Malleus Maleficarum: The Salem Witch Trials

In our first episode, Mary, Gary, and Eryn break down the frenzy in a colonial Massachusetts town that left nineteen people dead. Approaching the subject on both a micro and a macro level, they trace the origin story, discover motives of accusers and authority figures, and discuss the broader cultural implications.

Visit our episode page for additional resources: https://billofrightsinstitute.org/educate/educator-resources/fabric-of-history/malleus-maleficarum-the-salem-witch-trials/

Transcript

Intro/Outro (00:06)
From the Bill of Rights Institute, Fabric of History weaves together US history, founding principles, and what all of this means to us today. Join us as we pull back the curtains of the past to see what's inside.

Haley (00:19)
In 1692, the Massachusetts Bay Colony executed 14 women, five men, and two dogs for witchcraft. Although we will never know for certain what happened, there are various theories, both founded and unfounded, that have developed over the years. So what could have been the reasons for so many engaging in what was deemed wicked, malicious, and felonious? Sorcery and how far have we really come today? Sit back and relax as Mary, Gary, and Eryn boil down the evidence.

Mary (00:52)
Hello there, and welcome to our first episode of our new podcast, The Fabric of History. We're so glad that you found us. We're glad that you're here. I'm your host, Mary Patterson, and I love a good story, which is why I've always loved history. So I hope that you love a good story, too, and that you'll come back and listen to us as we talk about the interesting, the funny, the strange all of these great stories in history. And I am a senior content specialist here at the Bill of Rights Institute. So I work on resources for history and civics teachers. And I love my job because I get to deal with great stories every single day. And I'm here with two of my fabulous colleagues, Gary and Eryn.

Eryn (01:36)
Hello.

Gary (01:36)
Hi. How are you? Now, I'm super excited, too. I think this is going to be a really great series. And you're right, stories are sort of the heart of it, right? The narratives of people and adventures that happened and the good, the bad. And I think the interesting things that tie together. So I love it, too. So as a former teacher, I work in programs now. So this is for all of our teacher and student programs. But really, we all work together on these big ideas that come out of these stories, right. Some of these big concepts and the big meaty things that have happened in history. I am not articulate right now, but we will over the course of this series. And if I may put a plug, we would love to hear from our audience, too. So we do have an email address, comments@fabricofhistory.org we want to hear from you, too, the stories you want to hear about the things that really strike you, questions you may have, or just anything. We want to welcome you into our conversation because we just love chatting. If you love stories, I love chatting.

Eryn (02:33)
Well, yeah. And I think that's kind of what the Gary and I were having a conversation about these podcasts and the topics and saying if we are already talking about it in our hallways, it's also good podcast fodder, because we can go on on and and on about these topics and have a conversation with each other and then open it up and have a conversation with everyone else. And I said all that before introducing myself. I am Eryn Cochrane. I work with Gary in programs and really excited to be here as well and just really talk about all of our favorite things in history and also kind of like our opinion on them, on how we feel about them. I think that's the really exciting thing about having all these stories is we also have all these feelings about them, and that's what allows us to talk about them kind of ad nauseum.

Gary (03:28)
Yeah, exactly. These are real conversations that happen around the Bill of Rights Institute offices and with lots of people, we may talk to in the future about it. And so I think it's cool to invite everybody, including yourself, listening out there in your car at home or while you're running. I don't know.

Eryn (03:46)
I used to do that for you.

Mary (03:47)
If you're running right now, do a lap for me. Well, welcome aboard the story train here, so we're glad you're here. And let's jump into it, shall we? I was just talking with Geryn-

Eryn (04:04)
I like it.

(04:05)
True. Story time. No, it's the afternoon when I was teaching. I always conflated students in the last period of the day.

Gary (04:14)
I didn't know Eryn. Actually, it was very confusing.

Eryn (04:17)
My mom used to call me by our cat's name.

Gary (04:20)
What's the cat's name?

Eryn (04:21)
Hazel.

Mary (04:22)
Oh, that's a good cat name. So I was talking to Gary and Eryn about McCarthyism because I am working on the Bill of Rights Institute's forthcoming open resource textbook for AP US History, which is called Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. So it's US history. Basically.

Gary (04:47)
I was going to say, can I jump in? When does it start and end? I feel like I know this.

Mary (04:50)
It starts in 1491.

Eryn (04:53)
Before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Mary (04:55)
You're right before there's a fair amount of generalization about the world before Columbus. And then it goes up into the present day. Well, not quite the present day.

Eryn (05:06)
It goes to Obama. But if you're teaching AP US history, you know, you're lucky if you get that far.

Gary (05:14)
And considering when it was being written, that was present-day at the beginning of the writing.

Mary (05:19)
Exactly.

Gary (05:20)
Makes sense.

Mary (05:21)
But right now I'm working in the 1950s. Of course, McCarthyism is a big thing. And this term that comes up repeatedly as we're thinking about McCarthyism is a witchhunt.

Gary (05:33)
Yeah. That's probably peppered throughout a lot of American history, but it's interesting that it's rooted in something actual beyond being just a phrase we toss around now.

Mary (05:42)
Right. So I was talking about this with Eryn and Eryn, as you may or may not know as a small child, really loved dark things. Graveyards, witches, all that good Donner party.

Gary (05:56)
A certain genre, students and children.

Eryn (05:59)
And I knew no one like me.

Mary (06:01)
My friend was into dark thrillery, type things, too.

Gary (06:06)
She still is if you don't watch Chilling Adventures of Sabrina right now, it is a really good show.

Eryn (06:10)
Yeah. I feel I've been told that I would probably like that

Gary (06:13)
Halloween is kind of one of the coolest holidays of the year.

Mary (06:17)
It is a pretty holiday.

Gary (06:18)
The whole look. Anyway. So you're a big fan of actual witch times.

Eryn (06:26)
Yeah. Anything, macabre. Okay. Yeah. I was so obsessed with all this, even I think just because a lot of it seems so far-fetched or is just not the normal. And that kind of was also the Salem Witch Trials.

Gary (06:46)
Right.

Mary (06:46)
So I think that's what's interesting is to us in our modern worldview with science and facts, that witchcraft and the devil and magic seem silly. But if you're talking about the OG witch Hunt, the Salem witch trials in American history, that it wasn't so far-fetched, they very much believed in the devil. They very much believed in what we would consider to be superstition.

Gary (07:15)
Right. And there must be resonance when I say to this day, literally this day, you'll see the phrase witch hunt thrown around, and that means that there's some understanding to what that phrase is referring to, whether or not it's the full actual Salem witch trials. That concept resonates with us enough that it still has a reaction that people have to a feeling to a concept. Yeah.

Eryn (07:38)
And usually, I would say something that people think is unfair.

Gary (07:42)
Right.

Eryn (07:43)
That seems to be when.

Gary (07:44)
Right. Justified witch hunts or not.

Eryn (07:46)
Right. Exactly.

Gary (07:47)
Oh, goodness. Glad you got all the witches.

Mary (07:50)
Yeah.

Eryn (07:51)
Well, they thought that for a while.

Gary (07:54)
True.

Mary (07:56)
But it's like Gary said. So this phrase comes up again in American history. We still hear it in the present day. So we thought it would be worth helping Eryn out to work through her issues with loving these darker things and talk about the Salem witch trials and what the heck, what happened and why is it so memorable? Why do we learn about it? Why is it still taught to kids? And what do we pull from it today?

Eryn (08:23)
Well, what's really fascinating to me, too is I did a big history project in middle school on it.

Gary (08:30)
So you're how old?

Eryn (08:32)
I was probably like 12 or 13. I don't know. But I never knew up until that point that there are just so many different arguments and theories about what really happened in Salem and why and even preparing for this, it was really fascinating to constantly think about, even if it was a social thing or economic fight between these two neighboring clans. Why was it all these children who were having these attacks?

Gary (09:06)
So you'll need to give me some background in what you mean. You've mentioned neighboring clans and children with attacks.

Eryn (09:13)
Yeah.

Gary (09:13)
Okay.

Eryn (09:17)
That's my big question. It's like what went down great.

Gary (09:22)
So my experience was also in school, and I feel like also probably even younger. I feel like around the holidays, sometimes it would come up when I say the holidays, like winter as things got darker and trees lost their leaves. Where I was in the middle Atlantic.

Eryn (09:40)
Hocus Pocus starts coming on TV

Gary (09:41)
Exactly, it's Halloween time. So it comes up and I feel like it's introduced to children and then filled in year after year beyond that. So you were saying around middle school, you're doing an actual research project on it. But even then, I think it's worth going back to and saying, what were the actual facts of what happened or to the best of our knowledge, what's the actual story?

Mary (10:00)
Right. So I think before we get into what happens in Salem proper, I think we should set the scene a little bit. So the Salem witch trials are taking place in 1692 to 1693.

Gary (10:15)
Okay. Actually, a very short period of time. Again, I would have assumed it was years and years of this.

Mary (10:19)
No, a very short period of time. So it's the 17th century. That's always confusing. So it's the 1600 s but it's the 17th century in New England. And just in general, that's a terrifying time to be alive.

Gary (10:32)
Probably rough. Probably.

Mary (10:33)
Very well, we say that. And if you really just think about it for a minute.

Gary (10:38)
Imagine, if you will.

Mary (10:39)
It's terrifying being fairly cold.

Gary (10:42)
I feel like, all the time, but probably not. But yeah. What else was scary about it?

Mary (10:47)
First of all, you have it's scary, I think on many, like, on a very basic, visceral level, you're living in what is to you wilderness. So the Puritans that come over and settle in New England, basically, they come to New England because to escape religious persecution. So they wanted to purify the Church of England. They thought it was too Catholic for them. And rather than deal with that any further, they leave everything behind. And they set up a new settlement in New England. They want to create a city upon a hill, which is another phrase that you hear a lot in American history. So they really thought they were going to be an example of Godly living. So we can practice our faith here. We can build our society. We can start afresh.

Gary (11:33)
Start fresh, have a utopia.

Mary (11:35)
Yes.

Gary (11:36)
Okay.

Mary (11:36)
But again, so they're in New England, which and I was born in New England, so I'm allowed to say this. It's very cold and dreary

Gary (11:45)
Iin the fall, winter, probably even early spring.

Mary (11:47)
If you compare it to the weather in England, it's much more mild or temperate. So the weather is totally new. Crops are new, animals are new. There are people already living here known as American Indians that were pretty friendly to start, but that wasn't so much the case in the later 17th century. So it's scary, right? You have these big unknowns, like, are we going to survive through the winter? What's in the woods are Native Americans going to remain friendly. And they, in fact, had not been too friendly because there was this big colonial fight called King Philip's War that had ended not too long before the Salem witch trials actually start. So, King Philip, the name is a little misleading because he wasn't a King and his name wasn't really Philip.

Gary (12:42)
Okay.

Mary (12:45)
Yes.

Eryn (12:46)
So he was the chief.

Mary (12:46)
And his father had a peace treaty with the settlers, but he didn't want to go buy it because it made all of the Native Americans give up their guns, and he wasn't down with that. So King Philip's war starts. And it's really horrific. So half of New England's towns are attacked and everyone is killed sort of on both sides. It's really grisly, frightening, traumatic, chaotic time. Yes, very chaotic. And it's not that far from Salem. So Salem is really close to the waters in Massachusetts Bay, but the wilderness and all the scary things are not that too far away from it. So all of this is going on before you have this outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Salem. And I think it's also worth pointing out the Puritans who said they're Protestant, they come to the New World to escape persecution, and they really did believe in the devil. So they are the chosen people. They're creating the city on a Hill. They are going to be challenged. So there's a great quote from the New Yorker. It says, early American, early modern American thought breathed dream, disciplined bartered, and hallucinated in biblical texts and imagery. So they're pretty. I don't know if superstitious is the right word for it, but to them, it wasn't a joke. Like, the devil was real. He had minions. He had people that would trick you. He had witches.

Gary (14:19)
It was like a visceral part of your day in a very specific form. That's not just a general concept of like, well, there's good. There must be something vaguely bad. There's an actual out in the wilderness.

Mary (14:32)
Yeah, it's scary. So I think we think or maybe it's just me think witches like Muggles, Harry Potter, and it's fun. But this was scary. This was life or death. This was fire in Brimstone. It was not fun in pop culture.

Eryn (14:46)
And they were blaming the devil for being the cause of this King Philip's war and everything that was going on. And they called the wilderness a Devil's den. And so they're like, we live right here. This is happening. And the devil is challenging us. And that was actually one of the big arguments for these witch trials was saying, we're being tested. The proof of this witchcraft is evidence that we are the chosen people in that.

Gary (15:19)
So because the devil is paying attention to us, correct. We have not left of the devil behind. He sees us.

Eryn (15:27)
He sees us, and we're being tested because we are the chosen people. That was Cotton Mather's argument.

Gary (15:35)
So we're jumping ahead a little bit to their being trials at this point. I'm imagining a very scary world, a very real one. I'm imagining darkness and strange sounds from the woods and the idea that either human beings could come kill me or animals could come kill me or vague, unseen things could come kill me because disease is real and I grasp it, but it's terrifying. And again, to this day, I think it's a scary thing, but also the devil himself might come get me.

Mary (16:09)
Yeah.

Gary (16:10)
Is that the scene?

Mary (16:11)
I think that's the scene. And also just again, that this worldview of the Puritans believes in the devil and just religion is so important, it really dictates so much of your life. So I think we tend to compartmentalize that in our lives today, but it permeates everything. So when things start going wrong in the Minister's household, that's when we start seeing that you could be the devil. So now we're actually in 1692 and something happens and we're going to conclude that it must be witchcraft.

Eryn (17:05)
Even before Salem, Boston had already hung some witches, like 40 years. No, not for. Well, the first time someone confessed to witchcraft was like 1648 in Boston.

Gary (17:16)
Okay.

Eryn (17:16)
And then 1688, someone was accused and hung of witchcraft in Boston.

Gary (17:22)
So it was like four years, right.

Eryn (17:24)
Exactly. That's been really fresh on their minds because Reverend Samuel Paris, where the first two girls had their attacks, he had read about it, and it was at the forefront of his mind.

Gary (17:39)
So when you say attacks, tell me about that.

Eryn (17:42)
Well, it's really interesting. I think the descriptions that they have about this, I'm going to start with my favorite one, which was the one that was in 1688 they said that these children were barking at one another like dogs, which I did as a kid. So. But also fly like geese on one occasion for 20ft.

Gary (18:06)
So a child was flying in the air like a goose for 20ft.

Eryn (18:11)
Again, I'm not really sure how or where this came from.

Gary (18:16)
That's like a witness said that obviously there's no video footage.

Eryn (18:22)
But, you know, that didn't happen.

Gary (18:24)
Do I?

Eryn (18:24)
So it would hope so

Mary (18:27)
it was something unexplainable.

Eryn (18:29)
Right. This child flying like a goose in my mind and what I'm going to match anyways. And then jaws, wrists, necks flew out of joint. It's just a very interesting description. And I think that just kind of what continued in Salem. Let's see, when it was Abigail and Betty, where the two it was Samuel Paris's niece and daughter, who are eleven and nine respectively. So they were complaining of bites and pinches by invisible agents, which, I mean, you're just going to believe this child anyways. Their bodies shuttered and spun. They went limp or rigid. They would interrupt sermons and fall into trances at Church. That just sounds like you can't act out to me. Honestly. This is like a direct quote from the description of all their symptoms. Neither appeared to have time for prayer, though, until January, when this happened, both had been perfectly well behaved and mannered. So it's like, oh if they're not praying, they're not in Church. Something must be wrong. They're starting to act out the devil.

Gary (19:48)
Right.

Eryn (19:48)
The devil has come.

Gary (19:49)
But like I said, just to backtrack, you set the scene very well. Where it's been years and years of a terrifying new universe that you're in with a lot of things we can be attacking you. People are on edge. There had been wars. There had been these things that were happening. And then suddenly and you said January, just when things are at their coldest, children start doing really weird stuff, in your estimation. And so the link to it being some external force sort of starts making sense.

Mary (20:20)
And then I do think it's worth pointing out that this is in the Minister's household. Right. So this is the Reverend. It's his daughter and his niece.

Gary (20:29)
The one. Yeah. Okay.

Mary (20:31)
They are in Salem, and they can't explain this behavior. So he doesn't know what's going on. He's fasting and praying. He consults other clergymen, and then he calls in a doctor. And of course, medicine at this time is laughable, if not disgusting. And he can't figure anything out. I don't know what's wrong with these girls.

Eryn (20:50)
Well, but the doctor said it's the evil hand, right.

Gary (20:54)
After examining with whatever medical tools.

Eryn (20:58)
Nails, beetles, blood, fox long, dry dolphin heart. I want to know where they got the dolphin.

Mary (21:03)
Right here.

Eryn (21:04)
Potion.

Mary (21:05)
Yes.

Eryn (21:06)
But it seems appropriate for the Salem witch trials. Right.

Mary (21:09)
But then other girls, other young girls start to have these weird fits also, of course, now everybody's freaked out what's going on? And the girls are naming names.

Gary (21:18)
The second set of girls who are having fits or naming names, all of them are all like.

Eryn (21:24)
Because they're so entailed. The Paris household, they were the ones who said it was Tituba, I believe.

Gary (21:31)
Tituba?

Eryn (21:32)
Yes.

Gary (21:33)
Tell me more.

Eryn (21:35)
She was their slave who was in Paris household. And she actually first, she said she wasn't the only woman who did this, which I also find fascinating. First, she said, no, this is not true. And then she said, oh, yes, I've been talking to the devil and consorted with them. Whatever. And the other witches and Wizards.

Mary (21:56)
She's an interesting character in this story because, as Eryn said, she's an enslaved woman. She was in the Paris household with her husband. And it's unclear if the Reverend got them from Boston if he bought them from the Caribbean. So we don't know where they came from. But this woman, she's an enslaved woman. She has no recourse for anything. She's been accused of witchcraft. She does confess. And was she beaten to get that confession out? No one knows, right.

Eryn (22:28)
Somehow, but she wasn't. I don't know how many other slave men and women may have been accused of witchcraft, but it very quickly became this witch Hunt but other women who were not slaves were also confessing.

Mary (22:47)
The weird thing is, if you pled guilty, you weren't killed. Right?

Eryn (22:56)
But that's right.

Gary (22:56)
My memory of this is from Monty Python.

Eryn (22:59)
Most of them, because a lot of the ones who ended up kind of reversing and like, oh, no, I actually knew the devil. And we flew around on broomsticks, and they would say, I flew on a broomstick with my neighbor.

Gary (23:15)
Bring him in.

Eryn (23:15)
Betty, right?

Gary (23:16)
Yeah, Betty is guilty.

Eryn (23:21)
In all honesty. Kind of. We have this system in our courts today day. Right. Like, you get a plea and you get a lesser sentence if you pull someone else in. So I think that was kind of their logic unofficially.

Gary (23:38)
Right. So if you're being persecuted, if you say something that you are a witch, you have less of a sentence than if you say, I am not a witch. And the way to test that is.

Mary (23:48)
Again, I'm like, I'm second-guessing myself because it sounds.

Gary (23:51)
Well, I think there's the classic story of, like, the water dunk. Right. We'll put you underwater. If you drown, then you're human, so you're innocent. If you drown, then you're a witch, and will put you to death.

Mary (24:03)
There are all sorts of.

Gary (24:04)
But again, I don't know if that's not apocryphal, that story.

Mary (24:08)
No, that was one of the tests for a witch. So the Monty Python sketch where they put her in the water, they used that. So there's this great link. I think we can put it up on our page about tests that were used against witches. But there's this catalog, there's this literature of how to find a witch, what witches do. So this was not some crazy theory. They very much believed in this. And floating the witch was a real test based on research. Right. A witch has not been baptized. So the water will reject you.

Gary (24:44)
Okay.

Mary (24:44)
So if you sink, you're innocent. The water has accepted you.

Gary (24:49)
I see.

Mary (24:50)
It's very bizarre.

Eryn (24:51)
I mean, all these were bizarre. There was the touching test. So they would have these girls who had already accused these women and men like, oh, have the girl go up and touch this person. And then the kid would freak out. And there was literally called the touching test to see how this child would react when touching the accused or flawed. 

Mary (25:19)
So If I accused Eryn of bewitching me, right? So I'm going to have a fit until Eryn touches me, and then I stop. That proves that Eryn bewitched me.

Gary (25:27)
Right.

Mary (25:28)
I'm in control.

Eryn (25:32)
Again. We're trusting these 9, 11, and 12-year-olds. But the one that I would have been very concerned about if I were alive during 1692 were the witches marks, also known as moles. Because I am very fair-skinned and have lots of freckles and lots of moles. Despite being audio, you can trust that Eryn is one giant mole.

Gary (26:02)
So if you count I'm moles to connect them.

Eryn (26:07)
It was like a dermatology skin test where they would look at them because the idea was that these moles were upon like what a witch's familiar would suck.

Gary (26:21)
Ah. For the uninitiated. A familiar is 

Mary (26:26)
A dog, a cat, an owl. It's some sort of creature.

Eryn (26:29)
Again, Harry Potter reference.

Mary (26:31)
That works with the witch.

Gary (26:32)
Okay.

Mary (26:33)
So you could transform into this character and go out and be with other people.

Gary (26:36)
I see.

Mary (26:37)
And then the mark. So it could be again, it could be a mole, a birthmark would be anything that could be taken as evidence that you're familiar. So my cat suckles from my mark could bite you. But again, if you think of Harry Potter, they have their Owls and they have their rats. And it's very cutesy, but it's really dark and it's an interesting idea.

Gary (26:58)
If the wilderness is terrifying, then you have a friend in the wilderness is kind of a logical leap. Right. It's like you are familiar with this terrible border of woods out there and then you got the associated black cats. Right. Which again, has become very adorable now.

Eryn (27:19)
But also still superstitious to see a black cat. So there's a little bit of both.

Mary (27:26)
If you're accused of witchcraft by mostly young girls, this is what you have to go on. So in May,

Eryn (27:32)
I would have been accused? Pretty sure.

Gary (27:35)
Sorry, you were saying? I was going to ask a question about the girls. Go ahead. Was there anything in common to these girls?

Eryn (27:41)
Some of them, yeah. So a lot of them had lost fathers during the King Philip's War like had been orphaned or were refugees.

Mary (27:54)
Right.

Eryn (27:54)
From these battles.

Mary (27:55)
Abigail. So the niece. So one of the first two girls that starts having these fits, she was orphaned and that's why she's living with her uncle Paris.

Eryn (28:05)
Interesting teacher me when I was reading this because I taught young kids, I was like, Ding, Ding, Ding. Adverse childhood experience trauma.

Mary (28:13)
Yeah, definitely.

Eryn (28:15)
That kids act out when they experience significant loss like that. So the teacher side of me is like that's their cry for help.

Gary (28:24)
Do you think they had any concept things would go as sideways as they did?

Eryn (28:28)
Can kids have concept?

Gary (28:31)
Can kids have concept? No.

Eryn (28:32)
Can they have a concept for?

Gary (28:34)
I don't know if anybody could know in the 1690s.

Eryn (28:35)
What I'm saying is, like, when you're nine years old, are you really going to realize the repercussions of your actions on that level?

Gary (28:46)
I think in their defense, I don't know. Anyone could have foreseen what was going to happen.

Eryn (28:49)
True.

Gary (28:50)
Even if you were an adult.

Eryn (28:52)
Right. But that's what I'm saying. It's that much harder for these nine to twelve-year-olds. Just think about it. Even when we were kids or any other kid we see act out, they're not really thinking about the repercussions of their actions. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. They're testing their limits. That's why kids act out.

Mary (29:12)
So we're getting into maybe some of the theories as to why this happened. So I think maybe we should take a quick break and we can get into the trials themselves. We previewed it a little bit with the touching test and the looking for the witches, Mark, but there's more fun stuff in store as to how the trial actually went down. So we'll take a quick break and be back with you in a second.

Mary (29:47)
Okay, we're back. So Eryn's still here with her mole.

Gary (29:52)
All right. We're thinking twice now. She flies like a goose. We got our eye on her.

Mary (30:02)
So before the break, we were starting to get into why could this have happened, what spun out of control or what might have motivated this? But I want to take you through kind of what happened at the trials because it's just an interesting story it is worth getting into. So we have these girls, young girls that are accusing people in the community of witchcraft.

Gary (30:23)
And this is. Sorry, this is like Winter.

Mary (30:25)
Right. So it starts in January, February of 1692.

Gary (30:29)
Okay.

Mary (30:30)
And by May, court is set up to try these cases. And the court is called the Court of Oyer and Terminer.

Eryn (30:38)
I pronounce that all wrong.

Mary (30:40)
Well, I'm pronouncing it in French. I don't know. Maybe that's not.

Eryn (30:43)
I'm like Oyer terminer.

Mary (30:45)
Maybe it's like Notre Dame or French. People hate the way we say Notre Dame here. Terminate to determine.

Gary (30:53)
Got you.

Eryn (30:54)
Well, isn't that close to what they say here?

Mary (30:59)
I think they say Oya. Okay.

Eryn (31:02)
That makes so much sense.

Gary (31:03)
There we go.

Mary (31:06)
So there are five judges, and we already talked a little bit about before the break about the touching test and the witches, Mark. And so the way that this is not justice as we think of justice and due process today, this is not a fair trial. So the witches have no legal counsel. They can't have witnesses.

Gary (31:27)
They can constitutional times.

Mary (31:29)
Right. But they are I mean, they are coming over with. Well, I was going to say they were British English colonists. So this idea of common law and precedents, they have a trial at least, I guess. But it's not much of a trial.

Eryn (31:43)
And three out of the five judges were also good friends of Cotton Mather. And their chief justice was Gongho witch Hunter.

Gary (31:52)
Sorry. Cotton Mather.

Eryn (31:53)
Yes. How would you describe Cotton Mather as well, he's just not another veteran in the area, like very. He was a Harvard educated with his father, Increase. Mary loves the names.

Gary (32:09)
Just to follow along. So you mentioned someone named Cotton Mather. And his father's name is Increase Mather.

Eryn (32:15)
And they had a lot to say about. They did a lot. They wrote a life, they believe, like a lot of scholarly articles.

Mary (32:23)
They're leaders in Puritan society.

Gary (32:25)
Okay.

Mary (32:26)
And they have very educated men. So one of them, I don't know which one is the President of Harvard.

Eryn (32:33)
I think it's Increase.

Gary (32:34)
Okay. So they are the local sort of higher echelon.

Mary (32:40)
Yeah.

Eryn (32:44)
In my opinion, very much behind and backing all the people who were the accusers and believe that the devil is testing us, and they're very much on that side. And so when this started happening, they just, I think, gathered all their good friends to be part of the judges.

Gary (33:10)
Okay.

Eryn (33:11)
That's a lot of it's. Basically just cronyism.

Mary (33:16)
If you're accused, the odds are stacked against you. You have these what to our minds are very bizarre tests. But again, there are documents, there are manuals on how to catch a witch.

Gary (33:26)
It's considered the best test. It's not like that's. Just. I don't know. Let's try this. It sounds like they believe that if we're going to test if someone's a witch, this is the way you do it.

Eryn (33:35)
We can do it.

Gary (33:36)
Got you.

Mary (33:36)
And they're also in the Salem trials, they're allowing spectral evidence. So that's evidence-based on visions and dreams.

Gary (33:43)
That's amazing. First of all, spectral evidence.

Mary (33:46)
Yes, that's a great term.

Gary (33:48)
So you can use dreams as evidence, as evidence admissible in the trial.

Mary (33:52)
And visions.

Gary (33:53)
Who's dreams?

Mary (33:55)
The accused. So I have accused Eryn of witchcraft. So I could say I had a vision that Eryn flew off into the night with her cats.

Gary (34:04)
So the accuser's dreams could be admitted.

Eryn (34:06)
Right, I got you. So one of the guys who was convicted was John Proctor, who is actually also a character in The Crucible. But based on this real-life man, and the kids who testified against him testified that ghosts had come to them and accused Proctor of serial murder in their dreams.

Mary (34:28)
Yeah. This is spectral evidence, and they were allowing this in this court.

Gary (34:32)
Okay.

Mary (34:33)
So in the defense of some people in this society, so some people were upset by the way that the fact that the trials were unfair.

Gary (34:41)
It was very obvious to some people who were like, wait a second, wait a minute.

Mary (34:44)
We can't use spectral evidence. So there was no precedent for using spectral evidence as proof in English law. So they didn't like that. And they said we need more proof. This isn't working out, saying you had a dream. So there were some critics, but the trials are still going on. And there's actually four different hangings where they're executing people who are found guilty based on spectral evidence. That's based on spectral evidence.

Gary (35:13)
Okay. But there's a drive then to say we need physical proof. So let's think of how does one physically prove witchcraft, right? Is that what I'm hearing?

Mary (35:21)
Okay, yes. I think things are getting out of hand. A lot of people, again. So some people would say, take the plea to avoid death, and then they're executing people, and people are starting to raise eyebrows like, wait a minute, maybe we should disband the trials. So that's what they do. And they get rid of spectral evidence. They don't use it anymore. And once that happens, they sort of peter out because.

Eryn (35:46)
Yeah. Everyone was basically acquitted after that.

Gary (35:49)
Right.

Eryn (35:50)
And they're like, well, I guess we can't do it.

Gary (35:57)
Probably. How exactly can't do it?

Eryn (36:03)
Digest version.

Mary (36:12)
And then some of the judges start to apologize, like, this got out of hand or I didn't mean for it to go the way that it went. But witchcraft, I think, still permeates people's minds. It's still something that's real. It's just the way the trials were going, I think, was starting to raise eyebrows.

Gary (36:33)
So it's not like the concept of which craft evaporates. It's just that we can't do the trials anymore about this.

Mary (36:41)
The trials aren't fair.

Gary (36:42)
This isn't just this is not how you deal with it.

Mary (36:44)
Right.

Gary (36:45)
But it doesn't mean it's going away.

Mary (36:47)
Right.

Eryn (36:47)
Yeah. Something else we're talking about on break was the case of George Burrows, who was another one of the accused wizards, being male, and he was convicted and sentenced to hang. And when he was up on the gallows, recited the Lord's Prayer perfectly, which in the past had always been used if you could not recite the Lord's Prayer perfectly as evidence that you were a witch or a wizard. And then he's up on the gallows and all the crowds are stunned that this accused wizard has just said the Lord's Prayer perfectly.

Gary (37:24)
It seems like evidence he can't possibly be.

Eryn (37:26)
Right. And they're saying, stop the execution. Stop the execution. But then there are a couple of other people who are saying, well, what better disguise might the devil choose on this occasion than to masquerade as an angel's light? But it was with the dismissal of spectral evidence and then this hanging of George Boroughs, people really started to lose faith for interesting language for me to use faith in these Salem witch trials and say, like, we might want a second guess. We can't do this anymore.

Gary (38:04)
It's not even being based on things.

Eryn (38:06)
Yeah, right.

Eryn (38:09)
But it was getting shakier. Right. Like, hey, we were able to usually say, if you can't recite the Lord's Prayer, you are with your wizard. And then that didn't fit anymore with George Burrows.

Gary (38:19)
Right. And it goes back to the idea that people saw what they wanted to see, they wanted to see whatever. And whoever was like, now this guy still.

Eryn (38:32)
Yeah, but that upset a lot of people.

Gary (38:34)
Right.

Eryn (38:36)
So there was not as much of like a social backing for these trials anymore.

Gary (38:41)
And I guess that permeates to what we're talking about earlier. That phrase still refers to an inherent this is wrongness. Right. So whether or not belief in witchcraft doesn't vanish at that time, to this day, the idea of mobs or groups unfairly persecuting something without much evidence still is something we think is a terrible idea, which is why we refer to it as witch hunts.

Eryn (39:06)
Yeah.

Mary (39:06)
But I think the witch trial. So it's an example of when things go sideways, as Gary, as you said earlier, I like that freedom, really. It's very dark. I mean, we're laughing about it, but these people are accused. Their lives are at stake, terrible things, and it's terrifying. And many people are going to die. But there were people who were criticizing and there were people who wouldn't get in, like John Proctor, who said. I'm not a witch. And I'm not going to say that I'm a witch to get out of it. And he's killed. And there was another man, I don't remember his name, but actually, he wasn't hung. He was pressed to death. If you're not familiar with this, Giles Corey, Eryn, do you want to tell them because you like macabre things or stuff?

Eryn (39:54)
They put a giant big piece of wood over you and then just kept adding boulders. But I believe he literally laid under there because he was also like 88 or something.

Gary (40:11)
Jeez.

Eryn (40:11)
Which is all just so messed up.

Mary (40:13)
So messed up.

Eryn (40:18)
They kept adding these boulders and he said more weight.

Mary (40:22)
Hardcore.

Eryn (40:30)
Importance of grammar.

Mary (40:31)
Right. He was sticking it to the Puritans.

Eryn (40:33)
Right.

Mary (40:34)
Even as he was being executed.

Gary (40:36)
That is wild. Did this draw crowds, by the way?

Mary (40:43)
I feel sure it must have because executions in history generally drove.

Gary (40:48)
Which is also really twisted. Whole other discussion about the. Yes.

Eryn (40:53)
I thought that when I watched Poldark, there's such big crowds at these executions.

Gary (41:01)
I don't think we're past that.

Mary (41:04)
Oh, no, I agree.

Gary (41:05)
That's my theory. I'm sticking to it.

Eryn (41:11)
I know that person that is on TV shows will close my eyes. I understand the psychology of it. I'm just saying personally no.

Mary (41:24)
I mean, everybody knew everybody in this society.

Eryn (41:28)
But that makes it even more messed up.

Mary (41:30)
Let's go watch. What else to do. I don't know.

Gary (41:33)
I don't know that we're very different over the course of human history from our ancestors.

Mary (41:39)
I mean, I think this was fear. It was paranoia, social pressure. I mean, those are things we all deal with that's in essence, part of being human being. So whether we're talking about 1692, we're talking about 2020, these are still issues, even though we largely, I think it's fair to say, don't believe in witchcraft and turning into animals and flying off to be rich people anymore in real life, just in children's books.

Eryn (42:09)
Well, yeah.

Gary (42:12)
Young adult. It is extremely popular.

Eryn (42:16)
There are also adult novels that deal with that stuff.

Mary (42:20)
But I think we talk about at BRI, we talk a lot about virtues and the things that we have to have in order to have a successful community in a civil society. I think justice is one of those things. And this was a case where there certainly wasn't justice, but there were people who throughout said, hey, this isn't just this isn't fair. And in the end, they did prevail. So maybe that's the takeaway from this.

Gary (42:46)
Yeah. I used the term presentism before.

Mary (42:50)
Darn it, I did. So it's an ism. So it's a tricky term. So I would explain it as trying to evaluate the past through your own lens, your modern lens, your modern worldview. So we've been doing that kind of jokingly at some points in this podcast. This was saying, oh well, that explains that you were clearly a witch and laughing at it. But again, in the 17th-century witchcraft was real. It would be like saying there's not a pen in front of me, there is clearly a pen in front of me. To say that there wasn't.

Gary (43:28)
Which there is in fact a pen in front of her.

Eryn (43:30)
For our listeners, there is no spoon.

Gary (43:35)
So that reality, that real experience, to envision it from our eyes is not exactly.

Mary (43:42)
It can be problematic.

Gary (43:44)
Right. And that's what I mean too about how we would be today. I don't know. I think putting yourself in their shoes, it's understandable how people would behave in a certain way.

Eryn (43:53)
And it's kind of like, of course, we look back and say, oh, witchcraft, it's not real. And we have all this science and what we can or can't prove. Right. Because who knows also where we'll be 100 years from now in terms of science and technology, what is it that we believe now? And in 100 years they're going to be having another podcast and laughing at what we just talked about. Goodness podcast or whatever.

Gary (44:20)
Wild things that we thought were true.

Mary (44:23)
Exactly.

Eryn (44:24)
Yeah.

Gary (44:29)
But I think that's a really interesting point, that even if we apply that kind of time travel of hundred years, there still are people at that point to say this is not justice somehow is eternal throughout all of this, which is I think it's a really interesting point.

Mary (44:46)
So I think we're running out of time today, so we're going to have to say goodbye to you. I have to go charge my crystals. I actually don't know if it's a full moon.

Gary (44:57)
But got a whole thing about magic.

Eryn (44:59)
I feel like we hope we talk about the sun.

Gary (45:02)
Very interesting.

Eryn (45:05)
That is still a big thing too. That J-rollers for your face.

Gary (45:09)
There's a lot of stuff that I think we could justifiably say is an interesting part of today that we should save for another episode. So I hope people do join us for future episodes on subjects such like that.

Eryn (45:22)
Yeah. And if you have anything else that you want to add or discuss about which Hunt sale and which trials, anything else you think is cool  that I arrived would be interested in, you can email us

Gary (45:36)
where

(45:37)
comments@fabricofhistory.org

Gary (45:40)
Great.

Mary (45:41)
Thanks, everybody.

Gary (45:43)
Thanks. Talk to you soon.

Eryn (45:44)
Bye.

Intro/Outro (45:50)
The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exists in a free society. Check out our educational resources and programs on our website mybri.org. Any questions or suggestions for future episodes> we'd love to hear from you. Just email us at comments@fabricofhistory.org and don't forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to stay connected and informed about future episodes. Thank you for listening.