Salem witch hysteria and the moldy bread hypothesis

[FireDragon76]

I very much doubt the ergot hypothesis. I believe it was a psychological phenomenon.

 

[FireDragon76]

As I've already said. There are people who identify as witches. Usually they are people who practice a form of Neo-Paganism, a broad designation for various pagan revival movements that emerged in the last century.

There are also people who call themselves witches because they do "witchy" things. Not really "pagan" per se, but more an example of various modern spiritual fads and trends.

People can call themselves whatever they want, believe what they want.

But the "Satanic Panic" style of witch-hysteria that exists among some modern Evangelicals is rooted in superstitious nonsense. Those sorts of "witches" simply don't exist.

-CryptoLutheran

Dr. Justin Sledge of Esoterica has an episode on his Youtube channel talking about the origins of anti-witch hysteria and its connections to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that have existed since the Middle Ages. There are broad similarities as both witches and Jews were believed to be in league with Satan and conspiring to harm Christians.

 

[USincognito]

I’m directly related to people who were accused during the Puritan panic too!

Very cool! Do you have any names?

I’ve done a lot of research too and I tend to fall on the spectrum many modern-day people do… What happened in MA at the time was a perfect storm of factors that fed into each other, leading to the event. I think some people might have been sick

Betty Parris seems to have had some sort of psychological issue, at least temporarily.

One of them being that those who were found guilty had their estates (money and land) automatically bestowed on the accuser/victim. It’s no coincidence that one guy accused all 4 of the people who owned land that was next to his.

I haven't seen any evidence to support this. My ggm Rebecca Nurse was hanged, but my ggf Francis was still alive and retained control over her property.

Then, once the ball was rolling, mass hysteria kicked in thanks to fear, fundamentalism, crooked politics, and lack of education (and several combinations there of).

There definitely seemed to be an avalanche effect with the Afflicteds growing from three in the Parris household to about 20.

 

[USincognito]

To be fair… None of the Salem Witch Trials occurred in Salem

My understanding is the court of Oyer and Terminer was held in Salem Town. That's where the executions were carried out.

so turning the town into Witch-vegas doesn’t harm anything. The town literally has almost no relevance to the witch trials beyond what was added for commercial reasons.

And it’s not the Wiccans who did that to Salem, it was actually “Bewitched.” Salem was a nothingburger until the arc of “Bewitched” that was filmed there, where Samantha went to Salem. Then tourism exploded and has only ramped up. Hence the ugly Samantha statue in the town center near Essex St. Having been there a gabillion times, very little of Salem is actually Wiccan-friendly. Most of it is geared to non-religious witchcraft, Paganism, Ceremonial Magic, and stereotyped “witchy things” like Harry Potter, goth stuff, horror movies, and witch aesthetic. I’d argue Wiccans, excluding old school ones like those who follow Buckland, Gardner, etc would have a hard time finding a place that sells what aligns to their belief and practices.

I was using it as shorthand for the kitschy nonsense the pervades much of the city, especially west of the Common. I visited the Witch Museum gift shop in 2000, long before I knew about any of my connections, and even then I was turned off by the commercialization.

My mom worked in Salem in the 60s and early 70s and passed by the Conant statue hundreds of times never knowing she was descended from him.

And if you’re going for historic stuff… Forget it. Salem is ghost tours, haunted houses, shopping, and possibly getting your car broken into.

There's quite a few period homes, the Maritime museum, Seven Gables, PEM, Pioneer Village, Conant statue, the Witch Memorial and Proctors Ledge, but yeah, most of the city has become crassly commercial I didn't really care for it my last two visits.

 

[durangodawood]

There's so much ideological and political precedent for these "witch" persecutions in the Christian west. Plenty enough to explain the Salem events if physical explanations fall apart.

 

[AV1611VET]

There's so much ideological and political precedent for these "witch" persecutions in the Christian west. Plenty enough to explain the Salem events if physical explanations fall apart.

Only if you interpret the Bible the way unbelievers do.

They're the ones who claim It says they need to die.

And all they have to do to deserve it is claim it.

Granted, unbelievers will try and get them off the hook first with junk science.

But when they fail, then they turn to Bible believers to explain it all.

Then when we do, we get ridiculed and facepalmed.

 

[durangodawood]

....I was using it as shorthand for the kitschy nonsense the pervades much of the city, especially west of the Common. I visited the Witch Museum gift shop in 2000, long before I knew about any of my connections, and even then I was turned off by the commercialization.....

I do not understand how "witch trial" history could be commercialized. Its like when I was in Nagasaki - if I'd seen, I dont know, atomic bombing sno globes or something. What sort of stuff do you see?

 

[durangodawood]

Only if you interpret the Bible the way unbelievers do.

I think that many of the persecutors were fervent believers.

 

[AV1611VET]

I think that many of the persecutors were fervent believers.

That's true.

But they murdered those women, plain and simple.

Only unbelievers (and Bible novices) today would wonder why we Bible believers aren't killing "witches".

 

[USincognito]

I think that many of the persecutors were fervent believers.

Please just ignore his nonsense in this thread.

AV, please stop replying with your nonsense.

 

[AV1611VET]

AV, please stop replying with your nonsense.

What nonsense?

I'm agreeing with your OP.

AV: Granted, unbelievers will try and get them off the hook first with junk science; but when they fail ...

OP: Egotisim wouldn't be selective. Everyone in the household should have been effected, not just the young girls.

AV: Granted, unbelievers will try and get them off the hook first with junk science; but when they fail ...

OP: Ergotism and it's symptoms were well known by the 1690s [but] many of the hallmark symptoms of ergotism were not present in the Afflicted.

AV: Granted, unbelievers will try and get them off the hook first with junk science; but when they fail ...

OP: You generally don't just get better from egotism, especially if you continue to consume contaminated rye.

I think I have a right to agree that I don't think egotism, ergotism, and rye bread are valid explanations as to what made them act like they did.

Did just women eat rye bread back then?

 

[USincognito]

I do not understand how "witch trial" history could be commercialized. Its like when I was in Nagasaki - if I'd seen, I dont know, atomic bombing sno globes or something. What sort of stuff do you see?

Point taken, but the execution of 23 people by their own neighbors is a little different from an atomic bomb incinerating 120,000 people in a war.

The Witch Museum has two sections. One dedicated to the hysteria and another to the "modern witch" or some nonsense about Wicca and neo-Paganism. The gift shop has a bunch of candles, incense, kitschy witchypoo, pointy hat tchotchkes. They also offer "descendant packets" with information descendants can glean from Wikipedia pages and other parts of the Internet. And that's the Witch Museum which is somewhat respectable..

There's also the Haunted Salem walking tours, the Witche's Dungeon Museum. When I visited the hysteria memorial last year, there was a woman in a pointy hat and black garb at cemetery next door. There's shops for crystals, palm reading, Tarot, wands, brooms, potions, a "Witchboard Museum"; dedicated to Ouija boards, the Samantha "Bewitched" statue and the insipid bacchanalia that is October in Salem.

I despise what the city has become.

 

[AV1611VET]

I despise what the city has become.

Satan is laughing all the way to the bank, isn't he?

Ditto for Roswell, which does the same thing, only with UFOs.

 

[FireDragon76]

I can't really blame a city for wanting tourists, even if it ends up being in questionable taste.

 

[durangodawood]

Point taken, but the execution of 23 people by their own neighbors is a little different from an atomic bomb incinerating 120,000 people in a war.

The Witch Museum has two sections. One dedicated to the hysteria and another to the "modern witch" or some nonsense about Wicca and neo-Paganism. The gift shop has a bunch of candles, incense, kitschy witchypoo, pointy hat tchotchkes. They also offer "descendant packets" with information descendants can glean from Wikipedia pages and other parts of the Internet. And that's the Witch Museum which is somewhat respectable..

There's also the Haunted Salem walking tours, the Witche's Dungeon Museum. When I visited the hysteria memorial last year, there was a woman in a pointy hat and black garb at cemetery next door. There's shops for crystals, palm reading, Tarot, wands, brooms, potions, a "Witchboard Museum"; dedicated to Ouija boards, the Samantha "Bewitched" statue and the insipid bacchanalia that is October in Salem.

I despise what the city has become.

Thats pretty tacky.

I'd think memorials or a museum to mass murder would be in quieter taste.

 

[AV1611VET]

I can't really blame a city for wanting tourists, even if it ends up being in questionable taste.

That's gonna end though.

Revelation 18:11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:

 

[durangodawood]

Satan is laughing all the way to the bank, isn't he?

Ditto for Roswell, which does the same thing, only with UFOs.

Why not have some fun with UFOs?

 

[AV1611VET]

I'd think memorials or a museum to mass murder would be in quieter taste.

Any ideas?

Like statues to Klebold & Harris?

 

[AV1611VET]

Why not have some fun with UFOs?

Well, granted, I'd like to visit Roswell myself.

But wife says I'd be too much at home there.

 

[Halbhh]

Thanks AV. I feel a lot safer now I know that witches aren't real.

Now... what about those demon thingies?

OB

From the point of view of physics, we don't yet understand most of nature. Regular matter of the types we have discovered and characterized well compose only about 5% of the Universe. The other 95% is stuff we don't understand yet. That implies there could possibly be an unseen world all around us. Let me be more correct: there is certainly an unseen world all around us, which we cannot currently detect with any technology we currently have to our best understanding. So....I'm pretty cautious about any thinking that tends towards presuming something doesn't exist because we haven't yet discovered it in modern science, etc.