Salem witch trials Essay -- essays research papers

Salem Witch Trials Casting a spell on the people Today, the idea of seeing a femme fatale is almost inconsequential. Our Halloween holiday marks a celebration in which many will adorn themselves with pointy black hats and long stringy hair, and most will take them as comical and festive. Even the contemporary witchcraft religious roots forming are being accepted with less criticism. More recently, the Blair Witch movie craze has brought more than fascination than fear to these dark and magical figures. So, it becomes no wonder that when our generations watch movies like the Crucible, a somewhat accurate depiction of the Salem Witch Trials, we are enraged and confused by the injustice and the mayhem that occurred in 1692. For most, our egocentric view of the past almost stops us from seeing what a predicament was brewing in that Puritan lifestyle. At that time, witches were far more than a generic costume for a casual holiday celebration, or a tolerated religion, or a new form of Hollywood fascination, they were the feat of an awful, vengeful, unseen power. In the seventeenth century, almost everyone, even those with the best of educations, where under the belief that witchcraft was villainy and the control of the devil. Witchcraft had once, before the Middle Ages had been accepted as the powers of medicine and good deeds however, the church of that time had proclaimed the craft as the work of the devil and the actions of heretics. From then on witches were greatly dreaded. They believed that they had special powers that allowed them to cause harm to those that they had quarrels with they could read minds, tell the future, bring up ghosts of the dead and force the holy to fulfill unholy acts. There was only one way to save someone who sold their soul to the devil for the gifts of witchcraft, to kill them (Dickinson 4). People were branded witches for unrelated mishaps. If the grangers sheep all died from a virus in the water, then the neighbor who fou ght with him last week must have cast a spell. In a world where people are certain of witchcraft, nothing is accidental. Consequentially, many people were unjustly condemned to death. In the beginning of the century the targets for witchcraft were the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, the rude and argumentative, but as the century drew to an end those accused were chosen more democratically, even those as young as fou... ...ent theories of what the girls were afflicted with. Several researchers postulated that they were trauma from ergot poisoning from spoiled rye grain. Others thought that girls were enjoying the attention that they would have never received otherwise being young females. Similarly, others thought that the cause of their symptoms are from a popular psychological disorder from the 1970s called clinical hysteria or mass hysteria, referring to a condition experienced by a group of people who, through suggestion, observation, or other psychological processes, dev elop similar fears, delusions, abnormal behaviors, or physical symptoms. (Trask 1 and Plotnik 520) The Salem witchcraft delusion became the thoroughfare to what is now known as the road to Enlightenment. Although the trials in New England did not end there, Salem marked the beginning of and end to the horrible injustice. Witch-hunting is still an epidemic that plagues today in other forms. People are made to suffer for their beliefs. Religious and political persecution has stained every century since then. Perhaps, the greatest thing gained from the trials was the disposition that the majority is not always the voice of justice.