~*Christians how do you feel about all of the people who were tried convicted and put to death for witch craft and were innocent? Like Rebecca Nurse?
How does your god justify this?
Why did he not come to their aid? If you remove the labels & look at the attitudes, you find a common pattern.
Looking at any Hate-inspired atrocities. There's very little difference between the various Zealots' approaches. "Kill them all & let God sort them out" is a commonplace.
& I can't begin to list just how many ways that is scary.
Just include my usual disclaimer: I recognsie that SOME X-ians are hate mongering Zealots. OTHER Xians are reasonable people who accept differences rather than attack.
& Another PS.
Hey Holy Cow,
Some of us here (including Ariel & myself) are A*U*S*T*R*A*L*I*A*N*S. Know the place?? It's in the bottom part of the planet. AND we have NO legal "freedom of religion" in our laws.
. A*u*s*t*r*a*l*i*a*: no "freedom of religion"? What is your Religion - "une Peinture Mysterieuse" ?
Where are Its "Ancient Remnants" and To What "allusions" Does Australian non-Religious "Art/ConFigurations" Refer ?
Well, "To quote or not to Quote" ? Report It
Fans Aussie Witch & Our Great Prairie Crone:
Dedicate A New "Spell" For Australia - If memay for A
"Better Print":
"Pff !": opere citato & sassafras !
Wishes From Natalie & Milicent Minerva
Salut ! Report It
One doesn't "Become"... or "Name" Oneself A "Witch" Lightly.
Who Has The Recognised Authority On Earth to "Surcharge" such ..........."whachyamcakckoolIT... ..........."Superheterodyne".
People Who Have Seen "Death" ? Maybe ? Who Knows ? Report It
Rai A : Good Q. Your "Staff ?" ? Report It
Hmmmm, somebody has been reading. Report It
Don't you remember they founded this country on 'religious freedom?' <eyes glaze over> When will they stop telling that lie and admit the truth? Never. If one good thing came out of all those murders, is that things like 'spectral sight' are no longer aloud to be used as evidence and the term 'witch-hunt' will forever remind us of their crimes. The first two answers to this question are very eye opening indeed. Sounds like it is possible to have this same problem even today. I think it was wrong for them to try and put anyone to death weather or not they practiced the craft. They forgot that we have God given rights to choose for ourselves who we would worship. God doesn't let things happen to ppl and he doesn't interfere with human decision. When those ppl were killed then they were wlecomed into heaven to spend eternity in bliss. I really can't believe this!!!!
There are still christians defending The Salem Witch Trials. EVERYONE knows that it was wrong.
THEY KILLED INNOCENT PEOPLE!!
BURNED THEM AT THE STAKE!!
Just goes to show how badly brainwashed christians really are. I heard about it, but do not know much about it. I might have to read up on it. But if christians did put to death people who praticed whitchcraft with I personally do not like, then the christians will be judged by God on this. God said "Thou shalt non murder:" some christians cannot even follow the commands put before them" Christians should leave it up to God to deal with not people. But I will have to read up on this. Interesting. I'm Agnostic/Pagan...and I think it was just horrible. I don't care what you think of another's religion-- it's just wrong to attack them for it. Well, their bible says to not suffer a witch to live. this is what the Puritans were going by. Even today some Christians would like to be living under the Old Testament so they could justify killing people. My dad used to say many times that he believed we were still under the old law and did not know why we did not kil those who rebelled like they did back then.
bb Most Christians are not going to anwer this question. They will instead point to the King James version of the bible and state that "That's the law" or some such nonsense.
But the Bible has been tampered with by for thousands of years, and most often each time a new translation is made. King James wanted a bible for the people, his people, and he wanted them to believe as he did. So he made sure his famous "translation" took care of people who practiced magic, especially female practitioners as someone had hired three sorceresses tried to kill his brother.
So from the greek from which he was translating:
"Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner (one who poisons) to live."
was changed to:
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
and the rest is history.
Now some will say, "No it was witch in Hebrew". Well the meaning of words change as time goes on, but in this case they don't think so. At the time of the writing of Exodus 22:18 the writing of the words "M'khashephah lo tichayyah" is often thought to meant "Thou shall not allow a sorceress to live." And back then, if you wanted someone poisoned, you went to a sorceress for the posions, not a witch, who was more likely to heal the person you wanted to kill.
For at the time, the word for Witch is completely different: "esheth ba'alath 'ov". A good reason why Solomon was able to consult with the Witch of Endor, as she wasn't a "M'khashephah".
Either way, Christians through mistranslations condemed millions to the bonfire, and many seem to want to continue the sacrifices.
Sad world we live in, isn't it? I think that you only need to look back about 70 years to see that the Abrahamic God (you know, the one who has JEWS as his chosen people?) is either fiction or doesn't care.
(Edit: By the way you silly people, they were hung, those Salem "witches.") Lien: Remember.
(Elder Aussie Witch starred this Q.)
Would Like to Warn Contributors & Top ones too. For the Sake of Yahoo & DAMNED "HISTORY".
The Following is Taking Place. As such cannot - will not write into Yahoo until SOLVED:
"'Folkloric Xian 'females' are "Sacrificing" Devouringly Their own 'Daughters'
into 'Acting out' the 'Sluttiness' they Pretend they Never Had.
One of the Top Contributor's 'ascerbic' excuse:
Same as When me 'Met' Hedgewitch...
That's "All they have Seen"
"Ariel": Nothing can Justify this - despite the Fact that:
The "Wheel Is Safe" & So Are You.
Someone who is "articulate" must Explain To The Yahoo Shepherds, as soon as possible, that 'Pelvic Exam' is not
"for Show" - as they say.
Please Forgive Bitter "Tone" of my Answer.
Would rather "Sing."
(may, maynot leave a liitle 'song-comptine' to LuciferRous for little Devilman up there: remember The xian males: the 'rascals'
A Thought regarding how "They Got Had also..." ?)
"Will Not Forget" - and Neither Will "Time" & "oil".
[ Edit on:18% = 9
For Sweet after me: "Prove IT Now Your "Temple/Body Sanctity" or whatever IS your subliminal "Credo of Liberty",etc...
For ex: "How Did You Birth ?"
Was hubby With You Witnessing IT all, as though IT was
"The Done Thing" - no need to reply.
Well, not even "Lucy's Bones" Are "Respected", by Some, IT would seem. Now who Remembers The Queen Of "Sheebah" ?]
{ At Least Me's Husband Wasn't There at "First" birth - not
The sort-of-man who "Books" Wife for "Inductions" & What usually "Follows" - now Q.
1: How Manly is That ?
2. How Intelligent ?
3. How Damming ?
4. How Thrifty ?
5. How Protective ?
^. How Xian - while we're at IT ?
9 for U]
Of Course - "Up" we have to Go...At Least: A Bard Will Not Leave ANYONE without
"A Sense Of Immortality" - IT is Ours To Catch. Like Midwives & "Hot Virgin" assistants. Yes, Caught The Song like a Fever - no, not a Damp-Fever And no, not the one which is so "Intense", IT Radiates Thru' the Sheets.
"IT comes" & Goes With "The Song" Which Replenishes & Carries:
Movie Hair - "Long Beautiful Hair" AND Shakespeare - so, at least SING:
"What A Piece of Work IS Man (?)
How Noble in Reason ..." Christians feel bad about all wrong doings done in their name ..but its history and like many wrongs done they move on to having learnt by mistakes hopefully though sometimes I wonder are .. we ..them us whoever ....still on learning curve ..as to god ....think you going to get divine judgement on that one . Ariel, you do realize you could ask this question of any religious group. Basically, why do bad things happen to good people. IMO, there is no way for us to know why, only the deities can know. We can ask for help from Them all we want, but we have to be ready to live with an answer of No to our prayers. I live in a rural community that would gladly revert back to this sort of thing if they could turn back the wheels of time. Besides we witches, they would gladly burn blacks, Hispanics, gays,Jews, Muslims and anyone else who holds different beliefs than their own. To keep from becoming the subject of a local marsh mellow roast I keep my Wiccan Witch spirituality to myself, carefully guarding my family and myself. why not move you ask. Well my roots run deep in this community as my family settled here a hundred years ago and I refuse to be run off by these people. So I stubbornly stay. Time will tell as to all of our fates but this I do know. The winds of change are coming....... As a Christian who practices traditional witchcraft, I'd suggest that this was a political, rather than religious, trial. The multiple land disputes that her family had with the powerful Putnam family was probably the true cause--especially as charges of witchcraft were brought by members of the Putnam family. This was revenge, pure and simple. good grief, there are still people either defending or denying the Witch executions.
Unbelievable. Ariel, aren't we fortunate we didn't live then? Some of your answerers might have been after our nubile Witch flesh.
They will give us double talk until the Earth takes both them and us back, I have given up trying to bring light into the darkness of their minds.
Bright Blessings to you my sweet!
Lady Morgana )0( Yes Since I am not who this question was directed to, I thought I would put ome of the real history about this tragedy on here for people to read. Many of the people who have spoken about the history of this is mostly only talking about rumor and loose speculations, so I will give a recount of some of the history surrounding the trials. I did not write this, though the material is accurate. I simply did not feel like typing it all out.
The Salem witch trials of 1692, were a series of trials held in Salem Village and Salem Town, Massachusetts, to identify and punish alleged practitioners of witchcraft. They resulted in the executions of 20 people (14 women, 6 men) and the imprisonment of between 175 and 200 people. In addition to those executed, at least five people died in prison. While not the first, or only, historical witch-hunt, the trials are noted for their sensationalism and the level of mass hysteria they introduced into Puritan Massachusetts.
Salem Village at the time was torn by internal disputes between neighbors who disagreed about the choice of Samuel Parris as their first ordained minister. In January 1692, York, at the "Eastward" frontier of Maine, was attacked by the Abenaki Indians, and many of its citizens were massacred or taken captive.
Increasing family size fueled disputes over land between neighbors and within families, especially on the frontier where the economy was based on farming. Changes in the weather or blights could easily wipe out a year's crop. A farm that could support an average-sized family could not support the many families of the next generation, prompting farmers to push further into the wilderness to find farmland and encroach upon the indigenous peoples there. As the Puritans had vowed to create a theocracy in this new land, religious fervor added another tension to the mix. Losses of crops, of livestock, and of children, as well as earthquakes and bad weather were typically attributed to the wrath of God. Within the Puritan faith, one's soul was considered predestined from birth as to whether it had been chosen for Heaven or condemned to Hell. Puritans constantly searched for hints to this predestination, assuming God's pleasure and displeasure could be read in signs given in the visible world. The invisible world was inhabited by God and the angels, including the Devil, a fallen angel. To Puritans, this invisible world was as real to them as the visible one around them.
The patriarchal beliefs that Puritans held in the community added further stresses. Women, they believed, should be totally subservient to men. By nature a woman was more likely to enlist in the Devil's service than a man was, and women were considered naturally lustful.
In addition, the small-town atmosphere made secrets very difficult to keep and people's opinions about their neighbors were generally accepted as fact. In an age where the philosophy "children should be seen and not heard" was taken at face value, children were at the bottom of the social ladder. Toys and games were seen as idle and playing was discouraged. Girls had additional restrictions heaped upon them. Boys were able to go hunting, fishing, exploring in the forest, and often became apprentices to carpenters and smiths, while girls were trained from a tender age to spin yarn, cook, sew, weave, and to generally be servants to their husbands and mothers to their children.
Betty Parris, age 9, and her cousin Abigail Williams, age 11, the daughter and niece (respectively) of Reverend Samuel Parris, fell victim to what was recorded as fits "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease to effect," according to John Hale, minister in Beverly, in his book A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft (Boston, 1702). The girls screamed, threw things about the room, uttered strange sounds, crawled under furniture, and contorted themselves into peculiar positions. They complained of being pricked with pins or cut with knives, and when Reverend Samuel Parris would preach, the girls would cover their ears, as if dreading to hear the sermons. A doctor, historically assumed to be William Griggs, could find no physical evidence of any ailment. Others in the village began to exhibit the same symptoms.
Unable to find a medical basis for the girls' afflictions, the village physician, Dr. William Griggs diagnosed bewitchment. In an attempt to uncover the identities of the responsible witches, the aunt of one of the afflicted girls, Mary Sibly, instructed Tituba to make a "witch cake" from a traditional English recipe. The cake, made from rye meal and urine from the afflicted girls was fed to the dog. According to the spell, the dog would become ill if the girls' were not truly bewitched. However, if the enchantment was legitimate, the dog, as a familiar, would identify the witch. The dog's reaction is unknown. Shortly thereafter, Sibly, was publicly humiliated during church services by Parris who accused her of "going to the devil for help against the devil." According to the "Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft鈥? "After much prayer and exhortation, the frightened girls, unable or unwilling to admit their own complicity, began to name names."
The first three people accused and arrested for allegedly afflicting Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, 12-year-old Ann Putnam, Jr. and Elizabeth Hubbard were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba . Tituba, was a slave of a different ethnicity than the Puritans, an obvious target for accusations. Sarah Good, a poverty-worn, easily-angered woman, often muttered under her breath as she walked away from failed attempts of obtaining food and/or shelter from neighbors and people interpreted her muttering as curses. Sarah Osburne, an irritable old woman, was already marked for marrying her indentured servant. All of these women fit the description of the "usual suspects," since nobody would likely stand up for them; neither Osburne nor Good attended church, which made them especially vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft.
These women were brought before the local magistrates on the complaint of witchcraft and interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, 1692, then sent to jail. Other accusations followed in March: Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Dorothy Good, and Rachel Clinton. Martha Corey, ever an outspoken woman, was skeptical about the credence of the girls from the start and scoffed at the hearings by the magistrates, unfortunately drawing attention to herself. Dorcas Good, the daughter of Sarah Good, was only 4 years old, and easily manipulated by the magistrates to say things that were taken as a confession, implicating her own mother. In order to be with her mother after the accusations, she claimed to herself be a witch, thereby she was arrested. The charges against Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey greatly disturbed the community. Martha Corey was a full covenanted member of the Church in Salem Village, as was Rebecca Nurse in the Church in Salem Town. If such upstanding people could be accused of witchcraft and seen as possible witches, then anybody could be a witch and Church membership was no protection from accusation.
Throughout April, many more were arrested: Sarah Cloyce (Nurse's sister), Elizabeth (Bassett) Proctor and her husband John Proctor, Giles Corey (Martha's husband, and a covenanted church member in Salem Town), Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Mary Warren (a servant in the Proctor household and sometime accuser herself), Deliverance Hobbs (step-mother of Abigail Hobbs), Sarah Wilds, William Hobbs (husband of Deliverance and father of Abigail), Nehemiah Abbott Jr., Mary Esty (sister of Cloyce and Nurse), Edward Bishop Jr. and his wife Sarah Bishop, and Mary English, and finally on April 30, the Reverend George Burroughs, Lydia Dustin, Susannah Martin, Dorcas Hoar, Sarah Morey and Philip English (Mary's husband). Nehemiah Abbott Jr. was released because the accusers agreed he was not the person whose spectre had afflicted them. Mary Esty was released for a few days after her initial arrest because the accusers failed to confirm that it was she who had afflicted them, and then she was rearrested when the accusers reconsidered.
Much, but not all, of the evidence used against the accused was "spectral evidence," or the testimony of the afflicted who claimed to see the apparition or the shape of the person who was allegedly afflicting them. The theological dispute that ensued about the use of this evidence centered on whether a person had to give their permission to the Devil for their "shape" to be used to afflict. Opponents claimed that the Devil was able to use anyone's "shape" to afflict people, but the Court contended that the Devil could not use a person's shape without their permission, therefore when the afflicted claimed to "see" the apparition of a specific person, that was accepted as evidence that the accused had been complicit with the Devil. Increase Mather and other ministers sent a letter to the Court, "The Return of Several Ministers Consulted," urging the magistrates not to convict on spectral evidence alone. A copy of this letter was printed in Increase Mather's "Cases of Conscience" published in 1693. Other evidence included the confession of the accused, the testimony of another confessing "witch" identifying others as witches, the discovery of "poppits," books of palmistry and horoscopes, or pots of ointments in the possession or home of the accused, and the existence of so-called "witch's teats" on the body of the accused.
As the number of accusations grew, the jail populations of Salem, Ipswich, Charlestown, Cambridge, and Boston swelled. The new governor and charter for the colony did not arrive until May. Some have postulated that without this, there was no legitimate form of government to try capital cases, but this was not true. In the years between charters, according to the Records of the Court of Assistants, a group of thirteen pirates led by Thomas Johnson, a mariner of Boston, were tried and hanged on January 27, 1690 for acts of piracy and murder in August and October of 1689 Elizabeth Emerson of Haverhill, Massachusetts was tried and hanged for double-infanticide in May 1691. The fact that none of the witchcraft cases were tried until late May, after Governor Sir William Phips arrived and instituted a Court of Oyer and Terminer (to "hear and determine"), was likely in deference to his imminent arrival. Phips appointed William Stoughton, who had theological training but no legal training, as the Chief Justice of this court. By then, Sarah Osborne had died of natural causes in jail on May 10 without a trial, as had Sarah Good's infant.
In May, warrants were issued for 36 more people: Sarah Dustin (daughter of Lydia Dustin), Ann Sears, Bethiah Carter Sr. and her daughter Bethiah Carter Jr., George Jacobs Sr. and his granddaughter Margaret Jacobs, John Willard, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Abigail Soames, George Jacobs Jr. (son of George Jacobs Sr. and father of Margaret Jacobs), Daniel Andrew, Rebecca Jacobs (wife of George Jacobs Jr. and sister of Daniel Andrew), Sarah Buckley and her daughter Mary Witheridge, Elizabeth Colson, Elizabeth Hart, Thomas Farrar Sr., Roger Toothaker, Sarah Proctor (daughter of John and Elilzabeth Proctor), Sarah Bassett (sister-in-law of Elizabeth Proctor), Susannah Roots, Mary DeRich (another sister-in-law of Elizabeth Proctor), Sarah Pease, Elizabeth Cary, Martha Carrier, Elizabeth Fosdick, Wilmot Redd, Sarah Rice, Elizabeth How, Capt. John Alden (son of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins of Plymouth Colony), William Proctor (son of John and Elizabeth Proctor), John Flood, Mary Toothaker (wife of Roger Toothaker and sister of Martha Carrier) and her daughter Margaret Toothaker, and Arthur Abbott. John Willard and Elizabeth Colson managed to evade capture for a while but were finally taken into custody, whereas Daniel Andrew and George Jacobs Jr. were never apprehended. When the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened at the end of May, this brought the total number of people in custody for the court to handle to 62.
Giles Cory was pressed to death during the Salem witch trials in the 1690s.After someone concluded that a loss, illness or death had been caused by witchcraft, the accuser would enter a complaint against the alleged witch with the local magistrates. If the complaint was deemed credible, the magistrates would have the person arrested and brought in for a public examination, essentially an interrogation, where the magistrates pressed the accused to confess.
If the magistrates at this local level were satisfied that the complaint was well-founded, the prisoner was handed over to be dealt with by a superior court. In 1692, the magistrates opted to wait for the arrival of the new charter and governor, who would establish a Court of Oyer and Terminer to handle these cases.
The next step, at the superior court level, was to summon witnesses before a grand jury. A person could be indicted on charges of afflicting with witchcraft, or for making an unlawful covenant with the Devil. Once indicted, the defendant went to trial, sometimes on the same day, as in the case of the first person indicted and tried on June 2, Bridget Bishop, who was executed on June 10, 1692.
There were four execution dates, with one person executed on June 10, 1692, five executed on July 19, 1692, another five executed on August 19, 1692 (Susannah Martin, John Willard, George Burroughs, George Jacobs Sr., and John Proctor), and eight on September 22, 1692 (Mary Esty, Martha Cory, Ann Pudeator, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Alice Parker, Wilmot Redd, and Margaret Scott). Several others, including Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail Faulkner were convicted but given temporary reprieves because they were pregnant. Though convicted, they would not be hanged until they had given birth. Five other women were convicted in 1692, but sentence was never carried out: Ann Foster (who later died in prison), her daughter Mary Lacy Sr., Abigail Hobbs, Dorcas Hoar, and Mary Bradbury.
Giles Corey, an 80-year-old farmer from the southeast end of Salem called Salem Farms, refused to enter a plea when he came to trial in September. The judges mistakenly believed that the law provided for the application of a form of torture called peine forte et dure, in which the victim was slowly crushed by piling stones on a board that was laid upon the victim's body. (British law had, in reality, abolished this practice twenty years earlier.) After two days of peine fort et dure, Corey died without entering a plea. Though his refusal to plead is often explained as a way of preventing his possessions from being confiscated by the state, this is not true; the possessions of convicted witches were often confiscated, and the possessions of persons accused but not convicted were confiscated before a trial, as in the case of Corey's neighbor John Proctor and the wealthy Englishmen of Salem Town. Some historians hypothesize that Giles Corey's personal character, a stubborn and lawsuit-prone old man who knew he was going to be convicted regardless, led to his recalcitrance.
Sadly, not even in death were the accused witches granted peace or respect. As convicted witches, Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey had been excommunicated from their churches and none were given proper burial. As soon as the bodies of the accused people were cut down from the trees, they were thrown into a shallow grave and the crowd would then leave. Oral history claims that the families of the dead reclaimed their bodies after dark and buried them in unmarked graves on family property. The record books of the time do not mention the deaths of any of those executed.
Philip and Mary English escaped to New York. They returned after the trials to find their property pillaged. Philip English eventually recovered 260 pounds out of a claim of 1183 pounds.
The Reverend Francis Dane led the opposition and supported the accused. He petitioned the Governor and General Court, condemning the trials due to unfounded accusations. The last witch trials took place in May of 1693, although people already found not guilty of witchcraft were not released until they paid their jailers' fees. On October 3, 1692, Increase Mather published "Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits." In it, Increase Mather stated "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be Condemned." After another trial was conducted, all those in jail were set free in May of 1693 (this amnesty is what saved Elizabeth Proctor).
Many descendants of the people who were wrongfully convicted still sought closure. Numerous petitions were filed between 1692 and 1711, demanding monetary restitution to those wrongly imprisoned.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives finally passed a bill disallowing spectral evidence. However, they only gave reversal of attainder for those who had filed petitions. This applied to only three people, who had been convicted but not executed: Abigail Faulkner Sr., Elizabeth Proctor, and Sarah Wardwell.
In 1704, another petition was filed, requesting a more equitable settlement for those wrongly accused. In 1709, the General Court received a request to take action on this proposal. In May 1709, 22 people who had been convicted of witchcraft, or whose parents had been convicted of witchcraft, presented the government with a petition in which they demanded both a reversal of attainder and compensation for financial losses.
In 1706, Ann Putnam, one of the most active accusers, was the only girl to offer a written apology. She claimed that she had not acted out of malice, but was being deluded by Satan into denouncing innocent people, and mentioned Rebecca Nurse in particular. In 1712 the pastor who had cast Rebecca out of the church formally cancelled the excommunication.
On October 17, 1711, the General Court passed a bill reversing the judgment against the 22 people listed in the 1709 petition. There were still an additional 7 people who had been convicted, but had not signed the petition. There was no reversal of attainder for them.
On December 17, 1711, monetary compensation was finally awarded to the 22 people in the 1709 petition. 578 pounds 12 shillings were authorized to be divided among the survivors and relatives of those accused. Most of the accounts were settled within a year. 150 pounds were awarded to the Proctor family for John and Elizabeth. The Proctor family received much more money from the Massachusetts General Court than most families of accused witches.
By 1957, not all the condemned had been exonerated. Descendants of the six people who had been wrongly convicted and executed but who had not been included in the bill for a reversal of attainder in 1711, or added to it in 1712, demanded the General Court formally clear the names of their family members. An act was passed pronouncing the innocence of those accused 鈥?however, it only listed Ann Pudeator by name, and the others as "certain other persons", still failing to include Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Wilmot Redd and Margaret Scott by name.
In 1992, The Danvers Tercentenial Committee persuaded the Massachusetts House of Representatives to issue a resolution honoring those who had died. After much convincing and hard work by Salem school teacher Paula Keene, Representatives J. Michael Ruane and Paul Tirone and a few others, the names of all those not previously listed were added to this resolution. When it was finally signed on October 31, 2001 by Governor Jane Swift, more than 300 years later, all were finally proclaimed innocent.
It is not widely believed any longer that the girls were actually possessed by the devil. Most academics believe that the accusers were motivated by jealousy, spite or a need for attention and their behavior was an act. Contemporaneous to the witch trials was the Glorious Revolution in England; the colony of Massachusetts was without a charter or governor, leading to political strife and uncertainty. Other theories posit that they were afflicted by hysteria, a form of mental illness.
In 1976, graduate student Linnda Caporael published an article in Science magazine, making the claim that the hallucinations of the afflicted girls could possibly have been the result of ingesting rye bread that had been made with moldy grain. "Ergot of Rye" is a plant disease that is caused by the fungus Claviceps purpurea. This fungus contains chemical precursors used to synthesize the powerful psychedelic drug LSD. Convulsive ergotism causes nervous dysfunction, which Caporael claims are similar to many of the physical symptoms of those alleged to be afflicted by witchcraft. Within seven months, a refutation of this theory was published in the same journal by Spanos and Gottlieb, arguing, among other things, that if the poison was in the food supply, the symptoms would have occurred on a house-by-house basis, and that biological symptoms do not stop and start on cue and simultaneously in a group of those so afflicted, as described by the witnesses to the afflictions.
In her book A Fever in Salem, Laurie Winn Carlson offers an alternative theory. She believes those afflicted in Salem, who claimed to have been bewitched, suffered from encephalitis lethargica, a disease whose symptoms match some of what was reported in Salem and could have been spread by birds and other animals.
It has also been suggested in an undocumented article that the girls could have had Huntington's Chorea, carriers of which have been traced to be among the colonists that settled in that area, but no serious historian of this episode today (Mary Beth Norton, Bernard Rosenthal, Marilynne K. Roach and others) gives any of these medical explanations any serious consideration because of the apparent cherry-picking of biological symptoms of the illnesses they reference to make the afflictions seem more identical with the illness, and because the historical evidence cited in these articles as evidence of certain symptoms is in many places historically inaccurate.
This should be some help for people curious about this.
BB,
Lord AmonRaHa How do you know Rebecca was really innocent?
If you would read up on the history of what happened, then you would know there was a bacterial infestation on the rye crops that lasted a few years. First prove she was innocent then we will move to the next point.
All are condemned to die what difference does it make how. This whole world and life are a curse. There is a frank difference between God and men and you confuse the issue. The Salem witch trials were a construct of the human mind; not one of God.
God does not require approval of man nor does He justify anything to man for God does not respect men.
Those who meet such an end receive their aid in the eternity where being in good stead with God is all that is required. Well, first, it was other Christians that put a stop to the Salem Witch Trials, a fact that most people like you fail to ever mention.
As many things that have happened in our history, it was a bad thing which was , again, corrected by other Christians.
All though out history there have been beliefs and superstitions that have lead to people being persecuted and even killed. People, in general, are afraid of the unknown and often have blamed bad happenings onto certain people. Gypsies were viewed that way and still are in some parts of the world. The homeless are often accused of crimes simply because they are homeless, which to some people gives them a motive automatically. |
