would be better she was punished than them.

I think it is very important to seperate the facts of salem from the play written by hawthorne years later, which he wrote because of hisshame over the way judge hawthorne acted durring this time. (yes, they were related.... the writer changed the spelling of his name because of his shame)

the ergot link by blacksnowflake is one that i have heard before and is very interesting,

There is a very good breakdown of the whole Salem witch craft issues right here on VR in the members articles written by ShadowxAngel last year

It really is a nice analysis

I am not backing this theory.. but i think it is a very interesting one. There are those that believe the salem witch trials were the cause of ergot poisoning aka LSD.

"Ergot is caused by the fungus Claviceps purpurea, which affects rye, wheat and other cereal grasses. When first infected, the flowering head of a grain will spew out sweet, yellow-colored mucus, called "honey dew," which contains fungal spores that can spread the disease. Eventually, the fungus invades the developing kernels of grain, taking them over with a network of filaments that turn the grains into purplish-black sclerotia. Sclerotia can be mistaken for large, discolored grains of rye. Within them are potent chemicals, ergot alkaloids, including lysergic acid (from which LSD is made) and ergotamine (now used to treat migraine headaches). The alkaloids affect the central nervous system and cause the contraction of smooth muscle — the muscles that make up the walls of veins and arteries, as well as the internal organs. Toxicologists now know that eating ergot-contaminated food can lead to a convulsive disorder characterized by violent muscle spasms, vomiting, delusions, hallucinations, crawling sensations on the skin, and a host of other symptoms — all of which, Linnda Caporael noted, are present in the records of the Salem witchcraft trials"(http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/history/ergot.htm )

I know blacksnowflake mention this theory earlier on in the thread, but i thought it would be nice to go into a little bit more detail as to explain how ergot posioning effects people and how it was possible for it to occur in Salem at the time of the Witch Trials.

It was a mix of the two issues of the ergot and the girls blaming the slave of being a witch. Then it just branched out into a mass hysteria, as all things like that do.

i think the ergot was responsible for the mass hysteria and the delusion that there were witches amongst them.

i think it could of very well been the ergot poisoning but put together with teens kinda as a new fad and the male superiority and there ya go ..... one major hell of a your doomed cocktail.......people really didnt have a chance back then ......

I thought it was men&woman killed? Anyway it was pure insanity!!!

LMFAO at Yendors statement!!! That was great. I got quite a chuckle from it. lol.


My take on it despite the theories and what not is this....

There were many men and women during the burning times innocently slain. Typically the accounts shown are primarily female because it did start off that way. During the whole process though both were slain....

Going back to the topic at hand.... I think that the whole thing was caused by young girls that only wished to cause trouble... Yes there are theories of poisoning in the grain and what not, but in the overall, it seems in all accounts I have read about, it seemed that the ones the girls were angry with were the ones that seemed to get the burn the fastest. It is a bit odd that the whole Salem trials revolved around these girls....

On a side note, the first recorded burning of a witch was in Toulouse in 1275. At least that is the furthest I have been able to find thus far in my research.

march 1244-end of the siege of the fortress of montsegur, the Cathars surrendered 200 men women and children walked out of the fortress singing stright into the massive pyres the crusaders had prepared for them
-excerpt from Witch hunt history of a persecution-
but looking at numbers....germany takes the cake
more excerpts from the same book:
"at least a hundred thousand people wereexecuted, with burning alive the prescribed punishemtn, and torture the tool to extract a confession. So many witches were burnt that in 1590, according to a chronicler in wolfenbuttel, brunswick, 'the place of execution looked like a small wood from the number of stakes.'"
"chillingly in Neisse in Silesia, in the interests of efficiency, the executioner built an oven where, in 1651 alone, he roasted to death forty two women and girls for witchcraft, over nine years he roasted over a thousand people, including children as young as two."

kinda makes salem look pretty damn tame wouldn't you say?

*nods in agreement with Daermon*...to a certain extent I believe Salem's Witch trials had more to do with keeping people in line and of one religion...if you didn't conform, you were persecuted.

yes they had THE civil war dont you guys see that. god bless the united states of christ.
for they invented religion and all that is good.
including the stock market if you ask them :)

crazy even hofmann was not from the states he was from Switzerland. makes one wonder when they buy russia out of all there opiod patents. now thats a way to crush a company give the individual a shit load of cash and leave the country with no tech. bill gates no a mass scale.

Basically, the Salem Witch Trials were like a High School cafeteria. One person said something stupid, another jumped on the bandwagon, and soon you have yourself an epidemic caused by boredom and sick people.

there is alot of history here in Salem,ma besides just the witch trials. i can't stand it when people have such close minded minds that all they see is only one part in history when they visit a city.

I know there was a book called "The Crucible" and that they wrote it from documents of the Salem Witch Trial, but I didn't know John Proctor was a real person. Thanks for the posting. I shall check out the site.

I think it was a majority of ignorance, power, stupidity and fear of things they refuse to understand or even try. Just my opinon.

The same way they were than is like how society is now. It was all because of religion. That town was based on a certain religion and whom ever didn't follow God's words were immediately declared a witch or Satan's accompliced(sp?). Just like now. Certain religions would never accept certain things. Of someone is gay or listen to "wordly" music or dress a certain way would go to hell if not converted into the religion.

Yes your right and it is sad that after 100's of years and even 1000's in other countries that society is still living in the dark ages of ignorance and control..

ignorance and discrimination occur throughout history. However, the Salem Witch Trials did not really have witches in them perse, so it is hard to blame discrimation and fear of the unknown on this particular case.

Furthermore, in the salem witch trials, these girls, women, and men were all church going religious types except for tabitha. In this particular case, these individuals were not pagan, wiccans, devil worshipers.

I would like to thank every for posting in this thread its great to read all your opinions on the subject.

I would have to say that the Salem Witch Trials occurred because people were afraid of change. Things were happening in their community that they did not understand and they needed to blame someone or something.

i don't think it was discrimatory against women. that is unless a man actually viewed the trials as a way to get rid of wives, due to divorce not being looked highly on at all in a puritan culture.
witch is a term that is only associated with women by the ignorant of what a witch really is. a witch is a practitioner of witchcraft, doesn't depend on gender. the term warlock has been flawed, if my source for this information is correct. warlock actually means "witch hunter", not "male practitioner of witchcraft". the puritans that condemned witches to death were actually warlocks.

for a huge chunk of history there is stories of christians striking out against pagans for the very reason that they were pagans and many believed it was their duty to defend God by wiping out these unbelievers. it's a flaw built up in the church in my opinion, one that actually drove me out of it.
so by my understanding it was a strike against those that practiced something other than a God (one heavenly god) focused religion.

it's a blessing to live in times and areas where such acts of hatred are illegal.

I had just recently learned about the salem witch trials because my class had to read The Crucible. It also relates to the McCarthy era and how people were manipulated into believing certain things. John Proctor didnt want to sign his name because he had wanted to keep a good name. The reason why he was killed is because he had a brain and used it, while others were told how to live and what to think. I dont beilve that they just wanted to get rid of the mid wives, they just thought that women were more susceptible to witchcraft than men are.

the link you posted was a school type site wasnt it?
isnt 'the crucible' based on this moment in history?

I think the trial stuff was bs so many wemon died because some men were jelouse of another guys wife and decided if he cant have ther her husband shouldn't ether. Also old grudges because the women declined the guy and went with some other guy. i think thats why most of the wemon were killed.

Interesting question! I did some intensive research in College for a paper. What I came up with was the "oats, barley, bread" thing. After much research, I found that a lot of persons claiming to have seen th e witch engaging in lustful acts with the Devil,were actually having a hallucinogenic reaction to barley,oats that were tainted and made into bread. This is feasible, because they had no preservatives back then.

Once the girls started the lie the more they started believing it . At the trials they would get out of control , caused a panic . Then everyone started pointing fingers at other people just because they knew the accused .

Very interesting UA i have heard of this before reading it at www.witchvox.com.. try going there some pretty good reads on salem , as its a very well paranormal town as any town would be in those days..

at first it probobly was so that they wouldnt be accused as witches and later on they seemed to have been enjoying the attention too much and continued to accuse people and they especially started going for the people least expected to be witches such as rebecca nurse

People fear the unknown .. John Proctor wanted to make sure he kept his good name.

your info. is from the Crucible. a fiction book. i read it for an english class. the salem witch trials were to purify the world, but they over did it, and killed the innocent. it basicaly went.
1. i dont like you.
2. your a witch.
3. you go for a short drop & a sudden stop.

if any one wants to know more, i suggest ask someone. on the internet, everything is going to be about the Crucible.

From what I remember, and it has been a while, it was a Puritan society that allowed the children to go throught their chidhood relatively as adults. The girls got caught doing rituals with the housekeeper and had to pin the blame elsewhere or it was their lives at stake. It got out of control because those accused kept trying to save their butts by saying that the neighbor called satan and made them do it. When it was all said and done there were alot of deaths and no apologies. About mid way through the triles i think it became a way to get back at those theat had caused someone some misfortune. Basically, I dont like you, their a witch.

in all personal opinion most of the supernatural occurances between humans and "witches" back then were just a excuse to get by. People needed a scapegoat and so they tok people from around them whether they liked it or not and covered themselves as a result from their own actions. True some of them may have practiced "witchcraft" but it is doubtful that they knew anything proper and anything that actually happened was pure coincidence. That or al in the mind of a people who wantedto believe so bad that it actually became reality. I'm not saying that witches back then never existed, I'm just saying humans or mortals wouldn't and couldn't have known the difference even if they tried.

Dyingme, have you ever actually tried to research it, type salem witch trials and you will get literally thousnads of accurate historical references, that are NOT about the crucible.

it is indeed sad that the christians have killed so many inocents and still to this day clame we are bloodthirsty pagans, we just have a respect for nature as did the "witches" of the trials. it was considered unorthidox to go get herbs from nature that would heal a person if it wasn't givin by god, they just couldn't except the fact that maybe thier god just didn't like them and nature was thier for them and is always here for us

The girls incident was a spark that set off a powder keg. Many cases of false accusation were family rivalries, personal jealousies, or disputes over land. What's a convenient way to get rid of somebody you don't like? Denounce them as witches.

It's a sad thing to know that people cant accept what they don't understand. I believe that the Salem witch hunt had to do with fear and control, nothing else.

i think the salem witch trials were just as bad as the holocaust

i agree with Niskuny..... it just shows how organized relgions with so much power can control and abuse a sitution to their own liking....

I remember doing a play...well reading a book and performing in class about the Salem Witch Trials...for the life of me I cannot remember the name of the book...Oh...The Crucible...by Arthur Miller I believe first came out as a play on broadway inspired by actual events. I reccomend reading it...and researching the context of the book to find out the background information. John Proctor is one of the characters.

My Take is that Salem Witch Trials, I think if someone was a witch, a real Witch and they noticed that ppl was getting hung, just kill the ppl of cause the blame, or you just stay low and dont get caught.

U know I seen this Movie before, and it didnt make much sense of how John Procter didnt do anything, and he should of went to church and stuff. It was a good movie but ppl are sure are rotten back then...

I do not believe it had a thing to do with gender. Ignorance, yes... gender no.

gender was more of an issue in the spanish inquisition than in salem
salem was more about fear greed, and mass hysteria

I feel as though John Proctor was a brave man to stand with his family and support them he was to be admired

i also believe that it was in large part due to peoples fear of the unknown

the deaths were because of christianty adn the need for control. And also fear of the unknown. thats what christianity provides- a safe place for fear. but when u look at it all in retrospect... everything is the unknown. ESP christianity.

true

I don't think there was any 'witchcraft' per say, or curses and hexes being flung about. I think it was a case of mass histeria ane xtreme ignorance mixed with superstition and maybe a dash of egotism.
People refused to accept anything that fell outside their understandings be it foul weather or illness, and the best way to explain things was to create the scapegoat, call him or her a witch, and burn them. If it didn't work there must be more witches. Repeat untill the problem goes away and everyone feels like they are being productive and doing something about the problem.
Honestly all I can think of is the scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail where the villagers dress a woman up as a witch and then use the way she is dressed as 'proof' that she is a witch.
One man even clains to have been turned into a newt. When he is questioned he simply says, " it got better."

I agree with lonelyblue and Recently I think within the last 10 yrs or so they had did a Mock Trial of the Original Salem Trials. And and they were all Found Innocent.

We learned about the witch trials all over again just recently in school, and I most definitely think its a big possibility that it had something to do with male dominance...

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