Notes

I believe that there are many possible reasons responsible for the witch accusations of Salem, but there are three conspiracies I believe in most. To start off, theory one explains how a fungus called ergot was the cause of everything. Salem was a suitable environment for ergot to grow in, so it could target many people. Some symptoms of this were pinching, biting, burning sensation, seizures, convulsions, and hallucination. These symptoms were very painful, even torturous at times, so It’s likely people directed the pain at witches and blamed them for it. Even children complained about it and held people responsible as “sorcerers”, and considering how severe it was with hallucinations I wouldn’t be surprised if they genuinely believed that random women would be causing them pain.

Another conspiracy theory I believe in would be theory #3 because it explains how Puritan children had little to no fun time or activities considering the adults were so stuck on the religion they made it the topic of everyday life. The children had adult responsibilities such as going to church, tending to farms, and reading the bible daily. In addition to that, imagination and creativity were looked down upon, with an exception of boys being able to go out and explore while girls had to stay home where liveliness was not encouraged at all, causing life as a child back then to be very boring and uneventful. I personally think that this has little to do with witch accusations but I also believe that there’s a chance that maybe in such a boring life, the kids wanted to have fun for once and maybe just make up the idea of witch encounters.

Finally, theory #4 describes how Puritan religion could have had an effect on the witch accusations. It’s similar to theory #3 in a way as well, considering it talks about how boring life as a Puritan back then was. People were expected to attend church every day, and if anybody missed or did not attend services of the Sabbath, it was considered a crime punishable by a fine. Same with acting out, anybody who was caught breaking rules are acting opposite of what the Puritans deemed proper was accused of being possessed. Other things they blamed on possession were moles, birthmarks, imperfections, etc. I think this is a wildly ridiculous thing to believe in, even for Puritans as religious as they are. But other than blaming those natural physical traits, It’s not hard to understand how they thought anybody acting out of mind would be possessed, or a witch.