Witch Hunts: Then and Now

As empirical evidence discovered by 21st-century science allows the world’s understanding of the physical universe to increase exponentially, more people grow skeptical of superstition. During the 16th and 17th centuries, however, a phenomenon of worldwide mass hysteria came out of the medieval period and swept across Europe and Colonial North America with speed. The concept of magic versus religion, specifically witchcraft, became the prominent collective-obsessional-behavior problem around the beginning of the 15th century. By the end of the 16th century, it had spread to the Puritans in the British colonies of New England and soon resulted in the shattering of due process through religious extremism. Roughly 400 years later, the U.S. mainstream media, political system, and popular literature still reference these events, coined as the “Salem Witch Trials,” or collectively “a witch hunt.” Some would say that the overwhelming attention it received was the very reason why it thrived so violently for so long. Others argue that the important social lessons it taught carry on today, just in different form, due to the close-minded dismissal of superstitious folklore and concepts. Regardless, the “Salem Witch Trials” remain significant still today as the same themes of fear, mass persuasion and extremism continue to permeate modern American culture.

The facts of the case are this: a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft were conducted in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693 leaving hundreds dead or imprisoned (Foner, 2008). Those that remained free but exiled, at the very least, carried a stigma that tarnished their reputation. The most infamous of these trials were by the...

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