She kept responding very quietly to him trying to convince him that he was wrong, and he kept on going, loudly, in a half-filled subway car. She looked pretty displeased with him.

Hey Jezzies! So I was sitting on the subway last night and overheard an actual MRA talking. It was amazing. It was a guy talking to a girl he was with, though no idea of their relationship. He talked about how only men take risks in romance because women can call the cops if they don’t like his style in hitting on…

Right, but the accusers were. And usually witches were unmarried women, which was seen as suspect and ‘bad’. In Europe, it was midwives, that were also usually older women that took an interest in healing that were considered witches. Women that went against the grain were unnatural.

Yes! I read a lot about Tudor era history and some of the hinky weirdness about midwives/witches, especially in the case of Anne Boleyn is fascinating. I would love to see a movie about that, documentary or otherwise.

And Giles Corey is very instructive to some of the other things going on.

Wilmott Redd was her name. She is known to have been ‘more bitch than witch’ which led to her being accused.

Giles Corey is one of the more dramatic moments at the Salem Witch Museum. Badass.

I know, it seems inconceivable now but some of those folks were convicted based on “spectral evidence” that their accuser received in a dream. Some of the convictions were used to allow another to take possession(pun intended) of the witch’s property.

Which is interesting, because Puritanism was very, very focused on reason, intelligence, literacy and self examination. They saw much of superstition to have the taint of “Papacy”, and of course their beliefs had nothing to do with such heresies!

Also religion and the devil had they in s constant state of fear.

You’re correct about the fear of the power of women and midwives in particular. Many of the accusations in Salem were just a clever way to screw someone out of property. Want your neighbor’s land? Accuse them of witchcraft!

She said “our nation’s history.” Stop picking nits. A “nation” can have a history before it is officially declared a nation.

Correct, inspired by imagery and beliefs of the time.

Actually, what happened in Salem (actually what was then called Salem Village, now Danvers) is VERY relevant to what’s going on today. The histrionic claims of the teenage girls would have fizzled out with little damage if it weren’t for the damned minister (man, I hate that creep with the heat of a million suns) who…

Nope, and Stacy Schiff’s The Witches points out that one of the reasons the hysteria took such a hold was that the Massachusetts Colony had recently lost its charter and was stateless, with no officiating bodies. The uncertainty lent itself to terror.

I'm glad you commented - especially since you live near-by. It has always been my understanding that this historical desecration was primarily about Midwives (also Puritanism: and I would love to go into that further) and woman doing some very early "owing" of themselves. Because, of course, how dare women presume to…

I had a bit of an obsession with the Salem Witch Trials when I was in middle school after my sister left out an R.L. Stine book (the Fear Street Sagas) that was very loosely based on that time period (the book starts with a girl and her mother being burned at the stake). Morbid little me was fascinated and spent years…

Cursing a neighbor with constipation is a serious crime. It’s dangerous to have all that concentrated evil in there stopping you up.

I’ve read some books on the history of witch trials and some of the records show that accusations could be for really minor stuff. So and so looked at my cow and now its acting weird. So and so dumped out their bucket too close to my house and I’ve got a headache. Or I had a sex dream about So and So, she must be evil.

Yes! I live near Salem and this cognitive dissonance has always baffled me.