The thought process of the Courts during the Salem Witch Trials.

[ShadeStrider]

How many Innocents had their lives taken? 19 were actually hanged, 5 died in Jail, and One man was famously crushed to death, by a pile of boulders placed on a wooden board, which was placed on his chest.

 

Ironically, they let the ones who confessed go and the ones that didn't were left to rot in Jail or Hanged. I guess the court's thought process was like this: If they were a witch, they wouldn't Admit it, because all witches are lying bastards. So, they can't be a witch if they were telling the truth. But if they are telling a lie, that means they aren't a witch. 

 

So many Puritans didn't want to go to hell, so they just told the truth: They weren't witches. But the court didn't believe them, and as a result, they were convicted. Puritan Religion is extremely strict about lies.

 

The third way out was to recite the Lord's Prayer. But that didn't save George Burroughs. 

 

Even if you did survive being accused, you probably should leave the town. Your reputation has been tarnished forever.

 

This is why we don't have Theocracies. People shouldn't use religious logic to solve crimes. Or accuse people of them.

 

I feel like the Puritan Court didn't know what Paradoxes were. If they are a witch, then they wouldn't admit it. If they are not a witch, they would admit that they are a witch because they are telling the truth, except they are not if they aren't a witch, which makes them a liar, and if they are a liar, that could make them a witch and you know what? My head hurts.

[Josef]

I doubt that it was ever about hunting down and punishing actual "witches." That was just the cheap pretense they used to kill people they didnt like under the guise of justice. Thats one of the fundamental principles of any religion out there: No evidence based logic is required.

[IntSys]

Hey, have you heard of this magical thing called a White Terror? It's the same thing without the religious element.

[ShadeStrider]

8 hours ago, Josef said:

I doubt that it was ever about hunting down and punishing actual "witches." That was just the cheap pretense they used to kill people they didnt like under the guise of justice. Thats one of the fundamental principles of any religion out there: No evidence based logic is required.

It almost Certainly was the case for George Burroughs. He was an opponent of the Putnam family. So Ann Putnam used her acting skills to accuse George of Witchcraft.

[Vinnie]

A lot of it was unfortunately just scummy politics. It was also used to keep women down, not that we didn't have plenty of men being accused of being warlocks either. It didn't start out that way, there was a lot of superstition behind it, such as a husband and wife accusing the other of witchcraft over the death of their child, but it eventually ended up being used to further many political agendas. 

 

The Salem trials were only the most notoriously known witch hunt, but not the first or the last. Before that we had plenty of hunts in England, and I believe one of the biggest massacres on the account of witch hunting took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 

[Denizen]

Whilst I can understand the general feeling of moral outrage about the situation there are a few points worth keeping in mind. Spoiler because long reply

 

Spoiler

Panic is contageous. People historically were not oft leaning towards mentalities of logic, reason, and rational thinking, and while it's easy to take these things for granted in the modern age it's also important to understand the history in the context of the time.

Religious beliefs, spirituality, mysticism, superstition were all common and in fact the standard for mass mentality. It wasn't that "Witches might exist!" is was "Witches exist, and they might be here. . ." When you address the fact that they took the idea of there potentially being men and women who were witches ("Witch" was used for men and women, Vinnie.) for granted then you are led to the obvious conclusion that much of the fear, panic, and eventual sentencing to death of the victims was based largely in fear for the community and a form of human tribalism. (Ironically mirrored in much of today's "Cancel Culture")

 

There were "Established Cases" of witches in other parts of the world. (Which, for the location and time, meant England)

This being the case, not only was it a potential cause of some of the strange happenings in Salem, the common idea was that it was in fact likely. This was so widely accepted that the town doctor diagnosed the two young women who were seizing as having been "Bewitched." Matthew Hopkins had spurred such a rage and fear against witches in the UK that it was entirely fathomable that they could have spread their craft to the new world, or fled there from the "Witchfinder General."

 

Evidence has found that there could have been a psychotropic element related to the Salem Witch Trials. A naturally occuring fungus called "Ergot" is known to infect Rye in certain weather conditions; conditions that were met during the year of 1691, namely, a harsh winter, followed by a particularly damp spring. Medical knowledge was exceedingly sparse at the time, and "Ergotism" (AKA; St. Anthony's Fire) would have likely been all but unknown to the villagers.

The disease causes severe convulsions, muscle spasms, delusions, hallucinations, ghost-physical sensations (crawling feelings of the skin, etc), and in extreme cases, gangrene. Notably, Ergot contains lysergic acid which is what LSD is synthesised from. Studies into the effect of LSD has found that the "Trip" is highly impressionable, and the idea of the village being haunted and full of witches would certainly *Not* lead to particularly positive hallucinations/delusions.

 

While there *Are* plenty of cases of witches being used as essentially a reason to condemn people that towns/villages/groups/people didn't like, personally I would contest that the Salem Witch Trials are more an example of mass hysteria fueled by a psycho-active drug than anything else. Yes, Puritanism has commited plenty of horrendous acts and crimes through the years (Just as any religion; Just as those who are irreligious have) I don't think it's accurate nor productive to try to wave a hand and blame the entire situation on Puritans because frankly it's far more complicated than that.

 

TL:DR: There's more to it than just morally corrupt dudes, my guy.