The idea of witches is a relatively familiar topic in our society. From Harry Potter to Halloween the idea of witches in commonplace in novels and particularly around October. However, looking at real, actual, tangible history, witchcraft still rears its ugly head. The Salem witch trials are a common studied event in American History classes. It seems odd to me that these events would even happen and that they would continue to make their way into history books all the way up to present day. Let\u2019s examine these two phenomena:<\/p>\n

First off, why would these events even happen in the first place? Like many of my classmates, I believe that there was distinct relationship between the rise of evangelical beliefs and practices and the rise of witchcraft. However, Sherwood asked an interesting question of correlation or causation. While I agree that some sort of causal relationship was present, the \u201cMean Girls theory\u201d is something I think should be considered. From what we know of that time, living in New England in the 17^{th<\/sup> Century was not very exciting. It is not farfetched to assume that some women got bored and created a conspiracy that spread like wildfire. The once it went too far the girls realized that could not take it back. If your life had been dull and dreary who wouldn\u2019t have jumped on the witchcraft bandwagon, or broomstick if you will.<\/p>\n}

Furthermore, the idea of witchcraft is fun, exciting, and captivating. That is why it makes it into the history books. However, there is definitely history to it. Religion in the colonies was at a crossroads when the witch bug hit. A revival of religion was necessary to keep religion buzzing and alive. Nothing proved a fire and brimstone preacher\u2019s point more than the devil alive through sin in a witch in the community. The witches served as a solid real life testament to the devil\u2019s work in the world. For the people of Salem and elsewhere, this made religion all the more personal and real.<\/p>\n

There in lies, for me, the answer to Sherwood\u2019s original question. There was most definitely a connection between the religious goings on of the time. However, It could be a product of a few girls\u2019 imaginations or even possibly a scheme brought about by the church. There are numerous possibilities, and I would suggest that it was more likely causation than correlation. Yet, in this case, hindsight is not twenty-twenty but rather shaded by speculation, or possibly witchcraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The idea of witches is a relatively familiar topic in our society. From Harry Potter to Halloween the idea of witches in commonplace in novels and particularly around October. However, looking at real, actual, tangible history, witchcraft still rears its ugly head. The Salem witch trials are a common studied event in American History classes. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “She’s A Witch…. Maybe.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[125,249,330,331],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-evangelicalism","tag-religion","tag-witch-trials","tag-witchcraft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}