In Salem, Massachusetts summer of 1692, a group of teenage girls were said to have been “under evil hands”. When the girls were asked, who had done this to them, they accused local middle aged men and women. According to Castillo, “the first three women they accused were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, the slave” (1692, Castillo). Tituba claimed to not be a witch however, her mother was. These three women were the first witches to go on trial, all three were found guilty. By the end of summer hundreds were accused, twenty-seven awaiting trial, fourteen women and five men were executed mainly by hanging. Witches have been around for centuries.Witchcraft is deeply embedded in European culture. Many agreed and disagreed with beliefs of …show more content…
Wiccans celebrate seasonal and lunar cycles, worship goddesses or sometimes a goddess and a god. Has nothing to do with fourteenth - seventeenth century witchcraft. Basic tenets of Wicca include a reverence for nature, explore new and ecological principles, and a code of ethics. The Code of ethics also known as the wiccan Rede: “an ye harm none, do what ye will.” (Wicca, Adler). This code of honor or living simply means that one will harm none, what one does will come back to them. These codes are called ‘Sabbats’. Sabbats are two sections containing 4 parts, major and minor. Major includes Beltane (spring) the beginning of warmer summer nights, Lughnashadn (summer) celebrates ‘Lugh wedding’ and first harvest, Samhain (autumn) final harvest, beginning of winter and the Celtic new year, and Imbolc (winter) lengthening days, coming of light, and pregnancy of livestock. Minor includes Vernal Equinox (spring) balance of light and dark, relates to fertility of the crops Summer Solstice changing of seasons, crops and animals are thriving, Autumnal Equinox (fall) the final thanks to the crops gives the finding of winter, Winter Solstice celebration of light. Those who practice use an important tool, magic, “not black magic, but the magic of healing and making whole” (Wicca, Chambers
Telling fortunes, showing peoples faces in glasses, enchantments, and healing the sick are some of the things people who practiced witchcraft claimed to be able to do. New Englanders often turned to people who could do these things for favors and referred to them as "cunning folk" (pg.107). The New Englanders didn't see any harm in using their occult powers for there own good, when in fact these people were in contact with the devil. They did not see it that way but they were indeed risking being banished to hell.
In 1692, a group of young girls from Massachusetts named Elizabeth and Abigail, believed they were being possessed by the devil and falsely accused several woman, men and children of witchcraft. Once the men and woman were accused they were ordered to attend multiple trials in which would be help in the Massachusetts general court. Once the men and woman were taken to trial they were proven guilty by the girls actions that proved the court these men and woman were apart of witchcraft. After the accuses were proven guilty in front of the court they were either held in prison and eventually died or hanged and died. There were multiple young girls who were apart of the witchcraft accusing other than just Elizabeth and Abigail.
The witch panic started in Salem, Massachusetts hanged 19 people and inspired a wide-swept fear of the Devil and witchcraft that lasted for over a year. Historians have discussed why this panic occurred for years, producing a slew of opinions on what caused one small community to erupt into such fear. Two such historians, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, attempted to understand the 1692 Salem witch trials by analyzing Salem Village’s social and economic tensions dividing the community in the book Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Yet the two historians ignore the largest group of participants in the witch trials: women. When looking at the documents recording the events of 1692, however, a historian cannot escape the importance of the young girls who were first afflicted and started the accusations.
Cabot also teaches practical magic and witchcraft, and greatly follows the Wiccan Rede and the Three-Fold Law of Return; Cabot strongly believes that witchcraft should never be used to cause harm or destruction to
Nineteen men and women hung from the tree of destruction, for they were the ornaments of hysteria. New England was supposed to be a land of opportunity for the Puritans. During the summer of 1692, Salem Village proved to a wretched example of this; twenty people were falsely accused of witchcraft and were accordingly jailed and executed. Salem’s infamy has bewildered many, for nobody truly knows in entirety what caused the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Clearly, there were a few possible causes of the hysteria; however, envious, young, single women; sexism; and lying little girls stand out as the main causes.
The ones who were convicted of Witchcraft were hanged, others died in jail. Later on the girls started vilifying the upper class people in the community, most likely because if those people were proven guilty, then their land would go to auction and the girls’ parents could buy it. The girls actions were unprecedented about what they felt and saw. After all this was settled, on January 16 1697 they all Elicited God for
Accused, trial, guilty, executed, devil, jury - the news spreading around Salem, Massachusetts was deathly. Starting with women, and then expanding to men, there were accusations of witchcraft encompassing the whole town. The arraigned did not stand a chance against the court. The accused witches went through one of the most arduous times of all people in Salem; however, after a well-abounding amount of trials, the cases were closed and the issue was solved. “It was the darkest and most desponding period in the civil history of New England.”
In 1692, the most famous trials of all time was held in Salem Virginia, they were the Salem Witchcraft Trials. According to Document A, it states that people think that since they haven’t seen a witch before, they don’t exist. But, “We never met with any robbers on the road, therefore there never was any padding there.” This means that people think that they have to see the thing, in this case is witches, to believe that they are real.
The Wiccan Rede, an ethical code, lets people choose their own paths so long as they don’t harm anyone. Good King Pausol, whom the creed took from, said, “Do want you like so long as you harm no one,” and Wiccans have used that motto for generations. Wicca came about in the 1940s and 1950s in England, pretty recent. (Guiley 371-72) John Gordon Melton says that modern day Wicca came from Gerald Brousseau Gardner.
Greeks and Romans thought the Snapdragons flower protected them from witchcraft. They planted them by the gates and castle walls. Also women boil them and put it on their face to stay beautiful and restore their youth. Snapdragons are a unique flower and have many strange purposes people use them for. Witchcraft was a huge thing in the Greek and Roman eras, everyone went to extreme measures to keep away the magic.
The witch craft phase germinated in Europe during the high middle ages due to the Church focusing on the persecution of heresy in order to maintain unity of doctrine, leaving practitioners of paganism to be persecuted by authorities, thus creating the mentality of magic being heresy against Christianity among the Christians from 1480-1700, as witches were persecuted in most of Europe with recorded numbers exceeding 100,000, most of which were tortured until they gave in and admitted to the perpetuated lie, but this wasn’t the case in England, as they didn’t utilize torture. Individuals were accused to be witches because of peoples’ attempt at rationalizing what they didn’t understand or feared as witchcraft, believing that the ‘practitioners
The Wiccan Rede states “An ye harm non, do what ye will.” Wicca is intimately tied to one’s relationship with the divine, by whatever faces they chose to show us. The Whole ideas of Wicca is being close to nature, to worship Gods and Goddesses through nature. Wicca celebrates through Sabbaths (The 8 Wiccan festivals that revolve around the sun and moon) Samhain (Wicca holiday
The Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692 may have been instigated by religious, social, geographic and even biological factors. During these trials, 134 people were condemned as witches and 19 were hanged. These statistics also include 5 more deaths that occurred prior to their execution date. It is interesting to look into the causes of this stain on American History, when as shown in document B, eight citizens were hanged in only one day.
In 1692, people were accused of casting spells, which meant they were siding with the devil in Salem, New England. Many people who lived in the countryside of Salem believed that the Holy Bible were God’s direct words and should be followed precisely. Women were more likely to be accused of casting spells because they were expected to be at home, listen to their husband, and weren’t aloud to be ministers so there were more likely to preach the devil. People believe that women aren’t good enough and men are superior to women, even now in this century. There is still a pay in inequality between the average men and women.
These rituals also create a sense of moral community, in which people conform to, which furthers their purpose and meaning in