The Red Witch Scare

Sprenger and Kramer informed secular authorities to fight witches by any means necessary. It was followed by other texts that described, often in great detail, the alleged practices of witches, or that outlined the procedures for conducting a trial of a witch. These texts created some of main aspects of wild beliefs of witches that permeated Europe for two centuries: that witches had deviant sex with one another and with the devil, that they interfered in natural reproduction, that they caused death and disease and other natural occurrences such as storms and that they turned away from their Christian faith. In short that they threatened every form of religious and secular order. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the seven deadly sins had came into place which had taken the place of the ten commandments.3 This made it sins against God rather than sins against fellow neighbours and the community.

One theory suggests that to get back at the Porters, the Putnam family had their girls accuse anyone in the community that were allied with the Porters of being witches. There is some evidence for this, as almost all the "bewitched" girls came from families connected to the Putnams (Krystek). Old feuds between the accusers and the accused was spurring charges of witchcraft (Linder). Even though we have some evidence to back the theories of the Salem witch trials up, the most logical theory is that the people of Salem were all just putting on an act. Everyone had a motive to either hurt someone they despise or have feuds with, or just to save themselves.

The only explanation for this ‘mass hysteria’ is Conversion Disorder, “spread through groups by way of human’s unconscious social mimicry of one another 's behavior”(Szalavitz). In the 1600’s the idea of witchcraft ran deep throughout the town of Salem. Though, in The Crucible, for Betty Paris, Ruth Putnam, Abigail Williams, and Mary Warren, it is safer to say that instead of being bewitched,or faking witchcraft, they were infected with Conversion Disorder. This inference is safe to be made, because they were involved in a stressful incident, Betty and Ruth were both inert and unresponsive, and Mary Warren and the rest of the girls displayed abnormal, uncontrollable movement, in which they began doing by means of mimicking each

The McCarthy Hearings are referred to as "witch-hunts" because of their similarity to the Salem witch trials. The McCarthy hearings are trials in which Senator Joe McCarthy accuses government employees of being Communists. He exaggerates and exploits the evidence and ruins many reputations just as the girls do in the Salem witch trials. The accused, in both cases, are used as scapegoats for society’s problems and the only way to escape direct punishment is to admit to guilt. Joseph McCarthy and the girls from Salem begin to accuse people of being either Communists or witches to obtain, something they crave, power.

She was accused of having a "malignant touch," Hale noted, and her medicines were said to have "extraordinary violent effects." When people refused to take her medical advice, he added, "their diseases and hurts continued, with relapse against the ordinary course, and beyond the apprehension of all physicians and surgeons. "(P.21) Hale also mentioned that Jones was believed to possess psychic powers: "some things which she foretold came to pass accordingly; other things she could tell of ... she had no ordinary means to come to the knowledge of. "(P.20) Hale's writings showed that stealing, and other crimes such as fornication and infanticide, were regularly associated with witchcraft, by both the clergy and the larger pop... ... middle of paper ... ... deaths of fathers, husbands, brothers, or sons. This would happen because these women were part of a society with an inheritance system designed to keep property in the hands of men.

The Salem Witch Trials were started by a couple of bratty girls who decided it would be enjoyable to accuse someone of being a witch, and then contort their bodies and act afflicted any time that person came around. Sadly, the accusations of these girls were taken very seriously by the judge and adults of Salem. People were convicted of witchcraft simply because they had irregular moles or blemishes on their faces. Yes, the people of Salem were in a mass hysteria, filling up jails with “witches” to the point where the jails reached capacity and they could not fit any more people in them. They were able to accuse these people through mob mentality, Puritan culture, and forced conformity.

There are many reasons why the people of Salem accused people of being witches. According to the transcripts some theories are that “the girls did it for fun”, they did it to cause mass hysteria, or to have revenge on others in the small village (The Salem Witchcraft Papers).We do not know exactly what happened, but we have clues to what may have happened. Researchers have found what may have started the bewitching, there is a theory that fights between the merchants and the citizens sparked the accusations (In Search of History). The transcripts have given us additional information on the witch trials in Salem Village in 1692 (Schanzer 17). The first accusers were Abigail Williams and her cousin Betty (Schanzer, 28).

Abigail lies to save herself by giving the names of others to be killed. “You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!” (88). Abigail also uses threats of violence and the thought of her actually knowing some real witchcraft to scare them into not speaking up about what was really going on with her. She is very evil, and throughout the novel driven t... ... middle of paper ... ...imation of irony considering the prodigious amounts of lies are told in order to “protect” the court and the people of Salem. The process of proving the guilty and finding the innocent involved with witchcraft has a lot to do with the greed, selfishness and personal grudges that the characters display throughout the trials.

Not only was this found in this novel, but it is also featured in The Crucible. In Arthur Miller’s play, hysteria is present through to the end. It is very evident that it is “contagious.” When one of the girls saw someone hurting them, the rest of them imagined it as well. When one of them started to call out names of the witches, the rest in excitement would too start calling out names. It served as a way to cover up, as it was concluded at the end of Salem witch trials that there was

Randomly accusing innocent people of being devilish, atrocious witches is extremely far fetched and unusual for people to do today. However, in the 1690’s in Salem, Massachusetts, it was a daily occurrence. After seeing people do odd things happening at the time, people got scared and accused them of witches to get rid of them, send them to jail, and possibly kill them. Even worse, the accusers may have actually been sick or insane, or they could of been faking it to get revenge on their enemies. Why would these people randomly accuse innocent people of being witches?