supernatural phenomena were associated with everyday life emerged in 15th century Europe and spread to the New World with the influx of European colonists (Bonomi, 2003). Seventeenth century colonists in the New World had been using charms to foster Continue Reading...
Later most people admitted that they had overreacted to the situation and even Cotton Mather confessed that "errors" had been made in handling this crisis. The chief judge William Stoughton came under attack for his overzealous response to the accus Continue Reading...
Salem Witch Trials -- Theories and Causes
In the year 1692, a tragedy occurred that is remembered to be one of the most immense disasters of American History. In a small region of Salem village, which is now the now Danvers, MA area, in the home of Continue Reading...
As the Puritan leadership took the stand that their decisions were made directly from the scripture (indeed there was an absolute marriage of Church and State within these communities) any challenge to their processes (such as a newcomer objecting t Continue Reading...
Salem Witch Trials were an atrocity in a period of American history. Several young girls, who had heard tales of the supernatural from a West Indian slave, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused three women of witchcraft. Put in that posit Continue Reading...
According to Ray, those explanations ignore what more recent research has identified as the principal cause of the witchcraft hysteria in Salem: religious paranoia, intolerance, and persecution.
In that regard, Ray details the historical record sho Continue Reading...
America and the seventeenth century in general, as a 'century of saints'. Some also refer to the seventeenth century as the 'golden age of demoniac." Towards the end of such a holy and demonic century the 1692 Salem Witch hunt showed Continue Reading...
movie, The Crucible, was derived entirely from the book entitled, Salem Possessed: the Social Origins of Witchcraft by Paul S. Boyer, with only a few differences, owing to technical limitations in movie production. The movie had to reduce the number Continue Reading...
However, using today's less rigid religious standards make the outcome of the trials seem ridiculous and completely unjust. Today, most people do not consider witchcraft a reality, and so, basing a court decision on the confession of bewitched young Continue Reading...
Arthur Miller, notable playwright, wrote the 1953 play, The Crucible that focused on the partially fictionalized and dramatized story of the Salem witch trials that occurred between 1692 and 1693 in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The play was wri Continue Reading...