Salem witch trials Essay -- essays research papers

capital of Oregon Witch Trials Casting a spell on the hatful Today, the idea of seeing a witch is almost inconsequential. Our Halloween holiday attach a celebration in which many will adorn themselves with pointy bootleg hats and long stringy hair, and most will embrace them as jovial and festive. Even the contemporary witchcraft religious groups forming argon being received with less criticism. More recently, the Blair Witch movie craze has brought more spell than fear to these dark and magical figures. So, it becomes no wonder that when our generations watch movies uniform the Crucible, a somewhat accurate depiction of the Salem Witch Trials, we are enraged and confused by the injustice and the mayhem that occurred in 1692. For most, our self-centered view of the past almost stops us from seeing what a dilemma was brewing in that Puritan lifestyle. At that cartridge clip, witches were far more than a generic costume for a casual holiday celebration, or a tolerated religi on, or a new form of Hollywood fascination, they were the piece of work of an awful, vengeful, unseen power. In the seventeenth century, almost everyone, even those with the best of educations, where below the belief that witchcraft was evil and the control of the devil. Witchcraft had once, before the center field Ages had been accepted as the powers of medicine and good deeds however, the church of that time had proclaimed the craft as the work of the devil and the actions of heretics. From then on witches were greatly dreaded. They believed that they had special powers that allowed them to cause harm to those that they had quarrels with they could read minds, tell the future, tote up up ghosts of the dead and force the holy to perform unholy acts. in that location was only one way to save someone who sold their head to the devil for the gifts of witchcraft, to kill them (Dickinson 4). People were branded witches for unrelated mishaps. If the farmers sheep all died from a vir us in the water, then the neighbor who fought with him operate week must have cast a spell. In a world where deal are certain of witchcraft, nothing is accidental. Consequentially, many people were unjustly condemned to death. In the beginning of the century the targets for witchcraft were the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, the archaic and quarrelsome, but as the century drew to an end those incriminate were chosen more democratically, even those as unripened as fou... ...ent theories of what the girls were smitten with. Several researchers postulated that they were suffering from ergot poisoning from spoiled rye grain. Others public opinion that girls were enjoying the attention that they would have never received otherwise being young females. Similarly, others thought that the cause of their symptoms are from a popular psychological trouble oneself from the 1970s called clinical hysteria or mass hysteria, referring to a checker experienced by a group of people who , through suggestion, observation, or other psychological processes, develop similar fears, delusions, abnormal behaviors, or animal(prenominal) symptoms. (Trask 1 and Plotnik 520) The Salem witchcraft delusion became the road to what is now know as the road to Enlightenment. Although the trials in New England did not end there, Salem marked the beginning of and end to the horrible injustice. Witch-hunting is still an epidemic that plagues like a shot in other forms. People are made to suffer for their beliefs. spiritual and political persecution has stained every century since then. Perhaps, the greatest thing gained from the trials was the understanding that the majority is not always the voice of justice.