Explain The Hysteria Behind The Salem Witch Trials

The Hysteria Behind the Salem Witch Trials The Salem witch trials, dating back to February 1692, was a series of hearings against a group of young girls and those claimed to be witches. The girls had professed that their bodies had been dominated by the devil and blamed innocent citizens of using the “witchcraft” behind it. Anyone who seemed slightly out of the ordinary were accused by the girls to have dealt with “the devil’s magic.” The court put these accusations to the test by performing various executions and distinguishing whether the supposed witches could escape or not. It is said that the girls’ stress of living and the mass hysteria of this time caused the false accusations of witchcraft upon others. But what caused this mass hysteria?

“When the people suffered from poor harvests due to poor weather, some concluded that it must be the work of witches who needed to be identified and dealt with” (6 Logical Explanations For The Hysteria Behind The Salem Witch Trials). People looked for others to blame their crop failures on, rather than the actual cold weather. Being that witches were told to be able to control the weather and destroy crops, they may have been the perfect ones to blame. “Interestingly enough the Salem witch trials occurred in the midst of a 50-year cold spell which lasted from 1680 to 1730” (6 Logical Explanations For The Hysteria Behind The Salem Witch Trials). Winters during this time were extremely strenuous. Lakes froze over, crops failed, and populations declined. This period of abnormal climate was known as the Little Ice Age. They did not have the resources to understand why they could have been undergoing such frigid weather. Therefore, to the people, witches could have been easy targets to point the finger at what they didn’t know in

“Ergot is a parasitic fungus which in the right conditions can grow on grains” (6 Logical Explanations For The Hysteria Behind The Salem Witch Trials). It is a drug that, at first, affects ones’ body in ways such as itchiness, nausea, and muscle pain. However, developed symptoms include confusion, vision problems, and hallucinations. “Other studies on Ergot poisoning have also found that, like most drugs, children and females are the most susceptible” (6 Logical Explanations For The Hysteria Behind The Salem Witch Trials). Women used this drug as medicine to slow the bleeding during their menstrual periods. As a result, it is not unlikely that the young women trying to correct their cycles were accusing others of witchcraft due to being afflicted by this